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- It’s that time of year: time for the annual can-I-squeeze-my-two-children-plus-the-dog-into-the-laundry-basket photo. And the answer is a resounding: NO.
The concept of putting Abby in a laundry basket was originally a photo I took in our first house in 2014: Abby’s Saturday #30. Then in 2017, I put both Abby & Braelynn in a laundry basket for Abby’s Saturday #170. And then, we added Leander to the mix for Abby’s Saturday #267. 2021 was the last year that both of the kids plus Abby still fit in my basket (Abby’s Saturday #363), and last year, Braelynn officially got “demoted” to sitting on “the edge” (Abby’s Saturday #418)
And now here we are at #471!
(And side-note: you can’t quite see it, but there is another row of art that’s been added to my laundry room wall provided by my resident artist.) - Derrick was super determined to do some landscaping around our house this week and while that’s all well-and-good, I absolutely dread it. We have these bushes in front of our house that look nice, but they are full of THORNS. And, they’ve gotten completely out-of-control because I refuse to touch them. They’re awful. I don’t mind weeding, cleaning up, trimming things back, but these thorny bushes are the worst.
He was sick of how overgrown they were though, so he asked if I would help him clean up around our house one night this week – and not 100% realizing what he meant, I heartily agreed. Cleaning up makes my heart happy. But when I realized he meant specifically cleaning up those bushes, I volunteered to do anything else. I busied myself with cleaning off the back porch (I got rid of a full garbage bag of who-knows-what-nonsense). But, even after all of that, my poor husband still needed some extra help, so slightly begrudgingly, I started to help him pick up the pieces of the trimmed bushes.
No joke – the FIRST handful of branches that I picked up stabbed me deep in the finger. And not only stabbed me, but the stupid thing embedded the tip of the thorn deep into my finger and promptly broke itself off. I knew I had a piece of thorn in my finger, but I figured I would be able to pull it out with no problem later on, so I kept (sheepishly) helping Derrick and we did eventually finish the job.
That’s when I realized that the thorn wasn’t going to come out easy.
I put some drawing salve on it as soon as we came in, hoping that would help – but no luck that night. I put more drawing salve on it the next day (really lathered it on this time) and left it to “marinate” for a longer period of time – but still no luck. It got to the point that that stupid thorn was sending waves of weird pain into my hand, wrist, and up my arm. Fun, huh?
Finally, I told Derrick that he had to help me get this thing out of my finger – so 48 hours after penetration, we did some “minor” surgery in our kitchen (complete with tweezers and a needle). It was painful and took longer than I expected – but hallelujah, we got that stupid thing out!
Next time, I’m either paying someone to trim those bushes or only agreeing to help if I have HEAVY-duty gloves. - Last weekend we drove out toward Scranton to visit some of Derrick’s family (including his Grandma). Aunts, uncles, cousins, second-cousins, Paul and Naomi and the kids came down – it was like a mini-family reunion! And it was so delightful. We ate lunch, played games, sat out on the back deck and just enjoyed being all together.
Braelynn was in heaven – she and her cousin Cameron talk to each other on a regular basis via FaceTime technology, but they haven’t seen each other since the end of May (I think that’s officially the longest stretch that they’ve ever gone without seeing each other in person.) They had the best day ever. - Since we were out in eastern Pennsylvania, we spontaneously decided (late last week) to stop and spend the day at Dorney Park in Allentown on our way home! It was a gorgeous day and we had such a good time. Leander bravely took on their kiddie coaster (which he would have quickly turned down riding just a few weeks ago) and loved it so much that we rode it again later in the day (he would have marathoned the ride, but the line was SUPER long).
I took videos to put together a vlog of our day, but at the rate that I’m keeping up with our Adventuring Abbeys vlogs this year – it probably won’t get worked on and published until winter. (I’m still slowly making my way through our Florida trip back in the spring!) - Our 3rd week of school is complete – and we had the best week yet. The kids have really settled into “the school routine” and they’re doing so good! One of my FAVORITE things about homeschooling is seeing my children learn and grasp concepts. There are certain “hurdles” that Braelynn really struggled with last year and it’s been amazing to watch her seamlessly grasp those concepts this year and not struggle with them at all. She’s becoming so much more confident in her reading and writing (so much progress from Week 1 to Week 3) – I’m immensely proud of her!
- Derrick has been working his butt off this week – his job is going through a major transition with their systems and as a Dispatch Supervisor in charge of a whole territory, he’s in charge of not only making sure his people are fully trained on the new system, but also is their point-person if they have questions or issues. As with any new system, there have been issues. So, it’s been non-stop crazy all week. (I remember when the bank I worked for switched to a new processing system, it was a nightmare for a few weeks!) He’s been handling it like a champ though – working lots of extra hours and supporting his people as best as he can. We’ll all be very thankful when we get to the end of the next 2-3 weeks though!
