Life Update

 The summer just flew by this year. Life seems to get faster and faster. I am so grateful for my health which has allowed me to keep up. I will start with the negatives of the summer. Elijah suffered a very difficult depression this summer which has simmered down with three medications but is still ongoing. He was faced with crippling anxiety that crushed him. Unfortunately, when his probation period ended at the packing job he had, the boss let him go. He was somewhat relieved because it really wasn't a great fit. She micromanaged the very small business to an extreme degree. His stress level has made it impossible to get him back into the work force in the last 7 weeks or so. Instead, we have concentrated on driving. Dear husband took it over and they are driving 6 days a week. He is very close to taking the test and has made great progress in the past few months.  We are praying that this will help to build his confidence. 

The other negative is Rebekah's car died and we haven't yet found a replacement that will  meet her demanding travel needs. She is currently sharing Grandma's car. 

Rebekah has had a splendid summer. She went to multiple summer dance intensives and had a great experience with each and every one of them. She liked Sarasota and Joffery NYC the best. She was invited into the training program of Carolina Ballet in Raleigh, NC and Joffery NYC, but decided to decline the honor because they were tuition based. She did however accept a contract from Carolina Ballet Theater in Greenville, SC. She received an apprenticeship with this small ballet company and is stipend with ballet shoes. The commute is a grueling 1.5 hours each way ( with lots of construction and three highways with mountain driving) and she needs to travel it 3 to 5 times a week depending on rehearsals. However, she loves the company. She has lots of opportunities to perform on large and small stages. Her first performance is next weekend. Because it is a small company every one is very much needed and an apprentice gets to dance in every show right along side the fulltime company members. She even has some solo roles already. On top of  dancing, she is still plugging away at college and works with Tim two days a week. 

Rebekah in the dorms at Carolina Ballet in Raleigh

This Rebekah statue was stunning at the High Museum in Atlanta

David and I made a quick weekend trip down to Atlanta with Elijah  one weekend so that he could visit and online friend. It was a nice experience for him and David and I had a quick retreat of our own. We visited the High Museum and the Atlanta zoo. They were both delightful. 

My darling little nanny child is three now and off to preschool. I only see him occasionally now. His mother is pregnant though, so we might work out childcare for the new little one in the future. I am trying to figure out my life and what I want to do in the Spring. 

Tim and I went for an overnight to Duke for all of his cardiac appointments. We had a gap between appointments and went to the North Carolina Museum of Art. It was lovely and fun to get out and have  one on one trip with Tim. His appointments went well and he is good for another year of cardiac health. 

I will be posting about NYC separately. Our last hurrah of the Summer was an overnight trip to Atlanta to see Green Day. Elijah once again visited his online friend. Dear Husband was our great supporter and enjoyed his down time eating junk food in the hotel and watching the history channel and Tim, Rebekah and I went to the concert. It was great. Rebekah and I had about 6 hours of sleep in the hotel before we had to head out to get Rebekah back to Greenville for her ballet rehearsals. It was a whirlwind, but fun. 

One of her summer intensives was a contemporary studio and they did an photo shoot. She got some great shots for free. They were included in the intensive program. 

We are already racing into fall. I hope Elijah turns a happy corner in the next few weeks. 

Blessings, Dawn

A Mother's Journal ~ March 2022

 On my mind ~ My heart is with Ukraine. It is so disturbing what is going on there. Also, I am so sick of listening to people complain. Yes, the gas prices are getting higher; inflation is getting higher; but the reasons are clear. Sacrifices must be made to keep our world free. Must everything be political?  Can no one in our generation pull together and care about anyone but themselves? I am just overwhelmed with how spoiled Americans are at times.  (Yes, I am aware that there are Americans who are doing things for good and care about others...they just seem few and far between these days.) If this paragraph makes you angry, check yourself and ask, "What  am I doing for others and how am I modeling sacrifice to my children without complaint?"

Outside my window ~  It feels like spring is here. It is hard to believe it is truly here, but I hope it stay. The Daffodils are in full bloom.

