This week we were talking with my older son about his future. Although he is only twelve I think it is important to start him thinking about what he wants to do after high school. Right now he is convinced that he want attend an online university and live at home forever. I have no problem with him getting an online teaching degree or whatever degree he chooses. I do want him to see that there is a world beyond our house and that he will one day want to explore it. Right now he prefers the safety of living with his family and sees no reason for that to change. I suspect that once he becomes a teenage he will see the world differently and won’t want to live with his parents forever.

Last summer was the first year that I did any sort of dehydrating of food. I ended really liking this process of food preservation and wished that I had learned about it earlier. It is a great way to preserve food that you might not have time or space to freeze or can. I found myself thinking on several occasions that I really could use a second dehydrator. This week I decided to put a down payment on an Excalibur dehydrator. This is the best dehydrator on the market and is made in the USA! It also comes with a ten year warranty. I cannot wait to get and hope to have it paid for well in advance of the upcoming gardening season.

It occurred to me today that it has been just about two years since my husband was in a serious car accident. It is funny how time flies and yet the experience seems just as fresh as yesterday. I vividly remember getting a call from the people on the scene that he was being cut out of the car and they may be calling for air ambulance service. This ended up not being the case and he was treated at our local hospital despite being very injured. I don’t think I will ever shake the feeling of fear when the phone rings and someone is late getting home in my house. Whenever he is late coming home from work I can’t help but think back to that day and start worrying. Thankfully he is fine and here with me which is truly amazing.

We are in the second week of a germfest at our house. For some reason we seem to keep passing the same cold around our house. One of us get sicks and then the next and so on and so on. This is our second round of it all. I have cleaned and sanitized everything and yet we are now sick once again. I suppose it is just the time of year for this sort of thing. It is getting old…I feel like we have been sick since Christmas in one form or another.

We are a family that makes conscious choices to live without certain luxuries such as cable television and cell phones. For the most part I haven’t found this to be a problem. This weekend I did realize that having a cell phone could be useful in an emergency. I went to the mall to pick up a couple of things. When I returned to my vehicle I found that my key would not turn the ignition. I tried repeatedly to no avail. It occurred to me that if I had a cell phone I could call my husband to ask his advice. In truth if I had a cell phone it probably would have had dead cell batteries because we would never remember to charge it. Nonetheless for a moment I did wish I had a cell phone on me. After some thinking I went back in the mall and bought some lock deicer which ultimately did the trick. Hopefully these frigid temperatures we are experiencing are temporary.

I am in love… with a kitchen appliance. This weekend I took ownership of a kitchen appliance that I have drooled after for sooooo…. very…… long. I am the proud owner of a new Vitamix. I purchased it on QVC (something I NEVER do) via a payment plan and pre-order discount that put this pricey gadget in hands at long last. I save about $100 buying it early and from Qvc as opposed to the Vitamix website. I have to say that this appliance does EVERYTHING it claims to do. I had my doubts that it would live up to the hype but it absolutely does and then some. It is made in the USA which is AWESOME! I cannot believe I waited so long to buy one but am thrilled to have it and also to feel like I got it for a bargain:)

Next week my younger brother will be getting his first dog. He is beyond excited and is trying to prepare for every possibility. He has never had a pet before and doesn’t have children which makes this dog something very special. It is funny to listen to him as he describes what he envisions as their idyllic life together. I have gently tried to remind him that he should keep his expectations reigned in because things don’t always turn out like you plan. My brother is strong headed and refuses to accept that his dog will be anything less than perfect. I pointed out to him several problem pets we have had over they years but he would hear none of it. I might as well have been talking about medical malpractice insurance california for all he cared or listened. I wasn’t trying to dampen his excited but simply to point out that adopted pets from shelters or anywhere for that matter sometimes have issues and you have to be ready to work through those issues. My brother is already envisioning the dog camping, hiking, and biking nicely alongside him and never needing a leash or having an issue. I on the other hand have had dogs that got sick while camping because they ate everything in sight and would run off the minute they could get off the leash. The same dog barked so much we almost got thrown out of the campground. It isn’t always sunshine and roses with animals.

I can’t remember the last time I spent this long in bed. My body hurts just from all the laying I have been doing. My youngest son has been sleeping with me and he hasn’t moved from our bed for more that 5 minutes in 4 days. My husband has thus far avoided getting the flu by staying away from us and sleeping in our youngest son’s room. I have been very thankful for the new Kindle that Santa Claus brought me because it has kept me from going crazy. My little guy has watched the Wonder Pets non-stop on Netflix since becoming ill. Watching hours and hours of the Wonder Pets will make anyone a little stir crazy but top that off with the flu and you have a recipe for pushing you over the edge. Reading has kept me sane and allowed me to block out the Wonder Pets successfully for the last four days.

Prior to this week I had spent a great deal of time cleaning our house in preparation for visitors. My brother was to come to our house with his girlfriend to introduce her to the family. I very much wanted to meet her because I knew that I would love her. Anyone who loves my brother and his quirky ways and funny shirts is going to fit right into our family. As it turned out the children and I came down with the flu and have been very sick for the last 4 days. I urged my brother not to come to our house because I didn’t want them getting sick. I feel really bad about not being able to meet his girlfriend but I know that we will get to at some point in the future. I spent so much time worrying about making a good impression on her and cleaning my house for naught.

Four days ago my children and I came down with the flu. There is not a doubt in my mind that it is the flu and we have been very ill. I have been completely wiped out which is odd for me. We haven’t left the bed for the last three days. My energy is at zero and it is work for me to climb the stairs. I realized that I have some deadlines that need to be met and bound by duty I am going to plunge forward and complete my work. It may mean I take a few naps in the meantime but I will get my work done and then I will be able to laze about. I am hoping we are turning the corner and that our energy will start to come back very soon.

