Life With Boys

So, yes I’ve been a bit MIA lately — so let’s see if I can catch everyone up.

Elementary School Update — The boys started school 8/11 and we’re already having parent teacher conferences next week. Morgan has been in trouble at least once a week for “excessive talking” — huge surprise there. Tyler is buried in homework every night and there are many times I wonder if he’s getting anywhere. Where he once struggled in reading he now feels completely overwhelmed by math. Any tips on how to get a stubborn, auditory learner to miraculously learn math facts I’m all ears. Morgan is coming along as a reader and things seem to come more naturally to him. Their attitudes are so different — if I show Morgan where he has made a mistake he’ll tell me “Thanks for pointing that out” (not kidding he really said that). If I even try to tell Tyler anything he’ll burst into tears and melt down. but that is the two of them in general — Morgan bounces, Tyler cracks.

Lindenwood Update — I have ONE more class session this quarter and I can’t wait. This has been my least favorite class so far. The workload has been manageable, but the purpose of the course is still a bit foggy to me. Then, I’ll have class twice a week October through December and I’ll BE DONE! Next quarter I’ll take my last cluster (desktop publishing using In Design & Photoshop and Internet databases) and my “capstone” which is the thesis type class. I’m not sure who wants me to be done more, me, the boys or Matt.

Beck Family Update — Mindy has passed her Florida real estate exam and is selling timeshares in Orlando. She and Brian officially divorced in early August. She’s been so strong and I’m so proud of all she has overcome. My dad has sold the Utah house and is living full-time with Marilyn in Mesquite, Nevada. (He tells me it’s hot there, duh!) So now I have no Utah home to go home to and it’s a bit sad. (Yes Amy I know I can stay with you for any extended period — so long as you don’t move again anytime soon.)

I am my worst enemy update — So, sometime this spring I decided to move my photo archives around and in the process managed to lose EVERYTHING. So, I have been reloading photos from old CD backups and restored what I can from the hard drives and memory cards. The bad thing about all of that is that at one point I had 798 GB of photos to sort through (it found every image that had ever been anywhere). I have found a program (Visual Similarity Duplicate Image Finder) that will go through and find many of the duplicates, but it is a time consuming project. So much so, I’m still working on it everyday (especially considering I have all of my Grandma project images, most of Mindy’s photos, all the negatives I had scanned from the Beck family, Matt’s family tree project and countless clip art images for scrap booking all in one big lump). At this point I still cannot find even one photo of Morgan’s first birthday, his birth announcement and lots of other stuff. So, if you think about it can you send me anything you have? In the meantime as I get things reorganized I’m uploading them to Photobucket so I can maybe keep this from happening again.

In addition to the photo project I also did a several week hunt for the headrests for Matt’s truck (which we took out to accommodate the car seats.) I finally did find them (after I cleaned the garage, made Matt clean up the shop and went through every nook and cranny in the house.) I knew exactly where they were before we remodeled the basement. (Turns out they were in the only box in the basement without a label — which if you’ve seen my basement is saying something, I’m a bit of label addict.) All of this turning the house upside-down resulted in the need to get a pile of stuff up on eBay.

The Garden — Now that the hottest summer I’ve ever lived through is over it’s time to return to the garden and pull out all the dead plants that didn’t make it. While I was at it I decided the brick retaining wall would be better if I added another layer. Of course you can’t find the same color of bricks anymore so I stole the gray ones from the back garden, put them on the bottom and put the pretty ones back on top. I still need to glue them down, but I think it looks much more polished. Now, the back garden looks horrible as I’ve robbed Peter to pay Paul with plants. And I’ve told Matt I will find a very inexpensive way to replace the stolen bricks in the back (hello craigslist). Parts of the yard are coming back together, but it’s a struggle that I can only overcome a few sweaty hours at a time.

Callie Cat — Callie has gotten very smart in her old age. (We figure she’s about 16 now.) She has learned Matt is far more dependable for breakfast service than I am. And he is NOT happy about it, but I am.

Everything Else — When we’re not working on one of the projects we still need to make sure we all get fed, dishes and clothes get washed, boys are entertained and resolving whatever else comes up on a a daily basis. I’d be lost without Matt and all the pieces he manages to pick up along the way. OK — think that’s enough to overwhelm you all with for now. Thank you for your patience and know that I’m thinking of you.