Where we are going ~  Rebekah and I have been travelling so much in the last few weeks. Last week found us at the UNCSA Dance Festival in Winston-Salem, NC. Rebekah took eight classes and performed at the Stevens Center with her fellow studio dancers. While we were there, Rebekah auditioned and was accepted to their ballet summer intensive. We don't know if she will accept it yet, since we are waiting to hear back from another ballet school. She has done two years of summer intensives with UNCSA (online), and it looks better on a dance resume to do summer intensives at different places. It would be an awesome experience to live on a college campus for five weeks. We are pretty sure we are dropping the summer intensive in New York City because it is just proving to be cost prohibitive with the current state of the world. There are equally exciting options closer to home. 

Where is Rebekah? Look carefully.

This weekend we took Rebekah to an audition for a summer intensive in Cary, NC. This one is the summer intensive that most excites Rebekah's teachers. We will see if she is accepted. So far, she has been accepted to every intensive for which she has auditioned. 

What I am reading ~ I am reading The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. It is a relaxing read that I am enjoying. 

What I am watching ~ I am watching way too much news on Ukraine. I am also still watching Call the Midwife with Rebekah. We continue to have our family movie nights on Fridays. It was Rebekah's pick this week and we watched How to Train Your Dragon. We have also watched the 2021 version of Dune and The Dig in recent weeks. 

What I am working on ~ I am working on making everyone's schedule work with the growing gas crisis and our two cars. We have three persons with licenses, a very lousy (almost impossible) bus system to contend with, and five people with commitments all over the place. There are a lot of moving parts to the puzzle and everyone is going to have to make sacrifices to make it work. Elijah's work schedule seems to be returning to normal hours so that is helpful. They had him and everyone else cut down to half shifts which meant he had to be picked up after only three hours. He was given a new shirt at work with the Target dog on it.  My sweet little boy is a grown up young man. 

A special find ~ I found an amazing buy at the thrift shop this week. I found this American Empire  style sofa. I think the frame might be original (1830's). It is in perfect condition with only loose feet that need to be reattached. I need to study how to do that authentically, since it is missing the old fashioned pins. I was able to just slip the feet on which works perfectly when it is stationary. It is the anchor piece I have been looking for to really pull the library together. It was only $100! 

Here is how it is coming together in spring of 2022. Yes, I still need to get the overhead lighting installed that my mother gave us.

A Touch of Beauty ~ While we were in Cary, NC this weekend, we went to the NC Art Museum. We took my mother along and had a girl's road trip. We were especially enamored with a visual light show art display. You look through the hole and see this amazing light show. 

It was lovely to fill our eyes and minds with a bit of artistic beauty!

What's working for me/not working of me ~  Timothy's wound is healing quickly and we should be released from visiting nurse care in the next week or so. It was very helpful having a visiting nurse to help us through that crazy adventure. I feel very blessed for the service. 

We are constantly struggling to figure out how to support our daughter Katie, while still maintaining boundaries and generally not going insane. She is a demanding and chaotic whirlwind, who only wants to do things on her terms and in her way and then wants to be rescued when it all explodes in her face. 

Quick update on Katie ~ She is currently living with her most recent boyfriend  and other roommates in an unfurnished house about an hour away. She has announced that she is marrying this man as soon as he manages to get divorced from his current wife. They are both 21 years old and he has obvious mental health issues, too. He doesn't seem to be dangerous which is an improvement over the last man. She has also acquired a gigantic dog which will just complicate matters the next time she finds herself homeless (sorry...if there is a next time). Who am I kidding? Her current roommates are already threatening to put her out after just a few weeks. 

Praying for all that are suffering and that peace will come to Ukraine and all of the world. Please show kindness as you move through your days. It is what we all can do to create a better tomorrow. 

Blessings, Dawn

Another Hospitalization

 We have had a crazy two weeks. It started with a local doctor appointment to check Timothy's surgical wounds. When she removed the Steri-Strips from his newest surgical site, she found it badly infected. Within a matter of hours we were told that Tim needed to return to Duke and may need more surgery. It was a rushed trip across state with two cars. David (husband) went ahead with Tim, while I tried to put a few things in place for Elijah, who was remaining home. Rebekah hurriedly finished the last of her packing for the dance competition she was supposed to be at in less than 24 hours and joined me in the second car. 