Over the holiday vacation we will be meeting my younger brother’s girlfriend for the first time. I very much want to make a good impression on her because she means so much to my brother. He is in his mid-thirties and this is his first serious relationship. We are in the process of working on our house and I am hoping she is not turned off by our state of disarray in various areas of the house. I would love for the house to be completely finished in order to highlight our amish furniture but it won’t be. There are several painting projects that still need to be completed and this takes time to do the right way. I just have to hope that she sees where our home is headed and focuses more on knowing us as a family rather than judging us by our home.

I am struggling with liking someone who will likely be in my life for a long time. It is one of those situations where someone very near to me as chosen a life partner that just boggles my mind. I know that there must be something in this person that endears them to my family member but it escapes me. While I don’t know this person very well as of yet my encounters with them have left me troubled for the future happiness of my loved one. Thankfully I am not alone in my viewpoint and my concerns are shared by others who have spent time with them as a couple. I can only hope that things grow and progress positively in the future. I hate thinking that my family member is going to spend a lifetime in a one sided relationship attending to the every need and whim of someone who does not reciprocate.

My husband has been at his job for several years. You would think that this wouldn’t matter when it comes to taking time off but it does. Despite having held his job for quite a while his office uses seniority to determine who gets time off and when. This can be a bit of a problem when the holidays rolls around. Everyone wants time off at Christmas to spend time shopping and visiting with family. My husband usually doesn’t even bother to put in a time off request because he knows it will be denied. His colleagues may be using their time to buy cao cigars and wine while he toils away at his desk but he doesn’t care. This holiday season is different because he needs time off for doctor’s appointments. Today there was a big discussion in his office because no one wanted to cover his time off to attend an appointment. Somehow I think there should be an exception for health issues over holiday shopping. This should be especially true in the case of someone who never uses sick time and is generally healthy.

Tomorrow my oldest son will turn 12 years old. It just doesn’t seem possible that he is that old. I never understood until I had children the notion of time just flying past. It seems as though it was only yesterday that I held his tiny little person for the first. I remember bringing him home from the hospital on Christmas Day and thinking what a true gift he was. His presence in my life has added such depth and love that cannot be described. He is now growing into a young man and continues to fill my life and heart with such joy and pride. I cannot tell you how blessed I am to be his mother.

My parents live in a very rural area which makes life a bit different for them. They have no cell phone reception within miles of their house. The can’t get high speed internet service that is reliable. Their television programming choices are limited to satellite service providers. It would be so nice if they could just get a decent high speed internet provider in their area. As it stands they only have dial-up which is almost impossible to use because it is so slow. They have very nice desktop computers but are never able to use them to their full potential because of their lagging internet service. My folks love the privacy and beauty of where they live but there are times when they realize that comes at a higher price. We almost considered building a home next to them but decided against it because of the inconvenience it would pose for many of the services we rely on so much like high speed internet service. My children would have serious problems attending a cyber school via a dial-up internet connection.

This is the time of year when we start to look at our finances more closely. With tax season just around the corner we always seem to find ourselves being a bit retrospective about where we have been financially and where we are headed. We have paid off a significant amount of debt in the last few years and our now focusing on bigger plans. Our goal is to pay off our mortgage as quickly as possible. Right now we are trying to decide if investing in our retirement accounts is a better plan that paying off the mortgage. I wish there were a clear plan placed before us because it would surely make things simpler.

I haven’t spent much time around my sister-in-law and am always learning something new about her. Today we visited around the Thanksgiving table and I was surprised to learn she loves football. No one in my family likes to watch sports. Having two brothers you would expect someone in my family to have taken an interest in some sport over the years but they never did. I was really surprised to learn that my sister-in-law knew quite a bit about several sports and even has a dashboard scorecard. She was a little antsy during the afternoon because my parents live in a remote area and she could get access to a means of finding out the score of a football game she wanted to watch. I couldn’t relate to her desire to watch a football game but I was amused to learn this detail about her.

Tomorrow the stores will be crowded with people hoping to score Black Friday bargains. I will not be one of them. In my forty plus years on this earth I have never gone out shopping on Black Friday. There are people I know and love who approach this day like it was a sport. They devise plans and lists of what stores they intend to visit first and what time they want to arrive. I cannot conceive of myself ever doing this. The idea of pushing and shoving through crowds repulses me beyond belief. I know of no one who has actually “scored” the incredible bargains that they set out to acquire. For me shopping for home is safer and more pleasant. If something isn’t in stock I haven’t lost anything except time and my patience remains intact.

Yesterday I tried my hand at running on my treadmill. I have never ran in my life. What I was actually doing were high intensity interval sprints. I was a bit concerned about how I might feel the day after my this activity because I have a bit of a bad back. It was suggested to me a couple of years ago that I might need spinal surgery but I have never pursued that option. Instead I have focused on getting stronger and healthier. I was surprised to find out today when I awoke that I was not completely stiff and sore as I expected I would be. I am going to try to work sprints into my weekly exercise routine a couple of time of a weeks. This is supposed to be a good exercise for building strength and endurance without fatiguing your body.

As you might have read I have been following a strict Paleo diet for the last 3 weeks. In that time I have felt simply amazing and would not want to go back to a standard american diet again. That does not mean that I don’t have my weaknesses. The holiday that I love above all in terms of food is Thanksgiving. There was a part of me that was going to forego the holiday food and stick to my Paleo diet. I decided at the last minute that this is but one day a year and that I should give myself the freedom to experience this one day. Tomorrow I will be back to Paleo and am fine with it. I have had my turkey and gravy and multiple desserts and it was good but not spectacular. I don’t feel I am missing on out anything the other 364 days of the year.