Sunday, August 16, 2020

5 Year Journal Day 89

      Today's prompt is "Write down a few lines of a song or poem that you identify with today." 

     It is now 7:35 a.m. and I woke up a few minutes ago. I feel ok. I decided to go ahead and do my daily alpha-stim treatment while I am typing. Caleb is still asleep, and Bella is in bed. Yesterday I didn't accomplish as much as I wanted due to feeling weird throughout the day. I had an experience where my head felt like it was on fire. My face was burning! At another point I felt dizzy, and another I felt nauseous. I don't know what was causing these symptoms, but my Aunt Lisa says they are classic high blood pressure signs. I did not even think to check my blood pressure at the time, but I will try to remember in the future. I have a blood pressure cuff here at home. I can check it whenever I want. 

     I was able to work on my budget though. I am still as clueless as I was before, but now I have more documents that I have created. I am trying to see where I can cut spending. The thing is when you don't have a lot of money to begin with, there isn't a lot of spending to cut from. When I finally decided to step away from my spreadsheets, I came to the conclusion that I just have to take it day by day. I can only plan so much in advance. I have unexpected expenses all the time. I would like to be able to put away money to be able to cover these unexpected expenses, so I don't have to worry so much. 

     The holidays are coming up. I want to be prepared for them too. I am still in the middle of hurricane season. 

     I woke up being hot several times last night, and finally when I got up this morning. It's about that time of the month. I'm thinking that's what's causing my problems. The thermostat says it's 60 degrees in here. I put the air on 60 at night so I can sleep. It gets changed back to 70 when I get up. 

     Yeah so I was totally going to work on the living room before I started feeling wonky. I just couldn't get it together long enough to make anything happen. Maybe I will get some work done on it today. I hope so because the trash goes out tomorrow morning. I would love to have all this junk removed. There is just so much clutter. 

     Yesterday I got a text message from Bella's previous parent. He is a National Guardsman and will be in town soon. He wanted to know if he could stop by and see Bella! It's been 3 years since I adopted her from him, and we stay in contact. I send him a picture of her every so often. I know she will be happy to see him again. She loves her people. 

     Mathew's birthday is tomorrow. I wanted to buy a couple of gifts from Amazon, but my credit card was declined. I am broke. Sooo... that's that. I told Nichole if I couldn't get it in time for his birthday, I would get it for his promotion at the end of the month. 

     I cooked a small bag of scallops for the first time last night. Caleb liked them! It was his first time trying them. I should have looked up how to prepare them before I cooked them. They would have turned out better and not smelled so much. Oh well! 

     I have been using eye ointment with success. I requested that my eye doctor send in a prescription to the VA for them to fill so I won't have to keep paying for it out of pocket. I did the same thing with the dry mouth spray. I contacted my dentist and asked her to prescribe it for me. 

     This week coming up is going to be busy! School starts tomorrow. Caleb has an appointment in person with his therapist on Monday afternoon. I am taking 2 classes online on Tuesdays and Thursdays for the next 7 weeks. I have an in person appointment at the VA on Wednesday. Caleb has an in person appointment with his occupational therapist on Thursday. I have a phone appointment on Friday morning. That's the schedule before the school stuff is added! Oh my!

     I have already introduced Caleb to the idea about building a life raft from Gatorade Zero bottles, and he is excited! My Aunt Lisa sent us some books to use for the school year. They are the exact books that I wanted to buy but had no money to buy them! She is so awesome! Mariel thought of it too! 

     In our regular living, we discuss nutrition and diet. Caleb and I care for plants. We talk about our bodies and what is means to grow up. We discuss our feelings. I have goals for Caleb and rewards set up for good behavior over time. He is rewarded for doing work. I am thinking we are going to keep a journal together everyday to get his writing in. I keep my blog, and he can write using the same prompt. We are going to have music time, exercise time, and quiet time. We are going to learn math in ways that we use it everyday. We are going to study history from a variety of perspectives to give voices to the disenfranchised. We are certainly going to incorporate art into the schedule. He will still have his daily chores to do. We are going to have some home improvement projects we work on together. We are going to care for Bella together. It's going to be busy!

     So, I need to set up our working areas. It's important that I get the furniture where it belongs so we can sort through our belongings and store them properly. Caleb has a lot of National Geographic books that we are going to reference in his studies that I want to pull out of his room. I have to keep records, and I need space to keep things orderly. Aunt Lisa is sending over Mariel's iPad, and I want to use that as an educational tool. I want to keep an eye on it so it doesn't get broken. I might need to buy one of those bumper cases with a screen protector because Caleb is clumsy. 

     I paid for a year's subscription to Adventure Academy so Caleb can use that to learn as well. He has taken an interest in recording youtube videos of him playing his video games. I support him in expressing himself. I want to reinforce the importance of reading to him. I can not stress enough how important reading is. 

     I think he will have a superior year of learning ahead of him. I am going to try to make things as relevant and fun as possible. He is hyperactive and a hands on learner so it will be interesting as I learned from reading books. I will have to turn my knowledge into "doing" projects for him. I believe I can do it. I have faith that we will do well together. 

     I have to start saving to be able to pay for the end-of-year testing. I can't forget about that.  It's a state requirement. 

     I've almost completed my full one hour alpha-stim treatment! Awesome. One less thing to worry about later. I might have to do this every morning. It's a good way to start the day anyway. 

     I think tomorrow we will work on getting our school supplies labelled and placed in their correct places. We will not actually do school work tomorrow. The first day is usually setting up and getting to know each other anyway. So, we will get some paperwork done like a Code of Conduct Contract, put books away, label notebooks and folders and put away supplies... that sort of thing. Just going to ease into home schooling, not jump right in. 

     Well, I never did think of a way to answer the prompt today. My memory sucks! I use to know so many songs. I haven't been listening to my favorite music lately. It's not fresh in my mind. I'm going to get started on my morning routine, and start my day!

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