Well, it has been months since the last time I posted anything. I can claim that it has to do with time. Tonight, I am taking time I really don’t have, but I am feeling tapped out, and hope that this will feel therapeutic.




The months since my last post (MAY?) have been busy/crazy, and the slow internet has played in, because it is hard to take time for this, when it is normally 45-60 minutes to get a simple post. Between log-in and waiting for each page to load, it is frequently too much. I might stay up really late, but Benjamin has taken to sleeping in “the den” (formerly Justin’s room). He is such a light sleeper, that I don’t want to stay in here and keep him awake.



While I am talking about kids, let me update those who read the blog for family/friend updates. Ben is doing fairly well health wise. His intestinal problems do make him a light sleeper, so we try to stay out of the room when he is in bed. I do wake him up at 3 am each night, and then we try to sleep hard and fast til daybreak. He is doing well in school, and is growing up so fast. He keeps trying to get me to let him drive. (usually successful)



Driving……..Ian is now legal. He passed his test back in August, just after his birthday, but we finally got him down to get the actual license this past week. He will have to drive with one of us until December, but there is nothing after that to keep him from driving. He needs a bit of practice yet, but …..



Justin is loving his mission. He recently got transferred down below Yuma. He says his apt. is ½ mile from the Mexican border, and the community is almost exclusively Hispanic, so he feels like he is back in Mexico. It is hard to believe that he is past the halfway point! He looks good in the pics he sends, and seems to be keeping his diabetes in control.



Liz is fabulous. She is keeping very busy (like Mom and Dad) with work, school cheerleading, church youth leadership responsibilities, helping on the farm, reading the piles of college recruiting junkmail, etc. She is still playing basketball this year, and she is taking 2 college classes (necessary to meet graduation requirements due to failed scheduling by her HS counselor). She and the other 3 smartest students at school are having to take college classes because the counselor and school administrators put an AP class the same period as one of the classes the students have to have to graduate. Then, they pressured the kids to help meet the school’s legal requirements by taking the AP class. (don’t get me going about ineptitude, I might not stop, and that is not good for me or you) Anyway, she is a very busy young lady, but she is doing well. 18 next month! Wow, that is hard to believe how fast 18 years goes by.



Kaylee is also doing very well. She is nearly out of elementary school. She still loves to dance, and she continues to be in the pageant scene. She has fun dressing up, and usually will perform with a smile. She is doing well in school, and learning to help around the farm a bit more as well. She asks about driving, but the times I offer, she decides she is still not ready.



Michelle’s busy is still the same. She sews for her Branson clients, she is sewing wedding parties and pageant stuff, and her rodeo queen crowd has grown. She has even branched into fancy leather “gowns” and interview/parade suits for national rodeo queen pageants. She still takes care of the farm when I am at school or church stuff, along with being the PTO president for the 5th year. She will step down next year (Kaylee will no longer be in the elementary school), even if no one decides to step up. I tell her 5 years is enough, she can step down with clear conscience, even if she leaves a vacancy.



My sense of busy has grown this year. I am still the Branch President, still teaching in Conway, still working the farm, and because there was not enough to keep me busy, I decided (WE decided) to start my master’s program this year. I had been searching, but couldn’t find a program that was for languages. I found one, and I am enrolled in 6 credit hours. One class meets in Little Rock once a week, so I add that triangle to my drive time. I am running 1000 miles each week. Glad we could swing getting a new car (Kia Rio), so the 100K mile warranty will last almost until my master’s program is complete. The other class is online, and that has eaten more time than everything else.



I tried to get permission to adjust what the school district server allows, so that I could view the numerous videos for my class, and deal with the program and communication issues for this very tech heavy online class. NO LUCK. I couldn’t do the videos at home, with slow download times taking sometimes 60 minutes to load a 1 minute video. (not with as much as 2 hours of videos some weeks.) So I was spending about 3 hours each day at the library in Conway, where I could work online (except for the recorded audio assignments), as long as there were not people waiting to use the computers. Thankfully, a colleague’s ex-husband offered to loan me a small net book computer with fast wifi , so I can now log in at the library no matter who is waiting, and I can even use McDonald’s or other free wifi servers. I still don’t get to be at home, but at least I can do the voice recordings and videos without worrying who’s waiting behind me, and I can work on weekends, by driving over to McDonald’s.



I am still spending about 2-3 hours each day trying to keep up with these 2 classes, so I am constantly on the run it feels. When things go wrong at the chicken houses, I can only pray that things at church go smoothly, and that my homework doesn’t require too much extra time. When Homework is heavy, I pray that the farm doesn’t have things break. School is always school, and I am trying hard to keep my classes moving well, fun and interesting, AND incorporating the research that is part of my course work. A lot of it, I have already been doing, but it has been a fun challenge bringing the new research into my classes. A few times, things just all fell apart together, and then I just try to breath slow and deep.