In Which Brenda Has Insomnia and is NOT Pregnant

Man, the last few nights have been just like when I was pregnant. I go right to sleep and then about 3 or 4am...BAM. Wide awake.

Wide awake and solving all the problems of the world. And worrying.

You name it, I covered it last night. I worried about money, a person who is living in sin that I need to write a letter to about that (wrote the letter in my head--check), Little Bit's sore gums, health, my terminally ill cousin, lack of progress in school...etc.

It's a really tiring way to wake up.

This morning I went with S to a follow up appointment at his new doctor's office. She's very nice and young but she prescribed two things that I will be researching. Not at all sure I want him on those drugs. So that's my next project.

S holding Baby Bee last fall on our camping trip.

Sweetheart asked over the weekend if the Bible said anything about modesty. That question surprised me as I've always talked about modesty with them. Guess its been years since we actually read any Bible verses about it. And now that she's as old as she is, I decided to show her how to study something she is curious about. After our first study time she said it was fun and she really enjoyed it. THAT is an answer to prayer!

Sweetheart playing in the "snow" at Daddy's work Christmas party.

Last Monday, right in the middle of history, Little Bit's tics reared their ugly head. Not just any tics, but the dreaded screaming tic.

Me: So Abraham moved from Ur to Canaan...
LB: Ur. Ur. Urururururur. SCREAM
Me: (thinking) please be kidding

All we can think is that she got overly tired from our fun weekend with the Holiday family. Whatever it was set her off from Monday until Wednesday afternoon. It was a very tiring 3 days. She was exhausted, school didn't get completely done, there were tears. One happy note is that the screaming didn't seem to bother Baby Bee at all. Sometimes she just looked at Little Bit and screamed back. That made us all laugh. And Bee managed to sleep through them too.

We upped her supplement she takes and I think we may have overdone it and given her too much and made her stomach upset. ANYWAY....all that to say...that's why I haven't been blogging.

Tourette Syndrome is more time consuming than regular life.

Little Bit at our church's children's Christmas party. Can you tell I need to upload some more recent pictures???

We broke out our copy of Front of the Class and watched it together. That prompted me to read the book again. What struck me this time I read it was Brad Cohen's description of learning with Tourette's present. It really made me think about why Little Bit is where she is in school.

Baby Bee in the owl hat Auntie Carrie got her.

And in more horrible news: Bee is crawling. Oh I'm kidding. It's wonderful news. She looks so cute scooting across the floor. Boy did big sisters start scrambling around picking stuff up when on Sunday she suddenly took off! Now she not only crawls, but pulls up at the coffee table and gets into everything. Nothing is safe anymore. Gee I wonder why I'm not more productive?


Oh wait. I AM productive.

Just in my head at 4am.

Back At It

We just got home from a weekend away and it was wonderful! We went to see our good friends, the Holiday family, who moved away at the end of August. We got to spend the whole weekend together---kids playing, adults talking----so nice. The drive to Louisiana wasn't bad at all and the girls rode wonderfully in the van. Couldn't ask for a better weekend!

And now I find myself refreshed! (Forgot what that felt like!) I actually feel ready to get back to school tomorrow and work on the house (which we left clean--so nice to come home to!) and just get things done.

But tonight I have some questions for you:

1. HOW is it already the end of January????? This school year is flying by!

2. If you really want your daughters to grow up to be wives and mothers and homemakers--then what should their high school credits look like? Mrs. Holiday and I were talking about that this weekend. College is a great idea I suppose. I encourage the girls to think about "careers" or "jobs" where they could earn money and take care of their family such as photography, cosmetology, etc. Flexible things where they could work part time or from home if they needed to. But if we're serious about raising godly homemakers then what does that make high school look like? Personal finance or stewardship courses, homemaking classes, photography as an elective? What do you think?

3. How do you make a 45 year old house look new(er) without spending an arm and a leg? This is the Year of Fixing Up the House here at the House Revised. Thinking ahead to one day getting out from under a mortgage and being ready to go wherever the Lord should lead....no plans mind you just wanting to be not so tied down and burdened...so, where do you start on that? I mean besides pinning stuff on Pinterest. Ha!

Until I hear from you on this, I'll just resume pinning.