Tim was admitted to Duke and the doctors were instantly baffled. His infection was only skin deep. It hadn't affected the muscle (that was in plain view because the wound was wide open), nor had it affected the pacemaker, pacemaker pocket, his blood or heart. With the level of infection they were seeing, they would have expected the infection to have spread to some or all of the other areas. After two days, their conclusion was that Tim, who has a serious adhesive allergy, had reacted to the Steri-Strips which have a minute amount of adhesive in them. This had never been an issue in the past or even in his first January surgery, because all of his previous surgeries were done by a pediatric cardiac surgeon (because of his congenital status), and they always put an extra barrier between the Steri-Strips and the stitches because kids are so rough on their bodies. Adult cardiac surgeons usually  skip that step in adults. This was Tim's very first surgery ever with an adult cardiac surgeon. As you can imagine, there are some very large notes being added to his medical chart. 

Once we were assured that Tim was not going to need surgery, Rebekah and I proceeded to Atlanta for the dance competition. She missed the first day with graded classes, but she made it in time for the three dances she intended to compete. Rebekah really didn't enjoy the competition style of performing. It was very anxiety producing for her and she even had a small panic attack before one of the dances. I think the combination of feeling unprepared, a lack of experience with competitions or solos (in which you are completely alone on stage), a terrible dance floor that even the judges were complaining about, the stress our family was going through, the cattiness of some of the more experienced girls, and the in-your-face reality that almost no dancers achieve a professional career all collided and made for a very emotional weekend. She actually did pretty well according to her teachers and myself. I think her years of performance training kicked in and she pushed through. But it was the most emotional experience she has ever experienced when it comes to dance. 

 David stayed with Timothy the entire time he was in the hospital. Timothy was released from the hospital after two days and was able to come home to complete his recovery. He now has a visiting nurse who comes in two times a week to look at the wound and change the bandages. We change the bandages ourselves on the other days. Hopefully, this merely will be a memory in another few weeks. I will also take Tim to Greensboro during the next week to see his cardiologist in a clinic that is about an hour closer to home.

Lessons Learned ~  You know how they say you learn more from adversity than from the easy days? I do think that is true most of the time. 

Rebekah in her classical variations costume

I think there are many lessons still being processed by our experiences at the dance competition last weekend. 

• Rebekah reinforced in her mind that family is much more important to her than a full-time  professional career in dance. She was told by one teacher to snap out of it and forget about her family's troubles. That teacher went on to say that she danced the day her mother died, because the show must go on and that Rebekah needed to have the same attitude. Rebekah was totally shocked and dismayed. Her teacher said ballerinas are a type of "freak of nature." Rebekah does not want to become one of those. 
• Rebekah realized that none of this is worth it if it doesn't bring her happiness and that she must find a path that brings her joy. 
• She was reminded that there are multiple ways to be part of the dance world and the larger, more glamourous ways are not necessarily the best fit for her. 
• At the end of the day, she wants to dance, she wants to perform, she wants to feel joy again (this entire school year has been a bit joyless while desperately trying to catch up in ballet technique), she would prefer to not leave home or Asheville in the next year or two (at least) and she is missing contemporary dance.

The lessons for Tim were about what the rest of us learned from his hardship. 

• Elijah held down the house successfully for a few days. He took care of the cats and stayed completely alone with just a quick daily check-in with Grandma. 
• I was reminded how much I like the "little city" feel of a  hospital and that I might want to look at a career in the hospital when I am ready to work outside the home in the future.
• Of course, we learned so much more about adhesive allergies and wound care.

This week was dominated by just trying to catch up, pull our feelings into check, rest and come back together as a family. We are very tight knit and being apart during one crisis after another in the last six weeks has been hard on everyone. I hope we are entering a calmer season!

Blessings, Dawn

A Mother's Journal ~ Remarkable January

It was a remarkable month filled with unremarkable days. I thought I would do A Mother's Journal this morning.

