Summer Bummers

 I think I live a quiet, sedate, completely normal life. Sometimes a bit of chaos gets tossed into the mix.
I am always believing that Life is just about to calm down and be normal.

Normal is a setting on the washing machine.

As of today, I am four weeks away from leaving for our Big Trip. I am gathering what I can gather. Listing my lists. Slogging through whatever comes along each day.

My Dad has had a turndown in his life since the first part of June. Everyone is coming to grips with the new 'normal' for him. It's a sad place when you know your mind is betraying you. The Parkinson's disease is slowly stealing his life away, and he realizes it. He's fighting against it.
His brother came to see him from California. Dad improved so much while his brother was there. Mr C and I drove to Texas and got to see Uncle for a couple of days. Two days after Uncle flew home, Dad had (another) bad fall- this time breaking his wrist. It's a simple break, straight across one of the bones, it should heal fine.

I got home from Texas on a Monday evening. We started getting things caught up, you know, back to our normal routine. Son Ben has given the fight against the suspicious mass in his nether region a hard battle. It's been just over a year of he and Paula throwing everything they can at it. Having done all, Ben felt backed against the wall. He made the Doctors appointments, and armed with the results of all they have done, was diagnosed with a solid mass tumor. It had to be removed. I flew down within a couple of hours of the call, and sat with Paula as the tumor was removed. It had to be sent off to Pathology for diagnosis. It was a seminoma- one of the most treatable forms of cancer. We will learn later this week what the next steps will be for Ben.

I flew home Sunday, as Nickole had an orthodontist appointment today. She goes back in just over 3 weeks to get her braces off!

Meanwhile, the day Uncle flew back to California, my Mom took sick to bed. She's had a fever and terrible cough. The fever comes, goes, comes, goes. her throat was so very sore. She finally went to an urgent care clinic. It's covid. This sent the entire family in that area in for testing, as well as their friends. All came back positive. Mom's been the most sick, but she did just get over pneumonia less than 2 weeks ago, so her system was down anyway. A call to Uncle in California sent that household out for testing. Yep... it's a big quarantine party in two states.

Meanwhile, I am just getting started on the blog for the big trip. Coddywomple is in its early stages.
I hope you have a great day today! Prayers for my family are really appreciated.

Heat Waves

 It's hot here in N E Oklahoma... but not as hot as my Texas family has it! I just looked at the forecast- you really can't guess too much more than a week out! But the Weather Guessers are predicting it to be over 100 every day between now and the first of August- with the exception of this coming Sunday,  at a mere 97* . The Texas family has had heat of 114 for several days... not counting the "heat index". That's a straight up number taken in the shade! Looks like Texas is looking to break the 1980 heat wave record of 100 days over 100*.

Mr C and I went down to East Texas this past weekend. Tom hasn't been down to see my folks in quite awhile. My Uncle Doug was in from California, getting a visit with his brother (and sister in Ft Worth) while he still can. Dad has done fair to middling on memory. Still doesn't think his house is his own home, and is seeing stuff. Uncle just goes with the flow. Yesterday, dad's primary doctor changed his provider to a home health care (Hospice) provider. (Non-terminal Hospice) So Dad will have a visiting nurse coming out. They will send someone to help clean and prepare light meals a day or two per week. I am hoping it gives my brother, and sister-in-law a break.

Got back to Oklahoma Monday evening, to our first fruits from the garden. Three baseball bats... er, zucchini. They hadn't been more than two inches long when we left Saturday morning. We also got several cucumbers. The little "lemon drop" cucumbers are loaded on the vine. I anticipate a large harvest of them not too many days from now. Meanwhile, I have sauce simmering to make a lasagna with zucchini instead of noodles. I'm running on the last case of my home canned tomatoes from last year. However... our tomatoes are coming on strong this year. I don't have any near ripe yet, but in the next week, I should be canning. The green beans are giving me a handful of beans every day. The okra is short, but covered in blooms. That should also start giving us fruit (or veggies?) within days.

The house painting is slowly coming along. Tom's been working so much OT, Bob has been doing all the painting he can, whenever he can. The heat dictates a very short window of time to be painting in the mornings.
Daniel and Sam rigged up a Dante containment field, to keep Dante on the property when Sam leaves for work, during the Big Trip. they built it primarily from pallets- available at $1 each from a local supplier. It will give Dante a bigger yard than he would have in town, and saves my house from bored doggy destruction. I'm not sure what day Dante will come to stay... but I need to be in Texas on the 17 or 18 of August.

The current 'plan' (loosely called a plan) is for me to arrive in Texas the day that Becky and Daniel return from trek. Dan works the next day. Becky and I will load and organize the trailer that day that Dan is working. (Becky will need to do Trek laundry and sort through trek stuff that needs to go with us vs. stuff that does not.) Dan gets off at 7:00 am, and he wants us loaded and ready to go when he gets off. I am guessing we are picking him up in San Angelo, saving him two hours of travel that will be used to move on towards the west coast. Taking turns driving, we will push for the 30 hour drive to be made with as few stops as possible. (We have 3 drivers available.)

Not as "Settled into Summer" as I would hope...

