Uhm. Yeah.
I fall prey to the impulse to mostly write then things are good, not when things are bad, or when things I decided don’t quite turn out the way I’d wanted them to.
But that’s also a part of life and not blogging about the bad stuff means that I’m only bragging about the good. Bleh.
So.
The dental thing I thought I’d taken care of? Not so much. The dentist didn’t actually figure out the adjustment of the bite until the third subsequent visit, and by then all the nerves were so inflamed he had me do a week-long prednisone series to calm things down. And that didn’t just calm down the inflammation it also has depressed me significantly as well as delayed my final test on my blood sugar numbers for another three months.
But I am maintaining my lower weight pretty well, with the help of my boys. That’s been a good note.
But speaking of delays... the new house has been delayed significantly by a new city inspector who decided that the bay windows were encroaching on the space that has to be between the houses; and she hasn’t decided what the builder has to do about it. And her boss hasn’t decided, and their boss hasn’t decided either, and they took it to the top of the building inspection organization of the city, and they still haven’t settled on what has to be done. Which has meant, up until now, about a four week delay, and it’s still pending.
We realized we didn’t know where we were going to land while John’s family was here for Jet’s graduation. So we started in on renting another storage unit to put everything in while we were floating, and into it is going all our furniture and all the non-food items that we could just do without for a month, maybe a month and a half because we had to be out of this house by the 17th of June.
The three of us had all kinds of ideas about what to do with our homeless time, including staying with a few friends for a week at a time, and going on road trips for the weeks in between, but then Karen stepped in. She lost her husband and our good friend, Steve, fairly recently, and she’s in a huge house on Lake Machintosh by herself and she wants to keep the house but it’s lonely sometimes...
I still remember when Jet was nine... and talking with a friend and liking the feeling of being able to play with that friend and just saying, matter-of-factly, “I get lonely sometimes.”
So.
We’re going to stay with Karen while we’re floating. And for the last couple of weeks we’ve been packing like mad, mostly in stages that John has planned out, and gradually accumulating boxes in the storage units until they’re out of the house and the unit is full. On Monday we’re hiring a few of Jet’s friends to help us get the big stuff into the garage so that we can put them in a truck on Wednesday to put in to the unit and so that the cleaners can get to every nook and cranny on Wednesday morning before the carpet cleaners come on Friday and the new owners come for the final walk-through on Saturday.
The move out is imminent. The move in is unknown. Still.
Sometimes, though, things are good even in the midst of suckage.
Two of the great good things have to do with Jet. The first is the healing of his arm. The second (and many more) had to do with his graduation.
John’s mother, Isabel, came with David (John’s brother) to stay with us over Jet’s graduation weekend. She’s gone to Emily’s graduation almost immediately after her broken neck, so she came with the same determination to be a part of everything no matter what. I am grateful for my relationship with Isabel in every way, and it was good to be able to put them put here in the house while we had it rented from the new owners. We had a blast while they were here.
There were actually two graduations, since Jet is a part of the Universal High School, an organization within the St. Vrain School District for students who are particularly good at self-determination. They qualify for the program only if they demonstrate the ability to self-motivate and truly want something different out of their high school experience. I’m very proud of him for not just qualifying, but excelling at the purpose of that special program, which was to determine his own way of getting through high school and doing it, everything from glass-blowing and fencing to his time in Japan and at the community college learning the things that truly interested him.
And the counselors of the program really got to learn about him as a person, since they met with him every single week of his whole four year career there. I love what they wrote about him, and reading it, it finally struck me that the biggest thing that I gave Jet was that feeling I had through my 40’s, which was that “I can do anything if I work at it long enough” belief in himself. That’s all I can ask for as a parent.
The second graduation was with the rest of the student body of Silvercreek High School, one of the best high schools in the state, and the principal likes to tout it as one of the best high schools in the nation. And the whole clan, with the addition of Brother Paul and his wife Jan and her daughter Marina. The whole clan made it to the big, outdoor ceremony and the weather was absolutely perfect. Cool enough so everyone didn’t roast in the sunshine, but it was clear and dry, when it had been snowing and raining for the entire week before and half the week after.
It was beautiful out, and everyone enjoyed the ceremony, which wasn’t too long given how many students there were, and Jet got a special purple tassel for being in UHS, which was really cool to see. Afterward, we all went home, found some lunch, and enjoyed each others company.
It was a good week with everyone here.
Jet’s arm has healed up just fine, and he got a cast two weeks after the surgery and everything looked good and just this last week he got the cast off, and was finally able to wash all of his hand and not just his fingers. He was so happy about that. The skin is growing back just fine, and he’s gradually regaining flexibility of the joint with every day work at it. And he’s doing a lot of very light lifting, as he can’t carry more than 10 pounds with that wrist even with the splint to help it. He could do more with the cast supporting things, but without he’s limited to just ten pounds with that hand. So it’s a good thing he has plenty of friends who are willing to do the little lifting we have left in the house.
Another amazing thing for me was the fact that Costco stopped selling their plain soy milk. I was able to buy a flat of twelve quarts for just fifteen dollars, which was a really good price compared to our local super market, which sold organic quarts for $3 a piece or the Asian market, who sold half gallons for five dollars a piece. But they stopped selling it completely and only sold the Vanilla option, which had half again as much sugar, which I really didn’t need with the blood glucose problem. So I finally looked into what it would take to make my own, and it turned out that it was very very little. A locally owned bulk market store here sells the raw, organic, non-GMO (not that I’m worried about that particularly) soy beans for about eighty cents for 250 grams of beans, and amount makes me more than half a gallon of soy milk. All I have to do is add water, heat, and my attention and the usage of a lot of kitchen equipment I already have.