On my mind ~ This has been a stressful month. Tim's surgeries although successful were also very stressful. Our daughter Katie's life is in absolute turmoil from our point of view. We hardly know what city she will be in next and with what man she will be relying on. It is so far from the way we raised her to be!  She is back in our area at the moment but not interested in the stabilizing ideas we come up with.  Lastly, our daughter Rebekah is very stressed out by audition season for summer dance intensives. She is also almost panicked about a dance competition that is coming up in which she feels extremely unprepared.  It is a ballet competition in which she will be doing one contemporary solo, one group piece and one  solo ballet variation. Her stress is affecting the entire family. It is stressful, to say the least, right now. 

Outside my window ~ We have about an inch of snow on the ground and it is bitter cold with a wind chill of minus five. We have had two other snowfalls this month that were  deep enough that they didn't melt away in hours. This one inch snowfall won't melt quickly because the temperature is so low.

What I am working on ~ On the homefront, I am working on keeping the home moving as smoothly as possible, trying to stay ahead of meals and keep everyone healthy. I am also working on lots of travel plans. We are traveling almost every weekend through March for summer intensive auditions, a dance competition, a dance festival and post-operation appointments for Tim. 

Where we are going ~ This month was filled with travel. We spent ten days in Duke University Hospital, which is almost four hours away from home. We also started to travel for an audition, but the in-person portion was cancelled while we were on the road. We had to turn around and return home, so Rebekah could do the audition on Zoom. Next week, we are traveling to Atlanta for the dance competition. 

What we are watching ~ Our family movie this week was The Dig. It was on Netflix and we really enjoyed it. Elijah even gave it a good review, and he is our family's harshest critic. Rebekah and I are also re-watching Call The Midwife for stress relief. The males in the house don't understand how watching childbirth is stress relieving, but we enjoy the mother-daughter time. Dear husband and I are watching The Hardy Boys on Hulu. 

What I am reading ~ I started the month off with reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. I really enjoyed this book and hope to read some others by this author. I am currently reading Five Children and It by Nesbit. This was a book I had wanted to read to my children because they love this author, but we just never got to it. I decided I needed something light and fun. This is a perfect fit. 

What I am grateful for ~ Although this has been a stressful month, I am pleased with the results. Tim is safe and sound. His recovery is going well and he has returned to his six hour a week job. He has managed all of his pain with Tylenol and didn't need any of the stronger pain killers that were prescribed. 

This week, Elijah told me that he really likes his job and work friends. I am so glad that he is fully settled into his job at Target. His benefits started this month, too. Target gives benefits to part-time employees after six months! I am impressed. 

Rebekah passed her first audition with flying colors and received an acceptance letter. She was given the opportunity to take classes between two and seven weeks at their academy.  She will most likely be signing up to do two weeks with that ballet school in the middle of our state. She also was accepted to a one week professional training contemporary dance program at UNCSA which was a deferment from last year, because she did their ballet program which overlapped this program.  Both of these opportunities will be her first times living away from home. She is trying to piece together about six weeks of dance intensives/workshops in different schools and dance companies to maximize her overall experience. 

My favorite photo this week ~ 

Blessings, Dawn

Can Tea Save My Sanity?

 

It was a mega tea cup kind of week. Unfortunately, there is still a fair amount of crazy in my world, so this is going to be a brief post. 

My mother had nasal surgery this week to try to improve her sleep apnea. She is doing a bit better than she usually does with surgery but is still suffering a great deal. She never does well with surgery and often needs double the recovery time suggested by doctors. She is staying with us while she recovers.