Kimber Ann (Grandchild 3.2) came home with Nickole (2.1) and I when we returned from our camping trial run. We had an entertaining week. To the local swimming pool... where I actually got my swimsuit wet. Other than wading in the Gulf this past week, and last year- I haven't done much swimming. (The swim test in what? November? that proved I wasn't nearly as over Long Covid as would have thought!)
I went down a waterslide! 3 times... I have never gone on a waterslide before. Then I sat out waiting for the girls to tire of the pool. I waded a bit in the shallow end. Another day, we went to the new Splash pad in Gentry, followed by a trip to the library.

The garden sprang up amazingly fast while I was gone. I've harvested enough green beans from Sam's Hugelkultur mound to have two meals. Another day, I took Kimber and Nickole to the Tulsa zoo, where they worked on an AHG badge requirement. Stephen and Ruby came to visit us over this past weekend. We watched Tom, Bob, Sam, and Kimber set off a short fireworks display on the 3rd. On the 4th, Stephen and Ruby headed back to Dallas with Kimber. Becky met them there on the 5th... so 'Ber is home.

My Dad's reports haven't been great. He's still dealing with things none of the rest of us can see- but to him, they are quite real. My Uncle from California is flying out this coming weekend, so Tom and I are driving down to see everyone in Texas. Pray for Uncle and Aunty's home... once again, it's near one of the big fires. They are packed up and ready to flee if the evacuation notice is given... and it's not given lightly.

My mom has had troubles this past week. Bronchitis and pneumonia have slowed her down. Her routine doctor's visit today said her lungs sound good, but pneumonia can take months to fully recover from. Step mom had two days of medical visits... first to the ER, then her Ophthalmologist to learn she's got a scratched cornea. Those are VERY painful!

Tom and I are finally paining the exterior of the house!

It has been chocolate brown with hunter green trim since we bought the place. It's going to be a buttery yellow, with sage green trim. Bob and Nickole both disliked my choices, based on the sample swatch. But seeing it on the building has changed their minds.

It's looking like a second coat may be needed, and none of these pictures show a completed wall, as we don't yet have one! But you can see where it's going. We are only able to paint in early mornings, and Tom only on his days off. The temperatures are HOT this week. Today's heat index is 106*. Bob got out and painted anyway.

Trial Run

 Becky and I had a trial run with the trailer, and only 3 kids - while the bigger three were at their most recent summer camp. (LightHouse Church in Midlothian Texas. It's where so Stephen (Tommy) and his beautiful wife Ruby attend. Tyrel, Nickole, and Kimber got to go. Dan was, once again, the Camp Medic.

While the kids camped, Becky and I learned about setting up the trailer without seasoned help. We decided that a "pre-flight checklist" was a good idea. There are so many little steps to be done in setting up (and breaking down) camp. I hope we have another opportunity to do this before The Big Trip.
Our plans are to camp along the way. Sightseeing, hikes, and a few base camps with day trips.

While we were together, we figured out an itinerary for the first few weeks of the trip. We're sure it will need tweaked as we travel. First of all, we defined what we wanted to gain from the trip.

 It's primarily a cross country sightseeing trip. That will involve traveling almost daily. We planned the drives to be under 6 hours per day, with several days less time than that, and so far, only one long day across a stretch of desert. There will be a lot of circling around, because there just ISN'T a simple, straightforward route to see all the sights we want to see!

We have made our plan starting from dropping Daniel off to start his ride.
I am a list person. I love logistics.
Our planning phase is taking quite a bit into consideration.
Ruby wants to go with us until a specific date, then fly home. Getting her ticket in advance will cost less, but involve some finer tuning of plans up to that point.
Figuring out where to stay, and what we can do/ see while on a fairly tight schedule is still in the works.

Yes, we plan to blog... maybe even You Tube video as often as we can. But... for our protection, only a few family members will know exactly where we are headed next. And the blogs/ videos will be delayed in publishing by a few days.

We have lists of set-up & breakdown of camp. I need to transfer those onto chore cards... many hands make light work! We will cross-train on as many jobs as we can, but not everyone is capable of doing every job. Everyone is capable of doing SOME job.
We have a list of meals we can make, and grocery checklists to go with each meal. (We don't want to get camp set up 20 miles from town and discover we missed a primary ingredient for a meal!)
Some of the meals are what we called "planned overs" when my kids were growing up. Deliberately cooking extras to serve at another meal. (Beans from one meal go into burritos at another. Grilled chicken today has enough left to add to a salad tomorrow.)

Our Trial Run gave me a better idea of the space we have available and the best ways to use that space.
Ideas for adding storage or managing the clutter that comes with so many people traveling together.
We intend to do some modified homeschooling on the road. That's a bit more to carry and store, but will keep the kids on track academically, and stave off boredom. We learned that we really do need some boredom busters when we are stuck in place. (I kept five kids in a campground that was 105* outside, no playground, no beach or pool. When it got hot, we had to stay inside... and I didn't have little kid games or books, no toys. This was a lesson learned!)
The four oldest girls are all American Heritage Girls. They can be earning several badges on this trip.

I'm considering making a new, trip specific blog. If I do, You will be the first to know. (all four or five of you who read my blog now!)