Crazy Week

Jessica and I only have one more Friday of classes. They are six weeks in the fall and six weeks in the spring. We are already talking about what classes to take in the spring. She will have a baby to consider! 

Special effect setting on my camera.

Jasmine continues to feel more relaxed in her new school. She is still struggling with the work, and three of her grades are low, but much less stress and more realistic expectations.

I was able to go to Jessica's ultra sound. Everything is fine, and she is at 30 weeks. It's going to be a large baby. 

Me as shepherd (like chaplain) for our American Heritage Girls

We are reading through the book of Proverbs this month as we do every October. I got tired of breakfast food and made them a totally sugary treat at 5 a.m.

Here's my facebook post for that day:

Peanut butter and Proverbs
Proverbs day 23 Commit yourself to instruction listen carefully to words of knowledge.

What they are eating: Mom's Peanut butter Fix (If you don't eat sugar, don't even read this)

1c sugar 

1c light corn syrup (light color, not calories!)
2c peanut butter 

4c corn flakes or cheerios

Combine the sugar and syrup in a pan. Heat stirring constantly until it boils or your arm falls off. Boil one minute. Add the peanut butter, stirring constantly. When the peanut butter is blended, add the cereal. Gently stir into mixture. Remove from heat. Let sit one minute. Drop by spoonful onto the waxed paper or eat from the pan to save time.

Kaleb had a swim meet Saturday. It was a 10 and under meets so fairly short and not nearly as many kids and events as a full meet.

He swam a lap of the 200m relay, 50m front crawl, 50 m back crawl and 50 m breast stroke. There is only one distance for each age group. All the 10 year olds swam 50 meters of whichever of the four strokes they swam. ( and unders swam 25m of whatever stroke they swam). There were not other distances for them. That's why the 10 and under meets go quickly. 

He shaved seconds off of both front and back crawl from last time.

He was more confident too. The pool where he practices doesn't have start blocks so none of the kids who swim there know how to do starts. They lose a lot of time on them. He almost did a somersault off the block and went really deep on his starts, so he lost a lot of time.

They had him swim breast stroke, but he doesn't really know how to do it. I talked to him about touching with both hands at the same time, but he DQ'd for both his arm strokes and his kicks. He really wasn't ready. Six out of 13 in his group DQ'd.

Jasmine's band had a spaghetti dinner fundraiser at one of the very expensive restaurants in town. It was on Sunday when the restaurant is normally closed. The kids did all the work--cooking, seating, serving busing tables etc. Jasmine was a server, and she loved it.

It was a western theme for the band.

The $10 meal included salad, spaghetti, a roll and cake. It was really good.

Tyler took Jasmine and Kaleb to his church fall  festival. Our church had one too, but neither Rick nor I felt like going back for it once we got home from the spaghetti dinner.

This is only a bit of what we did this past week.

Right now I am car searching. I am driving a Ford Expedition with 258,000+ miles. I fear it will not make many more long trips. I may keep it for Ty.

I am between an X Terra (which is two hours away), a 2010 with 120,443 miles, so high mileage for $12,900 asking price and Ford Escape 2012 with 89,360 miles asking price $14,376.

Yes, I am going with a smaller car. Jasmine will be able to drive it. Rick has a van so we can trade off if I have more kids than seats.

Any thoughts? I am talking to the credit union about the loan this week. They have a 1.74% loan until the 31st. I have to be able to afford the payments since I don't have any book contracts in the works right now. If needs be, I'll  substitute teach, though I'd rather write. Pray me in a contract :) And consider sticking copies of some of my books in stockings this year. Seriously, Christian authors get from 25 cents to 75 cents a book most of the time so it takes a lot of books to add up.