WEEK 2- DAY 10! How did we get this far?

October 30, 2020- The day before Halloween 2020.  There will be a NEW MOON tomorrow, SNOW and extremely cold TEMPS.  

Salem has canceled Halloween this year and our Governor in RI is begging us all to change our behavior to head off a major spike in Coronavirus cases right now.  

These are your headlines today...

 And now on to other news.


These days, the Dining Room is the 

Virtual Classrooom and Shared workspace for any other projects.  

Alex and I set up like this daily.  

We get rolling on our day between 7 - 7:20am with a coffee and tea (I drink coffee, he gets tea).  We take our medications together and then we both start our tasks.  His involves 4 hours of classes and mine varies from day to day.  Today (Friday) is COOKING DAY.  I am making a Beef Stew in the crockpot,  a Shepherd's pie and also some chicken dinners.  Some of these delicious dinners will go to Aunt Jean's house so we can try and keep her out of the kitchen while she is still healing from a surgical procedure.  A nice slow steady recovery without the interruption of a possible injury...I believe , is just what the doctor ordered!

This afternoon, I will pick-up Annika from work because it is heavily sleeting outside right now and she could not ride her bicycle in this weather.  She works until about 2/3pm today.  We are hoping to acquire some splendid cookies from Antonio's Bakery tomorrow.  They make these over-sized Sugar Cookies that have a soft cake-like texture and then they use this butter cream to create Halloween Images.  Oh my heavens, they are wonderful. I will absolutely share pictures of them this weekend!  As for today, Annika plans to bring Aunt Jean a pumpkin roll and possibly a chocolate brownie!  It usually depends on what they have available- the other customers have to take priority to the employees.  We will see her tonight and deliver these goodies.

Anyway...yesterday Annika had several appointments and so yesterday was really "Annika Day".  Jamie pitched in by taking a half day from work.  Sadly, when he arrived home, he was so exhausted that he fell asleep in his lounger while Alex worked on schoolwork.  Alex was kind of in the zone anyway- working on some CADD designs.  I ended up being really proud of Alex for working independently while I was gone and Jamie was asleep.  Later, my husband made up for his sleepiness by getting me the groceries for today's cooking.  It was very fortunate for me that he did or I would be out shopping in this dreadful weather!  

So yesterday was Annika's Photoshoot.  I snapped a few pictures out in Boston, but no spoilers.




The drive was long, DREARY with rain and fog... and so much traffic.  But the time with her gave us a chance to review some of the issues in her life with regards to school and money that she really needed guidance on.  Some of it was VERY HARD and emotional but we are always there to support one another and I am confident that as long as we keep those lines of communication open, it will only get better with time.  I was glad that we got the chance to talk about our opinions on whether or not medications are helpful for anxiety disorders, ADHD and Depression and how beneficial or not the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Approach has been.  We also discussed Politics, particularly the recent appointment of Amy Coney Barret as Justice to the Supreme Court to replace RBG.  

NO ONE CAN REPLACE RBG so now you know my opinion.  Annika has very Liberal beliefs which ought to be no surprise...in fact all of my family do.  My husband is so incensed by the political climate that he reached out to the Biden Campaign in RI to offer his services next TUESDAY on election day.  My son who is 12 years old answered a question today posed by his Computer Science Teacher who asked, "what do you believe is the biggest issue facing the United States today".  My son's answer was one word:

Trump

My 12 year old.

Ok, so we are very far left.  My son was pissed off because he saw a political yard sign on our lawn and got mad at whomever had put it there.  I had to explain to him that Jamie felt moved to show his support in the current election of a new Mayor for Warwick.  I eased my son's concerns by assuring him that we used good judgement in choosing our candidate and we had ultimately decided on Picozzi because we hope to get chickens here in Warwick...That appealed to my little animal lover.  Now I need to find out how I can get ducks.  

Speaking of Animals.  After that long day of driving, we all reconvened at home with some cake and watched the final 4 episodes of Schitt's Creek- it was a delight.  

I captured these lovey cat pictures.



Cat pictures are usually a good way to end any blog.  But seriously, I need to get on with the cooking.  It's 2nd Period for Alex now and this is when the time release on his meds usually hits full effectiveness.  He will have another class and then Independent Reading, after which we need to put in a good 3 hours of extra schoolwork time.  Alex feels guilty when his AHDH get him off track...so texts me from his computer:

Alex- "I know I am not the best son, but I love you Mummy".
Me- " You are my only son...and honestly, I cannot picture a better fit for me.  You are perfect for me".

After I sent it, there is silence.  I continue writing this blog...then I hear sniffles.  I feel arms heavy upon my shoulder, tears, wetting my shirt.  My son is hugging me and sobbing.  He tells me that he doesn't deserve a mom like me because I am kind and say nice things when he is behaving badly.  I assure him that he is not behaving badly.  He is making constant and GOOD progress.  Besides, I love him:  Good, bad or otherwise.

Guys:  HUG YOUR KIDS> TELL THEM THEY ARE GOOD.  They really, truly need to hear it and feel it.

~Namaste


Lilac


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