The real and ongoing chaos this week is coming from our daughter Katie. She has been very, very manic for a few weeks now. Her meds really are not working; in fact, I feel like they are working against her. When she is frightened and manic, she becomes a very demanding person and extremely concerned about her health. This leads to a host of doctor appointments, 911 calls, ambulance rides and emergency room visits. Sometimes, doctors find issues and other times not. She really struggles to advocate for herself in an appropriate manner (that is, she becomes nasty and profane), which quickly alienates the people who are trying to help her. On top of her mental health state, she had a nasty bicycle accident last weekend. It took several days and ER/Urgent Care visits for x-rays to finally show a hairline fracture in her clavicle (shoulder). She is in a great deal of pain. Unfortunately, her group home (which provides low level support to supposedly independent adults with mental health issues) is really not up to the task and seems to be handling her all wrong and even unkindly. This is making her want to run into the night to all kinds of places she thinks she would be happier and free from authority. Her desire most recently is to move to Florida because the ocean would be calming. There is no plan on how she would live or where she would stay in Florida. It is obvious to most of us that she needs a higher level of care, not total freedom. There is no reasoning with her right now. This is the nature of an adopted person who suffers from RAD, Fetal Alcohol, Schizoaffective and Bipolar Disorders and probably Borderline Personality Disorder. This combination of mental health disorders is so hard to interact with, and I am sure terrible to live with for my Katie. 

So when she calls at all hours of the day and night, I answer the phone and try to calm her. I try to focus on one topic and solve one tiny thing for her, if I can. But it all feels like it is caving in right now and that we could lose her to the streets at any moment. I have spent many, many hours this week on the phone with a social worker friend, who also is trying to help Katie. Prayers are very much appreciated. 

On a happier note ~ Tim got his very first paying job this week! He has done more than a dozen years of volunteer work, but this month he applied for a job working in a tiny board game store that we have frequented for years. They gave him an interview and hired him later that day. He will be working two days a week for a total of about 10 hours. He is very excited. We are so proud of him!

Blessings, Dawn

A Plan Forming for Next Year

The last two weeks have sped past. Rebekah is nearing the end of her high school years. I ordered her graduation announcements and diploma. We are looking for a  picnic shelter in a park to reserve for her graduation party. It is getting very real, and we are feeling lots of emotions around here. While it is an exciting time, it is  also a bit bittersweet. The end of my homeschooling career is very close. I am entering a new phase with less clear guidelines and boundaries. To the outside world, I will simply look like a stay at home mother to four grown kids (two of which aren't launching very fast or at all). It is a tricky time of redefining myself to the outside world who seems to think that I should be racing out into the workforce to do something meaningful. Yes, I have heard that from several people, as if the last 23 years of homeschooling hasn't been meaningful and the very most important thing I could have done with my life. (Not to mention, in my humble opinion, the lack of stay at home parents in children's lives is a major reason we have so many issues in this country.) I feel completely content and certain that my time has been well spent. Fortunately, so do the family members closest to me. In reality, I am not returning to work for a good while yet (if I can help it). I am still very much needed here on the home front. 

Rebekah completed her art project for her college course. She had to follow certain parameters and use photoshop software for the first time. It was a big learning curve, but her piece came out great. It is called Mother Nature and Father Time.

In other huge news ~ Rebekah auditioned and was accepted to a professional training program at a dance academy here in town. The professional program is new and  has two art directors from Ballet West (a famous dance academy and company in Salt Lake City) who have joined the academy. The new directors are amazing and have created a professional training program for teens and college age dancers that will begin in the fall. She will be training upwards of 30 hours a week and will have opportunities to perform in multiple shows and dance competitions. Depending on her goals in a year or so, they can also help her find and audition for dance companies throughout the United States. We are so proud of her and I am so happy that she can remain living at home while she follows her passion at least for another year or so. She has decided to take a gap year or longer from college to give her all to dance. I couldn't agree more. I have been talking about a gap year for a long time. It just isn't possible to work (which is necessary), attend college and dance so many hours a week and still stay emotionally/physically healthy. She finally saw it my way. She will continue to work in the mornings and dance in the afternoons (six days a week). For the first time in more than six years, she will have most of her evenings off. 

We celebrated my mother's birthday this week. We went for a walk down by the river and then ate dinner and cake at home. We also played the adult version of HeadBanz, which was lots of fun. It was harder then the original version, with characters like Napoleon and George Bush, etc. We had a blast!

