Life is Like a Ping Pong Game

Lately life has felt somewhat like a ping pong game lately.

One child changed schools. A good move but with a couple of challenges. 

Another child is trying to finish up training at job corps but missed getting his certification by 20 points. It required 700 of 1,000 points on the test, and he got 680. Someone stole his USB with all his study material on it.

One child who had been doing so well is starting to act out at the risk of losing the privileges he's gained. The privileges have made him feel entitled and resulted in bratty and mouthy behavior.

One child who has been silently defiant has started pushing to work things out because there's a club starting Monday that she wants to be in.

One child (who is pregnant) and  her husband, have been evicted from the house they rented from his mom. I've been helping her pack up and move. He's lived in that house for a long time so has accumulated a lot of stuff. They are living in one room with his dad and step mom and putting their stuff in storage. I'm not sorry to see them leave the house. It had a lot of mold and mildew and is close to an incinerator so got really dirty as a result.

Another child broke up with his girlfriend of almost a year and a half. Yep. They were cute together but something happened and they are no longer together.

Same child is trying to figure out what direction to go in life and is considering police academy.

So, back and forth, forward and backward, up and down. Like ping pong. A game we've been playing the last two days for stress relief.

 Table was a little dusty from not using it very much.

 We've been clearing out and changing around the family room. The wall to the left in the above picture (out of sight) used to have one cabinet and three bookcases. It now has one cabinet like the one behind Jasmine. There used to be a second cabinet behind Jasmine, but it got moved to a bedroom and the game bookcase shoved in its place. I plan to put a futon couch along the space I cleared, but that is going to have to wait due to a new air conditioning coil and a couple other major expenses that came up unexpectedly.

My work corner (behind me) is still a mess although I haven't worked at my desk and desktop computer since June when a computer place "fixed" my computer. It resulted in me having all new programs I don't like and losing all my internet bookmarks and past e-mails I had saved. So I've just been working on a laptop. An old one at that.

 We've never used the fireplace, but it gives the room some class :)

 Kaleb is sitting on a toybox that was my toybox growing up. It used to have a large paper organizer on it. That went out to the shed. The toybox has some random toys in it and also stuff for Jessica's baby and other future grandchildren.

 There isn't a lot of extra room when the ping pong table is up.

 You can see behind Kayla there is a small chair by the fireplace. I got it at thrift for $5. We have a couple other small chairs in one of the sheds. One is over 100 years old and belong to my grandmother. I need to bring it in and probably repaint it. The bear on the chair was bought at Harrod's in London in 1998. (The year is on its foot) We were stationed there.

Anyone else feel like life is like ping pong right now?