Merrier Christmas

And there was a woman…who had suffered much under many physicians…and was no better but rather grew worse.

Luke 5:25-26

When I woke up last Wednesday, I did not expect to get a shoulder X-ray that day.

I had been starting to be reminded of the string of doctors I visited before I was diagnosed with Lyme disease.

Step one, I get some weird and significantly uncomfortable bodily symptoms—in this case, a pulled muscle around my hip that just wouldn’t heal, and then an inexplicably painful shoulder.

Step two, no one wants to see me for it.

Step three, I see someone, who diagnoses/theorizes something.

Step four, I do everything they say.

Step five, I feel worse.

Repeat steps 3-5 for a while.

Doctor visit #3 was last week, and at least he did real tests. He poked around and moved my arm and leg in various ways, saying big words to the nurse who recorded everything he said; then he ordered bloodwork and an X-ray and prescribed a big deal painkiller.

I don’t know everything, but I do know this new painkiller works.

He personally called me—just as he did 9 1/2 years ago to tell me my Lyme result—to talk through my X-ray and blood test results. 

It was all as ideal as I can imagine, really. The bloodwork was all clear, so nothing serious going on there. And the X-ray showed just enough to justify me complaining of pain: a spur and [facepalm] minor arthritis.

We’ll probably work on some long-term solutions, but he gave me plenty of the prescription painkiller to give me a much merrier Christmas in the meantime.

And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

Luke 1:31

Jesus! the name that refreshes the fainting spirits of humbled sinners; sweet to speak and sweet to hear, Jesus, a Savior! 

Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible

#onedayhh 2024

Onedayhh 2020

Onedayhh 2021

Onedayhh 2023

The graphic pretty much explains the intent. It is fun to look back and see how little the kids were! And what hasn’t changed (Caleb is still making giant city maps, I still like playing solitaire, Buck is still a major part of our school life, etc).

It took me a month and one aborted attempt to get my act together enough to remember to take pictures through at least several of the hours. 

Friday, December 13:

Sadly, I’m suiting up here for a walk, not a run. I hurt my hip three months ago and I’m still trying to baby it back to health.

One too many December mornings wherein I overestimated the temperature means that I made my way downstairs through the house to further bundle up in the coat room before going out, instead of just slipping out the back deck.

He looks like he’s just playing fight club with Lego guys, doesn’t he? But no no, he’s totally paying attention to the Latin grammar questions I’m quizzing him on.

Buck knows the answers but he isn’t telling

The white board. On the far left we have the Latin-grammar-question countdown; he’s answered 18 out of 83 so far. Taking up most of the board we have a map of Dante’s inferno, with a helpful key in red to the bottom right. If you know your particular sin, you can check the key and proceed directly to the appropriate circle. The letter tiles in the second circle represent Virgil (in red, because he lives in hell) and Dante (in blue). As I’m reading the Inferno aloud to Liz and Caleb, I move Virgil and Dante along to show where we are. As Caleb says, it’s like a pizza tracker when you order from Domino’s. Except they’re moving toward the fire instead of away from it.

Above, we have what’s left of Friday’s assignment lists. And to the far right, of course, we have the countdown til Christmas break.

Under that, we seem to have some sort of other color key. I believe that corresponds to one of Caleb’s maps. It has different colors for railways, runways, and airplane gates. Not sure why that has protected pride of place on my school white board. I actually just noticed that it’s not part of the Christmas countdown, on which I did bestow protected status.

After lunch, I’m deep into Latin with Lizzy, as evidenced by the mess of books open on the table.

Finishing that, Buck helps Lizzy read through the poem she’s memorizing. 

Friday is errands day, starting with the library run. Below, my haul of new books.

Then I made a particularly epic Walmart run.

Besides all our real food, I bought supplies for holiday bread (oranges, cranberries, disposable pans) and Christmas cookies (M&M’s, chocolate kisses, and almost all the flour they had left on the shelf).

Ada works at Walmart now and I was really hoping I could go through her line with my slightly embarrassingly large order, but she was manning the self-checkout stations.

So self-checkout it was.

I don’t think self-checkout is designed for a two-cart order, but at least I amused Ada for a good while doing it. 

Whether because he had heard there would be cookies or not, Jeddy came over for the evening and offered to help me with whatever I was working on [the fact that the sooner I finished my work, the sooner I would make cookies was indubitably beside the point].

Here, I gave him the job of typing out Caleb’s next Latin vocabulary quiz—a simple task that involves picking ten words at random from the list of words he’s learned.

Jeddy took the task very seriously and labored to include hidden messages in the list of basic words.

Then he helped me make quick work of cutting out wreath shapes for the Sunday school opening activity. Each class of kids gets a blank wreath and a bunch of little trees to color and stick on.

After that, my work was done and we made cookies, ate cookies, and voted on cookies while we watched Home Alone, and I was too busy to remember to take one more picture.

Wordless Wednesday

 

I wish

Tis the season of shopping and wish lists and people asking me what Jason wants for Christmas.

The only thing he says he wants—early retirement—is beyond our kids’ budget. So I’m left brainstorming lesser ideas and wishing for a different kind of wish list.

Dear Santa, 

This year for Christmas I would like:

1. Jason to be happy with his work

2. My kids to be healthy (Again? Are they really due for another respiratory virus already?)

3. A pain-free, bendy body that can run fast.

And, if you have time,

4. A house elf.

So many airplanes

I did it again: I took the kids on a field trip to Washington, DC. 

Despite driving once through downtown in the middle of rush hour, it was a laughably easy trip compared to last time.

Even Lizzy said, when we were calculating how many years it’s been since we last did this, I can’t believe you took four kids to DC.  

Neither can I, my dear. Neither can I.

Honestly, I saw a woman with four young kids at the playground recently and thought, Is she crazy? How is she managing that? And then I started estimating her kids’ relative ages compared with my own and thought Oh…

So, yeah, this field trip isn’t worthy to be compared to the infamous Adventure of Foggy Bottom. This time my students were 14 and 12 years old, instead of 12, 10, 7, and 5. 

This time, my kids know [far] more about airplanes than I do.

Guess which one has the excessive fascination with aircraft?

We stayed up in the observation tower for at least forty minutes, watching planes take off and land at Dulles. The kids had Flightradar up and were calling out the cities where each of the arrivals was coming from. It was pretty cool.

Caleb had researched days before to see what time a 747 was expected to land. We had to make sure we were in the tower in time to see it, and it was close, since it landed a few minutes early. But to the happiness of all, we were just in time. Even without the app Caleb could identify it from three miles away.

Also we fit in a single hotel room, which is a lot easier to find than a two-bedroom condo.

On day 1, we explored the Air and Space Museum at Udvar-Hazy. On day 2, we walked to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and did the tour of where they make paper money. I found the tour fascinating, but I took no pictures, since the tour guide said if you do that, “you’ll get a different kind of tour.”

We had some time to kill before our entry time at the main Air and Space Museum, so we wandered over to visit Mr. Jefferson.

Not sure who was inside this but it seemed like someone special 

The Wright brothers’ actual first plane

Caleb was disappointed at the lack of metro rides, but I was relieved by the simplicity of being able to walk everywhere we needed to go.

We had the hotel valet retrieve our car right at 5:00 on a Friday evening…what could go wrong?

Lizzy and Caleb amused themselves by taking pictures of Ears while I navigated traffic. Despite only a couple of missed turns and one near miss wherein I almost killed the person in my blind spot, we got home safe and sound.