School Days and Other Randomness Thrown In

Today was the first day of school for Jakes and it was a rough one.  Not because he had trouble getting up, he's an early riser like me.  But because of his MOUTH and attitude.  I was up for about 10 minutes when he had gotten mad at me and slammed the door to his room.  All because I told him to get breakfast and get ready for school.  He felt I was Nagging him.

The second door slam came about 45 minutes later when I told him he would be responsible for making his own lunch this year.  And he was not allowed to buy lunch at school this week.  He doesn't feel making his lunch should be his responsibility, yet when I try to do something to help him, he gets mad.  So I decided he can be responsible for getting himself completely ready for school, with no help from me.

He finally made his lunch and the third door slam came when he slammed out of the house to walk to the bus stop.  Jaxon was jumping for joy when he saw Jakes leaving with his book bag.  Jaxon LOVES to walk Jakes to the bus.  So we followed, even though Jakes was practically running away from us to avoid me.  He didn't speak to me at all at the bus stop, but he did finally pose for a picture on his way to the bus.



Jakes first day of 7th grade



Dad is not feeling too well lately.  When we evacuated to the hotel for Irene, they had to carry their bags down from the third floor on Monday because the elevator was out of order.  I had left on Sunday night when the power came back on cause I wanted MY bed.  Had I stayed Sunday night, I would have been there to help carry the bags and Dad wouldn't be feeling so badly.

Dad has Congestive Heart Failure and 2 leaky heart valves.  He's been doing ok with medication management but all that exercise last weekend seems to have done some damage.  He has an appointment with his cardiologist today and hopefully they can work something out to give him some relief.

I'm a little down in the dumps lately.  Extremely tired and sleeping a lot.  I think I need a swift kick in the pants to get me moving.  I don't know why I'm feeling this way, nothing has changed in my life recently.  I'm not even that worried about Dad.  I'll have to see how long this goes on and if I have to do anything to fix it.

We're bracing for more rain and flooding this week.  We're getting the remains of TS Lee.  I hope my friends who've already experienced his drenching effects are safe and drying out now!  I'm also keeping an eye on Katia in the Atlantic.  As of this morning, she's a category 4 hurricane but is not expected to make landfall in the US.  Fingers crossed that she just blows by.

Over the last couple of weeks we've had some unusual phenomenons happen in my area.  We experienced the ground shaking of an earthquake.  It was centered in Virginia but its vibrations were felt up and down the east coast.  It was WEIRD!  I was in my hammock, swinging.  The swinging motion slowed and eventually the hammock started moving back and forth instead of the side to side motion.  The river even seemed to shake.  WEIRD!  I was hundreds of miles away from the epicenter and I don't think I'd want to be any closer!

Then that same week, we had some terrible storms go through that dumped tremendous amounts of rain on parts of the county which caused massive flooding, bridges and road were washed away.  Fortunately, not in my part of the county.  Then came Irene or as we've nicknamed her, ESM.  My step mothers name is Irene and we had a ball teasing her about the devastation she was creating along the East Coast.  I asked her which state she liked the best.  She said Georgia and I think GA was spared pretty much.  One of her bosses called her on Tuesday and thanked her for taking it easy on the county.  We really could have had much worse than what we got.  We were very fortunate. 

Ok, enough babbling.  I have some other stuff to get working on.   Happy Tuesday everyone!