Do WHAT While the Baby Sleeps???

Sleep, you say? HA!

Not me. I call collection agencies and insurance companies and pay bills.

I would really like to have a blood pressure cuff on my arm right now.

Do you work in a billing office? HOW HARD IS IT????

(cleansing breaths)

OK. In good news, I got the vacuum cleaner back from the repair shop. We're $80 poorer, but its a good vacuum and now Baby Bee won't be eating so much off the floor. we won't have to constantly be grabbing things out of her hands.

Babies have excellent fine motor skills when it comes to fuzz and strings and stuff.

School did not get completed today because of my hobby taking too much time.

In other news, I am never, not ever going to W*lm*rt again. There I said it. I KNOW you can save money but it is not worth it. I've been grocery shopping elsewhere and loving it. You just have to be careful because elsewhere has many more choices and you can spend too much if you get carried away. But elsewhere is do-able on our budget if I'm careful.

But today both girls needed new pants. Pants without holes. So we went. And we needed other things like diapers and printer ink, etc. Then the check-out lady proceeded to catch up with her good friends in front of us in line. Like seriously, it was a family reunion or something. They were all having a FINE time talking while I wrestled a crying baby. I finally got all my stuff off the conveyor belt and moved over a lane.

And yes, I was walking out while they were still talking. I have never seen people at a job who are in less of a hurry than checkers at W*lm*rt.

I bet they don't need a blood pressure cuff.

And I bet when they leave there, they start working in a billing office.

I think I need to go play with a puppy or something.

The Hobby I Didn't Ask For

Wanna know what I do in my spare time?

I talk to insurance companies, doctor's offices, and pharmacies on the phone. It's a load of fun.

You remember, I'm sure, that I was in the hospital twice last year? (Once to have Baby Bee, and 2 weeks later again.) Well. We owe a LOT of people money. Doctors, anesthesiologists, labs, etc. And of course many of them have, how shall we say, issues with the billing process.

So I call.

And now S has been put on insulin. That's a good thing! But since he works full time, it's up to me to make appointments, call in re-fills, ask questions, schedule things, etc.

So I call.

No, Important Lab Company, we do not, in fact, owe you $400 for blood work for my husband. We have insurance. Oh, it was denied? Interesting.

Hello? Insurance Company? Why were we denied? Oh, you never received a claim? Interesting.

Then we proceed to have a conference call between me, Important Lab Company, and Insurance Company. They have the wrong billing code. They didn't know that this one big insurance company bought the other insurance company. OK-we'll try again.

Repeat process the next month. Call also to get them to stop collections.

Oh its fun.

You should get a hobby like mine!

In Which Brenda Moves Furniture....Again

Try to contain your shock.

We set up the 20 year old crib for Baby Bee in Little Bit's room just before Christmas. She's napped in it a few times. Not ready for sleeping there at night yet although she DID sleep through the night last night!

That kind of cramped up Little Bit's room more than I thought it would so I decided to leave the dresser/changing table in our room. After she's no longer sleeping in our room, the co-sleeper will be changed to a regular pack-n-play and shoved over in the corner for nap time. So, her changing table might as well be there too.

Then I needed a way to baby proof our homeschool stuff. I'm not usually a fan of "move every single thing the baby could possibly get into", but homeschool curriculum costs money. And there's been a lot of time and work put into it.

See, after I showed you this picture of our "homeschool area" earlier this year, we added a bookshelf there by the couch. It was full of the stuff we use every day and full of temptation for a new crawler.

So now we have moved our old TV cabinet, which stores our homeschool stuff, into the living room. (This is where it used to sit--out in the utility room.)

It looks pretty good and best of all, the stuff is all safely put away.

And I was making slow progress in baby proofing around here. Then a friend, who is a doctor, had her little 4 year old boy get into some blood pressure medicine. He was unresponsive when they found him and he spent several days in the hospital. Very scary. And not some yahoos you hear about on the news---friends of ours--intelligent, good parent friends. So that kind of made me get into gear about the baby proofing.

Right now she isn't crawling yet, just rolling around picking up every microscopic piece of fuzz and tiny scrap of paper on the floor.

And taking her socks off every 5 minutes.

But that's another issue.

Learning to be on my toes again after many years,

Brenda