It was all incredibly low key. I walked into the gym, told them my name, handed over my paperwork, and received my vaccination card. Then I was directed to one of four tables, where I sat and raised my sleeve all the way up to my shoulder. The nurse quickly swab-sanitized my skin and then 1-2-3, stabbed the needle into the curve of my shoulder. This was no gentle poke; it was a STAB. The nurse briefly instructed me to go sit for 15 minutes before leaving. That was it. I walked across the gym and sat in a cluster of chairs positioned 6 feet apart for my allotted 15 minutes, thinking that there should be some sort of fanfare for this momentous event! Not that I particularly like fanfare in general; the atmosphere was just very...everyday-ish. But I got my shot! Even without any pageantry, getting the COVID-19 vaccine was a nifty slice of history to experience firsthand and I want to remember it.
The next school district clinic for round two of the vaccine will be held in two weeks. My arm ached for two days, but thankfully that was my only discomfort. Jeff and I were especially glad not to have any more intense post-shot side effects because we had a cross country meet in Yakima the very next day, and we needed all of our wits and energy.
Showing off my cute bandaid! It was actually really hard to raise the long sleeve of my 100 day dress up high enough for the nurse's liking. If I had known she'd want to poke my actual shoulder, I'd have worn short sleeves!
A few journal excerpts from the rest of the week:
Monday, March 8th: Tonight after dinner, Amber picked up The Cat in the Hat and started reading it. For real reading, with her finger on each word as she read it. Major milestone!! I haven't been working on sight words or reading with her at all lately-- we were way better at working on that stuff back in the fall, but we haven't done it in the new year. She is still learning though! It was so cute and fun to sit by her while she carefully read each word. Every now and then she'd pause and say "what's this word, mom?" And I told her. She made it through half of the book before we had family prayer, when we had her put a bookmark into her book. She went to her room to read more after we prayed. Amber is not sounding out words much right now--it's mostly sight words and she gets super frustrated when I try to guide her through sounding out a new word--but she is learning little by little. I guess Read Across America Day and Dr. Seuss week at school last week inspired her to try reading for real at last! Amber has always enjoyed paging through books, even chapter books, to scrutinize the pictures. Now she's starting to look at the words. Go Amber! Our anti-performing wiggly wild child is actually starting to read!
Wednesday, March 10th: Leftovers for dinner again: leftover life is the only life! Haha. Rose had her first primary girls activity in a year tonight! She was so happy to have that time with her friends. Jay had a good time at his church young men's activity tonight too. I am so endlessly thankful for their kind leaders for giving their time and energy to serve and help the kids feel part of such a good group.
Friday, March 12th. Scripture study thoughts: Mosiah 4:11-12 says that in order to "always rejoice and be filled with the love of God...and [to] grow in the knowledge of him" and to be forgiven for our sins, we need to do four important things:
- Always remember God
- Be humble
- Pray every day
- Stay firm in the faith, aka endure in faith to the end.
This formula for feeling joy, God's love, and forgiveness is simple. Just always remember him, stay humble, pray daily, and keep the faith! Even though the steps are simple, it doesn't mean that doing those things regularly will be easy. It takes constant vigilance and consistent spiritual work to always remember him. Daily scripture study is spiritual work that helps us always remember him. It takes spiritual work to repent every day and turn towards God more fully. It takes all kinds of fortitude to stay humble (and patient) and to pray sincerely every day (more than once). Along with all of those simple spiritual practices, it takes strength to resist evil, even the little bits of it, and stay firm in the faith. Doing all of this regular spiritual work helps us stay steadfast and faithful.
[end journal entries]
The budding reader.
After nearly four years of living with a clear window in the middle of our shower and doing battle with a flimsy flappy plastic curtain, I finally frosted the glass using a roll of window frosting cling. I've heard of window treatments and window washing, but window frosting was a new one!
Reading...or reading some words and inventing the rest of the words based on the pictures. It's a start!
THE BUTTER CARNAGE IS CONSTANT.
We get such poofy perfect clouds here in March.
BEWARE! THE BUTTER MURDERER LURKS UNIDENTIFIED.
Artsy Amby.
Rose got this cool tile game for Christmas and she finally let us play it this week. It's called Stello, and it is just as much of a brain twister as I thought it would be when I wrapped it for Rose at Christmastime.
Cross country meet in Yakima
Spring is coming, but the canal won't be filled for another few weeks.
These cute sad-eyed heifers perked up when I jogged past their poopy pen along the canal road.
We hosted our second home cross country dual meet on Saturday, and the cross country siblings came out in full force. These are siblings of our current runners as well as our own three kids. When I saw them all playing during the race, I realized that the xc sibs are our future team. Yes!
After the cross country meet, Amber was overjoyed to wheel a wagon of gear back to Jeff's classroom and take home a big piece of butcher paper from his large supply wheel. Amber used up two entire markers coloring in her picture.
Rock, paper, scissors with Daddy after church. Amber could play this (or any game) on repeat all day long. She loves games.
Jay has been running three miles six days a week, so he takes his Sundays of rest very seriously. Reading in bed is his definition of relaxation.
Today is day 13 of my 100 day dress challenge. I still like the dress, it's still comfy, and I really like not figuring out what to wear each day. My least favorite part of the challenge is taking a picture of myself in the same dress every day. I am not big on accessorizing, so I basically look the same in every single picture. I managed to get Jeff to take a picture of me today, and he enjoys taking pictures when I least expect it. I used this for today's picture because it looks the most different from all of the past 12 days, haha.
And last but not least, Jeff set up the second bunk bed in the girls room this afternoon. When we had the two beds stacked and Jeff started putting on the rails and ladder, he realized that he did it backwards and the ladder went on the opposite side. That required a major dismantling that was not in the cards today, so we unstacked the bunk beds and the girls get even less floorspace for the next little while. They have never had "normal" beds before, so they are actually quite happy about the arrangement, in spite of how smooshed together they are. I'm starting to wonder if matching bedspreads need to be our next girls room improvement...
1 comment:
That Amber-artist is undaunted by extreme canvas-to-marker size ratio -- She's a mural painter in the making! I'd like to see what could she do with a big paintbrush and a retaining wall!
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