Elijah did lots of work at Grandma's home this past two weeks. She is finding him to be very helpful. He is also working some at home. He is a bit slower and distracted for me, so I am having him work for her more often. He did learn how to use a tiller at home and how to prepare our garden for planting. For us, Elijah has painted doors, fixed loose doorknobs, did landscaping, decluttered the cedar storage closet, maintained the cats' nails and maintained their grooming, as well as performed his regular daily chores. Their medieval sword play group has returned to playing a few hours on Sunday. Tim and Elijah are overjoyed and come home worn out, sweaty and filled with funny stories of their adventurous battles. It is all good!

I will leave you with a cute picture of our sweet and crazy clowder. Why can't they ever be cute on a fully made bed?

Blessings, Dawn

Taking Care of Myself

In the past two weeks, I have been feeling more sad and gloomy than usual. I am a pretty positive person and generally bounce back from gloomy moods pretty quickly (like within hours), but that hasn't been the case recently. I am not sure if I was run down or just struggling with all the changes I see ahead. However, it was time to get me back to a healthy mental state. Thus, we started operation Get Mom Back on Track this week. We started the week off with a beautiful Sunday picnic and walk along the river. Rebekah Anne went all out and packed our "picnic" china dishes. My husband stopped and picked up dessert at our favorite bakery. It was lovely.

We walked our city's labyrinth twice this week. I used to take my littles to walk this same labyrinth when they were really out of sorts. It worked well to help balance them. You are forced to walk slower and just follow the pattern which tends to bring one's breathing and blood pressure down. I also prioritized taking my two mile walks everyday. I always feel better when I get a good walk.

Instead of the more serious books I tend to read, I picked a children's chapter book to read this week, because I just needed a bit of fun and whimsy. I also made it a priority to get into bed by 10 pm and actually made it most nights. Lastly, I added back in my supplement, Holy Basil, which has always helped my mood. I had taken a few weeks off from taking it. I am feeling much more myself this Saturday morning. I will have to keep up the good work of taking care of myself. 

I have started formulating a plan to help Elijah break down the growing up process. We told him that for the next short while, he has to work two hours a day on career exploration, working for Grandma at $11 an hour and working on getting his learner's permit or exploring the bus system. He is also welcome to apply for jobs that we/he finds that might be a good fit. My hope is that adding in a bit of money to his life will help him get used to using his debit card, knowing how much money he has, managing and maybe even saving his money a bit more. I also want him to go back to having a daily routine and doing work that he may not love, but brings him some value (money, self worth). I am not sure how long we are going to do this plan, but we will do it at least until he gets vaccinated. If it goes on for more than a handful of weeks, we will have to increase the hours per day and get him used to more sustained work. 

He did apply for a job at Starbucks this week and has not heard from them. I am biding my time waiting for his standards to come down. I have been told by others that our local chain grocery store is always hiring and really does hire young people with no experience all the time and treats them well. Employees are also able to set their own hours within reason. We rarely shop in the chain store because it is more expensive and has less organics than the other three stores I shop at. He has resisted this store because his estranged sister (Katie) works in the one we frequent most often, plus it is downtown and has an urban gangster vibe. Next week we will be visiting some of the ones out in the suburbs so he can see that many of the stores are newer and nicer. I also saw that two other grocery stores in our area were hiring, and I had heard really nice things about one of them. We visited both of those this week. Elijah liked both of them and was surprised how clean and nice the one was despite it also being downtown. He also appreciated that everyone was wearing their masks properly. He is a real mask stickler and gets very upset when he sees people not following the rules. We have two major industries here, medical and tourism. I pointed out that both stores were on the "rich" side of town and that I had really noticed that the more educated and richer folks in our city who tend to be in the medical world were generally much more compliant with mask wearing. Actually, most of the residents in our city are doing very well with mask compliance. It is mostly the tourists who come in and just don't want to follow the rules.

We treated ourselves to this tart at one of the grocery stores. I realized that we rarely grocery shop as a family, and I wanted Elijah to get a more personal experience with some of the departments. Grocery stores have so many different jobs in them. 

April is almost here. I am ready to say good-bye to March. I always find it one of the dreariest months of the year. 

Lastly, Tim got his first Covid vaccine this week, and I can sign Elijah and Rebekah up on the waitlist on the 31st of March. The waitlist is getting faster now and only seems to take two to three weeks. We are making progress!

