Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Three days in Virginia's Life (Such As It Is!)

Yesterday: Sunday

The Reilly Band, the Christian symphonic-rock group from Philadelphia who gave a concert at Metro Life on Saturday, is helping to lead worship. Two awesome violinists, a married couple, add such a new dimension to familiar worship songs. After the singing time, Thad and I head to the Sunday School rooms, since it is our month to help out. Then home for lunch and nap time. I still haven't finished my quarterly grade reports for the English class I teach at our home school co-op, so I frantically try to finish these up. In the late afternoon, Julia, who has been sick with a sore throat and fever, asks me to take her to CentraCare. We arrive 15 minutes before closing and after a perfunctory exam (and no tests), the doctor diagnoses her with H1N1 and prescribes Tamiflu. By the time we get home with the prescription and eat a quick dinner, I'm starting to feel sick myself and I go straight to bed -- without finishing up checking the kids' homework and making sure their backpacks are ready for classes on Monday morning.

Today: Monday

Today started very early -- because just after midnight Ben woke up vomiting. We cleaned up the floors, made a little bed for him on our floor, and attempted to finish out a night of sleep. Fortunately, he didn't have any more trouble. By the time I finally "came to" in the morning, I decided to stay home from co-op classes with the five younger kids and not risk infecting anyone. But I had less than an hour to get their completed homework ready to send in with Lydia, print out the new homework packets for my own class, and find a DVD to send in for my class to watch in my absence. Later in the morning, I read four chapters of Captive in Kangaroo Springs by Robert Elmer (the second book of his Adventures Down Under series about Australia in the 1800's) and a chapter from A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond. After lunch, I helped the younger girls clean their bedroom while the boys did their own. Julia still felt horrible, so Thad asked me to take her into our family doctor's office. I dropped her off at 3 PM, and he met her there since she didn't want to be alone. This doctor diagnosed her with strep throat, took her off Tamiflu, and put her on antibiotics. Let's hope this works! For dinner, I fixed "fake steaks" (On-Cor salisbury steaks -- cheap and not too high in fat), baked potatoes, and fresh green beans. My daughter Mary stopped by to give me a belated birthday present (a book of hymn histories with a CD) and I gave her a card and present for her husband Ryan, whose birthday in Wednesday. Then my real work began. It usually takes me at least two hours every Monday evening to sort through all of the kids' homework, put the old stuff in archive notebooks, label the new stuff with names and due dates and put them in their "current week" notebooks, etc.

Tomorrow: Tuesday

Tomorrow, we've got to start hustling on getting the week's school assignments done. It looks like a heavy week for some of them! In the evening, I'm supposed to go to the YMCA for the first team meeting for Get Fit. I signed up for this 15 week program, sponsored by Channel 6 and the local YMCAs, to help lose weight and get in shape through diet and exercise. Our team (just one of at least 10 at our local Y and who knows how many in Orlando) will meet once per week, and we're supposed to work out on our own three times per week. And we're supposed to really watch what we eat. OK, so I have about 70 pounds to lose (eventually) and my body fat is a whopping 43%, but I'll be happy to lose even 20 by the time this is over. (Even that will be a miracle.) My big thought about tomorrow, though, is that it's the one year anniversary of the day when my dad was hit by a motorcycle and airlifted to the Shock Trauma hospital in Baltimore. I am SO THANKFUL to report that one year later, he seems to have made a complete recovery. At age 73, he still works full-time in a high level computer job, plus works weekends as a security guard. There is no stopping that man! I sure do love my Dad!

Peace,
Virginia