Week in Review: January's Done, Science Fair Won, Fattening Up a Skinny One

Happy Last Friday of January!  For anyone participating in a Dry January, or Whole30 or Gluten Free January - you made it!!  And yes I am patting myself on the back there, as Phil and JP and I have successfully given up gluten for this last month (minus the eggo waffle I absentmindedly ate one morning when really sick and totally forgot about gluten).  

JP has had really good results going GF including less bloating and he's also lost a good chunk of weight between eating better and his job as an ER Tech which gets him lots of steps and then he goes to the gym straight from work.  Phil and I have been eating too many chips and chocolate to have lost much weight but I think I feel less bloated overall, like I don't have days when I feel gross/stuffed.  I absolutely hate that feeling and try to never overeat so as to avoid it.  The real test will come tomorrow when we introduce gluten back in.  I'm dreaming of a cheeseburger on a brioche roll.  One addition to my diet that I want to keep is eating Oats Overnight for breakfast.  It feels like a luxury to pick a flavor each night, shake it up with unsweetened almond milk, and grab it in the morning.  Yum!  Plus oatmeal = good for my cholesterol levels.

Are you tired of hearing about gluten?  Me too, moving on.

Alexander went ahead and won 3rd place for his 8th grade science fair project which means he is supposed to compete at the regional science fair in a month... which happens to be the same day as their huge end-of-season swim meet.  Dude, we said just get an A.  Kidding, kidding (kinda) we are very proud of him.  

After 14 science fair projects, we finally cracked the code on how to set up a trifold board with ease.  The secret is in creating documents with the perfect dimensions and background colors and borders that get printed at Staples, instead of printing a whole bunch of papers and cutting and cropping and placing on construction paper.  

Old way of creating the board:

New way of creating the board:

My my how he's grown in a year!

Week in Review: Still Sick But Perking Up

 This past week was rough, illness-wise, for the parentals at Casa Martin.  I had a fever for a whole week that had me not sleeping and eventually turned into congestion and a cough.  Phil has had a cold and bad cough for almost two weeks.  We both went to the doctor, which included a chest x-ray for moi, got prescriptions for antibiotics (and steroids for Phil) and have finally turned the corner.  The only upside to being sick?  Not having to go to work!  But the whole catching up at work after a week off has not been fun.

Guys, my glasses were fogging up because of the mask and I felt like I was suffocating.  How did we wear these things for so long?

Let's focus on some good things mkay?

The Washington Commanders won on Sunday night, which was a huge victory, and Eamon got so excited that he threw off his shirt and ran around the family room.  Andrew was freaking out as well, texting and face-timing from Ohio.  These boys have been fans for so long to a team that stunk, and I'm so grateful they are able to see them go this far into playoffs finally.  Next big game is this Sunday!  Go Commies!

Sept. 2010

Lucy Doodle got a DIY bath at our local pet store.  For $12 it's worth it for the ease and to not have a wet dog run around our house :)  Plus the kids seem to think of it as fun and not a chore, muahaha!

Week in Review: Look Away, Look Away

This week has been a yucky blur - with illness, a full moon, fires on my mind, hormones, and some other bad things sprinkled throughout.  If you want to be uplifted and have a laugh on this Friday morning, then I suggest you, in the words of the theme song from A Series of Unfortunate Events:

Just look away, look away

There's nothing but horror and inconvenience on the way

Ask any stable person "Should I watch?" and they will say

Look away

Look away, look away

On Sunday, Andrew left at 3:30 am to drive back to Franciscan University with his cousin as his passenger.  The trip was far from uneventful and I was happy to receive the text that he had arrived safely after a ten hour drive.  The next day he filled me in on what had happened:

I guess the police officer cited him for a traffic violation to save him $100 but the ticket was still $170.  Of course, I'm so glad they were safe but also SLOW DOWN BUDDY!

~

If you read here regularly, you may remember that Andrew had his heart broken right before arriving in Austria last semester, which led to a really horrible time of his life.  We were all very sad and scared and reached out to his RD, a therapist, a priest and a sister over there so that he could have people to talk to and help him.  During this time, we told him that we didn't care about his grades/school, we just wanted him to feel better.  He pulled through and ended up having a wonderful semester with so many new friends (that he never would have met had he still been in a serious relationship) but he also ended up getting a 77 in his one nursing class (taught via zoom from the main campus).  

It turns out that if you get below an 80 in a Nursing class, that's considered failing and you have to retake it before moving on.  The problem is that he can't retake that class until next fall, so he is unable to move on with nursing classes this spring and in the end it means he has to stay a whole extra year at college.  We all got involved via emails to see if there was any other solution, but the Nursing Dept. would not budge.  On the one hand, I understand if they feel he doesn't know the material, he shouldn't move on (who wants an untrained nurse?) but on the other hand, he has to go to college for an extra year because of three points in ONE class.  It's a tough lesson to learn and one I pray he doesn't repeat or he's out of the program.  He's back at campus taking a full class load of non-nursing classes he needs to graduate, but he's not with his friends in class anymore and they are all moving on without him.  This is sad but he has a very good attitude about it, thinking it might make it easier for him to work as a CNA in his last two years when he has fewer classes, and we hope we will see the reason clearly one day.  Faith and God’s timing yadayada.

Week in Review: Not Really Knowing, Not Really Teeth, and Not Really Resolutions

The first full week of 2025 was sort of...boring? ordinary?...and it felt really difficult getting back into the normal schedules after having two full weeks off.  What a luxury those weeks were.  Now we're back to track practices/meets and swim practices and violin lessons and piano lessons and basketball practices/games with a bunch of dentist appointments and evening meetings thrown in.  Ya know, life!  I miss Christmas already :)

One Christmas gift that I forgot to talk about was the book I made for Andrew:

This link should allow you to see the finished project, a labor of love, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed putting together bit by bit each week as he emailed me updates and photos.  I used Mixbook to create the scrapbook because it allows you to copy+paste text from an email right into the book so it's all in his own words.  After my own semester abroad in college, I had to print photos and start scrapbooking my adventures from what I could remember, and I never even finished the project.  I'm so glad to be able to give my kids this finished book right after their semester is over that they can cherish forever.  

JP sent me a TED Talk that both validated our family rules re: screen time and social media, and also made me think a lot about what I'm doing with the time I have on this earth.

 

I think the issue is that we never know how much time we have left in life, and if we did, what would we do different?  If I knew I had one year left to live, I would quit my jobs, eat whatever I wanted and travel and spend all my time with family and loved ones and volunteer.  But if I knew I was going to live until 100 years old, I would eat as healthy as possible, exercise daily, save money during my working years, etc.  Since we don't know "the day or the hour" I'm coming to the conclusion that we have to find a balance between those extremes.  Which leads me to a question - would you want to know your last day on earth?

(The planner in me would want to know, but the anxiety in me would probably have a terrible time living with that knowledge.)