Goodbye 2020

     What a strange year. Earthquakes, pandemic, Trump..... This has been such an awful year for so many people. Over 350,000 people have died, people have lost their jobs, their homes, their health. We've been so fortunate in that we still have our jobs. It's still all so weird. We can't go to Florida, we don't go anywhere or do anything. We just stay home. 

    The pandemic has been good for CNA business, we can teach online, we've saved money not having to do clinical. My biggest issue with this year has been suffering though another year of an incompetent, narcissistic asshole of a president.  I cannot believe 40% of the population and 70% of Utah thinks he is a good president. It boggles my mind. All these people dying and he is out golfing. The immunizations are developed and being administered but the federal government has done nothing to help the states. It is a 100% cluster. I am waiting for January 20th and Biden becoming president. I know he can't fix the last 4 years but hopefully he will move things in a positive direction. 

Goodbye 2020!!!

Christmas Break

Sean has not been wearing his bands and the orthodontist gave up on hoping he would ever wear his bands. He put an appliance in his mouth that looks like little hydraulic lifts. It looks so uncomfortable. He couldn't talk well or eat for a day but he really didn't complain and now he's fine.

 

Sean out boarding with friends

Sean is rearranging his room on a weekly basis.

Kylie and Brie spent two nights. Jennie and Ryan came over and took them to the skate board park and out to dinner for Christmas.

 

The neighbors were festive

The neighborhood had everyone put four bags with candles on their sidewalks and then people drove around and looked at all the lights. We didn't drive around but we walked across the street to the Earnshaws so Mao Yu could see Santa. (Tay's grandfather)

Sean had Detliff, Andrew and Jacob over for a day of skateboarding. 

Every year I seem to get a little less Christmas spirit We put up the tree but we took it down the day after Christmas. Don wrapped one of Sean's presents but I didn't even wrap anything. I left all Carter's presents in their Kohl's plastic delivery bags. I didn't even buy gift cards I just send money through Venmo or Zelle. I didn't send AJ a gift because I told them I would pay for their mover. There's no way with Steph pregnant and AJ working so much that they could move without help and COVID limits are ability to help.

 

Cleaning

This is the hall storage closet and it was a mess. I cleaned out all my kitchen cabinets and organized everything. It looks great but I found mouse poop! Don said he heard a mouse in the wall and then I heard one. Yuck! Don put mouse poison in the garage and a couple in the house. I haven't seen any signs or heard any mice noises since. 

After I cleaned and got rid of junk.

Sean wanted a skate board. He helped Jacob build a computer and Jacob helped him build a skate board.

We still haven't replaced the fence between our yard and the neighbors that came down in the wind storm. Don and Sean worked on digging up the old post. Someday we will get around to replacing it.

 

Presents for me

I decided to buy a new sewing machine. It is such a nice machine. My mom would have loved it. I feel kind of guilty for having a machine so much nicer than she ever had when she was a great seamstress and I am not. My mom could sew anything. I can sew most things if it involves a straight line and few pieces.

I made a couple blankets and then moved on to pillow cases. these are the cases I made for Wesley for his birthday.

Then I moved on to mask. I didn't know what I was going to do with mask. I asked Mao Yu if she wanted to give her kids mask for Christmas. She said yes wo we made 50 mask.

Mao Yu learned to sew.

I told Don I was thinking about buying a new couch and he said he wanted a new bed. I said I want an electric bed so I can sit up to read. We looked at beds at RC Wiley and then bought one online. It weighed over 400 pounds so I paid for the "White Glove" service so that they would bring it upstairs and set it up.

Don was not looking forward to hauling our old bed out to the dump. It's a pretty nice mattress only about five years old, no stains. I decided to put it on Facebook Marketplace for free. I think used mattresses are gross but I sleep on used mattresses in hotels. I had 10 people who wanted it. I gave it to the first person that showed up. It was kind of heartbreaking. They said their mattress had such a big hole in it that they couldn't sleep on it. 

Here they are hauling off the mattress so Don didn't have to. Carter got a new mattress from his dad for Christmas so we still have to haul his old mattress off. His mattress is not worth giving away.

Sitting up watching TV in our split king automatic bed. I got a soft mattress, Don got a firm one and we can each put our side in whatever position we want. I really like it. I may have to get one for the beach.

 

Online school

 

Sean made honor roll last semester. He worked kind of hard. It's pretty amazing that he can get all his school work done in usually 2 to 3 hours a day. What the heck are they doing at school all day.

This term has had it's challenges. The district had him in 3 different Utah Studies classes. I told the teacher he had last term and she said just have him pick one and don't worry about the others. She emailed me that she was frustrated with the way they were adding and taking kids out of classes. Out of the blue they took Sean out of the class he was doing and kept him in the class he had never logged in. This seems easy enough to solve but his Utah Studies didn't have the power to add him to her class but said she was happy to have him back. His counselor couldn't add him because Mrs. Lott's class was full. I had to call the principal and I'm not going to lie, she was not very friendly. She told me we had put Sean in two different types of classes that made it difficult. I told her the district had screwed it up from the beginning and she basically said tough he has to stay in the class he is in and I said no he doesn't. I told her to call Mrs. Lott. A couple hours later the principal sent me a non apology letter saying she didn't know why Sean's schedule had gotten messed up but he was back in Mrs. Lott's class.  I can't even imagine how screwed the kids are who's parents aren't checking their work everyday. I know Sean would have never even noticed that his Utah Studies class disappeared he just would have quit doing it.

Another one of Sean's assignments that made me smile.

Is it ok to lie?

In the article Is It Ever Okay to Tell a Lie? Here's a formula for calculating the risk involved in telling a lie by Suzanne Degges-White Ph.D it says that you can lie as long as it’s to protect someone's feelings.

 I don’t agree with this because you want to tell the honest truth. If you tell a little lie you might have to keep on lying from then on. The article says  “Plus, once you tell a lie (say, claiming LeBron James is your cousin), you might have to tell more lies to keep up the charade” Sometimes one lie can lead to the next and then you will have to keep lying about something and once you get caught it’s not going to be fun.

Lying to help your friend out maybe ok but just flat lying for no reason or to keep yourself from trouble is not OK.. When I was little I would ask my mom where I came from. Since I was adopted my told me that I came from my biological mom’s tummy and then I would get mad. Eventually my mom said “you came from my tummy” so that I would quit being mad.

But even when my mom lied it still wouldn’t change anything cause I already knew I was adopted and somehow I knew I didn’t grow in her tummy. About a year later when I was five  I asked my mom if she would tell me the truth no matter what. She said yes. I asked her whose tummy I came from and she said Jennie’s.  Then I asked my mom again if she would always tell me the truth. She said yes. I then asked her if  Santa was real and she said no.

 After that I went around and told everyone that Santa wasn’t real. I I told people in my kindergarten class, I told people in the line waiting to see Santa. When that happened my mom told me that I can’t say that so I was confused because it was the truth. And I think white lies are dumb because the truth will set you free :D.