And yes, I have to boil it longer up here at altitude to properly denature the protein inhibitor, but thirty minutes works beautifully and I have a good source of calcium where I can control exactly how much sugar goes into the whole batch.
So that was a less happy thing that ended up being better than I could have thought. I suspect that getting to know Karen better will end up in much the same camp.
We’re thinking about going to the Canadian Rockies, maybe visiting John’s mother for a bit, and otherwise wandering about a little, for just a week or a few days at a time rather than for all the weeks we’re loose. So I’ll update while on the road, too.
Oh! And on an up note. While the family was here for Jet's graduation, we were walking at Lake Machintosh and found a swarm of bees in a tree! I called the non-emergency number for Dispatch and asked for the beekeeper I knew was on staff, but he was having a day off, but the dispatcher called him anyway and he called in a beekeeper he knew who needed a colony. And I had to talk her to where the swarm was in the park north of Lake Machintosh, and it took a while, but she finally found it and was able to get it and its queen and install them in a box! She sent me a picture of them happy in their new home. I was very happy with how that whole situation worked out, though it would be *AFTER* I'd decided not to keep bees that a swarm would appear to me.
I fall prey to the impulse to mostly write then things are good, not when things are bad, or when things I decided don’t quite turn out the way I’d wanted them to.
But that’s also a part of life and not blogging about the bad stuff means that I’m only bragging about the good. Bleh.
So.
The dental thing I thought I’d taken care of? Not so much. The dentist didn’t actually figure out the adjustment of the bite until the third subsequent visit, and by then all the nerves were so inflamed he had me do a week-long prednisone series to calm things down. And that didn’t just calm down the inflammation it also has depressed me significantly as well as delayed my final test on my blood sugar numbers for another three months.
But I am maintaining my lower weight pretty well, with the help of my boys. That’s been a good note.
We realized we didn’t know where we were going to land while John’s family was here for Jet’s graduation. So we started in on renting another storage unit to put everything in while we were floating, and into it is going all our furniture and all the non-food items that we could just do without for a month, maybe a month and a half because we had to be out of this house by the 17th of June.
The three of us had all kinds of ideas about what to do with our homeless time, including staying with a few friends for a week at a time, and going on road trips for the weeks in between, but then Karen stepped in. She lost her husband and our good friend, Steve, fairly recently, and she’s in a huge house on Lake Machintosh by herself and she wants to keep the house but it’s lonely sometimes...
I still remember when Jet was nine... and talking with a friend and liking the feeling of being able to play with that friend and just saying, matter-of-factly, “I get lonely sometimes.”
So.
The move out is imminent. The move in is unknown. Still.
Sometimes, though, things are good even in the midst of suckage.
Two of the great good things have to do with Jet. The first is the healing of his arm. The second (and many more) had to do with his graduation.
John’s mother, Isabel, came with David (John’s brother) to stay with us over Jet’s graduation weekend. She’s gone to Emily’s graduation almost immediately after her broken neck, so she came with the same determination to be a part of everything no matter what. I am grateful for my relationship with Isabel in every way, and it was good to be able to put them put here in the house while we had it rented from the new owners. We had a blast while they were here.
And the counselors of the program really got to learn about him as a person, since they met with him every single week of his whole four year career there. I love what they wrote about him, and reading it, it finally struck me that the biggest thing that I gave Jet was that feeling I had through my 40’s, which was that “I can do anything if I work at it long enough” belief in himself. That’s all I can ask for as a parent.
It was beautiful out, and everyone enjoyed the ceremony, which wasn’t too long given how many students there were, and Jet got a special purple tassel for being in UHS, which was really cool to see. Afterward, we all went home, found some lunch, and enjoyed each others company.
It was a good week with everyone here.
Another amazing thing for me was the fact that Costco stopped selling their plain soy milk. I was able to buy a flat of twelve quarts for just fifteen dollars, which was a really good price compared to our local super market, which sold organic quarts for $3 a piece or the Asian market, who sold half gallons for five dollars a piece. But they stopped selling it completely and only sold the Vanilla option, which had half again as much sugar, which I really didn’t need with the blood glucose problem. So I finally looked into what it would take to make my own, and it turned out that it was very very little. A locally owned bulk market store here sells the raw, organic, non-GMO (not that I’m worried about that particularly) soy beans for about eighty cents for 250 grams of beans, and amount makes me more than half a gallon of soy milk. All I have to do is add water, heat, and my attention and the usage of a lot of kitchen equipment I already have.
And yes, I have to boil it longer up here at altitude to properly denature the protein inhibitor, but thirty minutes works beautifully and I have a good source of calcium where I can control exactly how much sugar goes into the whole batch.
So that was a less happy thing that ended up being better than I could have thought. I suspect that getting to know Karen better will end up in much the same camp.
We’re thinking about going to the Canadian Rockies, maybe visiting John’s mother for a bit, and otherwise wandering about a little, for just a week or a few days at a time rather than for all the weeks we’re loose. So I’ll update while on the road, too.
Oh! And on an up note. While the family was here for Jet's graduation, we were walking at Lake Machintosh and found a swarm of bees in a tree! I called the non-emergency number for Dispatch and asked for the beekeeper I knew was on staff, but he was having a day off, but the dispatcher called him anyway and he called in a beekeeper he knew who needed a colony. And I had to talk her to where the swarm was in the park north of Lake Machintosh, and it took a while, but she finally found it and was able to get it and its queen and install them in a box! She sent me a picture of them happy in their new home. I was very happy with how that whole situation worked out, though it would be *AFTER* I'd decided not to keep bees that a swarm would appear to me.
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