Blessings, Dawn

One Year Later ...

If you had told me on March 13, 2020, what the next year would hold, I probably wouldn't have believed you. Yes, I was aware that there was a pandemic brewing, and I was actively stockpiling food and toilet paper along with the rest of America. But I never would have predicted that it would change our lives so much. I had never heard of Zoom anything. I never thought that my adult son's brain injury day program would be closed for most of a year or that my daughter would spend hours and hours taking dance classes on Zoom in our small 9 foot by 8.5 foot guest bedroom. She has very long legs and I can't tell you how often she kicks the walls...lol. That my sons' medieval sword play group would be cancelled for a year. It is held outside, so I thought it would be back in session quickly; but it still hasn't officially returned. (One parent started a small group outside last weekend with mandatory mask wearing at all times. We were there and my guys loved every minute of it.) Oh, and the physical separation from friends -- I so miss the sound of teenager laughter ringing through my home. However, it truly hasn't been all bad. Life is a journey and there are different chapters in it. This chapter has been quieter and centered around home.

We have learned so much from this experience. My family is resilient, more flexible than I thought, and strongly bonded. We have a pretty good time all on our own. We renewed our enjoyment of nature and hiking. We instituted family movie night on Fridays with takeout dinner most of those nights. It is anticipated all week and will probably continue even when the pandemic ends. We took up new hobbies and the adults read more books. We binge watched National Geographic shows, The Crown, any and all British murder mysteries and Call the Midwife. We got projects done, reduced our belongings dramatically (and are still working on this one) and started gardening. We adopted two cats, bringing our tiny clowder to THREE. We certainly didn't waste our time whining that life wasn't the way we had planned it would be. We adjusted and thrived. 

With the vaccines starting to roll out with some real speed, the world is starting to open back up. We are not ready to rush out into the streets just yet. We have worked way too hard to stay safe all this time to take unnecessary risks in the eleventh hour. But the end is in sight. My mother and stepmother got their vaccines this week. My husband has been fully vaccinated for more than a month. I am on the list for level 3 (because I am caregiver of a medically fragile adult), which is being processed now. Hopefully, I will have my shot in the next few weeks. Tim is level 4 and the rest of my crew is level 5. It is possible that we will all be vaccinated by the beginning of June. I can't wait!

This week, Tim and Elijah held a Zoom class at Tim's brain injury program. They taught everyone about medieval sword play and did lots of demonstrations. I was struck again by the realization that Elijah is a natural born teacher. He instantly figured out how to reach everyone through Zoom, answer their questions, explain everything on the appropriate level and make them feel included. It was a lovely thing to watch. I do hope in the coming years That he finds his place in the world. I know he will; it just is going to take lots of time, faith and a lot of pushing guidance.

Elijah has applied for a few jobs in the last two weeks. He is concentrating on high-end grocery stores right now (because he wants to work where masks are highly respected). He was rejected by a few, but one of his applications hasn't been kicked back yet. He is also working more for Grandma. She has lots of yard work for him to do. Lastly, he is starting to think about learning to drive. I am not sure he is there yet, but his mind is starting to think about it on a routine basis. I need to constantly remind myself that we do not have to follow the world's timeframe and expectations. I see so many sad stories about FASD young adults whose lives unravel into nightmares. I think so much of it happens because they and their families give in to the world's demands to grow up in a certain amount of time. Slow and steady, we will get him to adulthood and in one piece.

The bottom pictures are from a few months ago, but I don't think I ever posted them. This was a fun photo shoot in the River Arts District. There is a bit too much going on in the background, but it was an interesting location. 

I am going to reveal my daughter's first name today, since I need to start working on her transcript on my blog. I like to have their real names in those posts. Her name is Rebekah Anne.

Rebekah Anne is enjoying her college course (Art Appreciation). It is a bit more heavy in reading than she expected and she is a slow reader, but she is pulling an A in this online course. She is signing up for another online course this summer. She finishes her high school Sign Language on Tuesday, and her Latin and English IV courses are well on their way to completion.  

I can't believe my baby girl graduates at the end of May. What an incredible journey it has been. 

Blessings, Dawn