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:
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!
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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.
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JP had jury duty this week, and ended up being called to serve as the alternate juror. Luckily the case was decided by the end of the day. According to him it was about a "Karen neighbor".
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Eamon and his girlfriend broke up this weekend, as they both can not see how it would work out in the future. They are both really smart and sweet high school seniors who are thinking about college and know they will most likely attend different schools far apart. They both seem very level-headed about it and doing fine, but this mama’s heart breaks in sympathy. Feelers gotta feel.
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Phil has been so sick this week with a cold and cough and I am the worst person to be around if you have a contagious illness...well I'm just not around. I try to keep myself healthy for as long as possible, which is a throwback to the days when we had little babies and we couldn't both be sick at the same time. I've been drinking my emergen-C every day but I woke up yesterday morning to an itchy throat and very tired eyes and a fever so here we go.
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As a big family, we have a lot of moving parts and I'm not bragging but we make it a point to be very good at remembering to drop off and pick up kids at their events, so I don't know what happened on Wednesday night. I'm going to blame the full moon + sick husband + perimenopausal mom. Eamon and Maggie were at a track meet, so we were down two drivers. Just like every other Wed, Brendan had swim practice from 4:30 to 5:30 and Xander had it from 5:30 to 6:30. Declan had a basketball game at 6:15. I don't get home from work on time to do the 4:30 drop off so Phil handled that. Then we walked the dog from 4:40 - 5:15 with a panicked Xander calling us to say he needed to leave for swim. We know, we said, we're almost home. When we got home, we realized that JP (who had just gotten home from work) drove Xander because he was all stressed out about the bridge being closed (we have a swivel bridge between our house and the Y that closes every hour for boats to go through). I had a gut feeling that JP might not realize he not only had to drop off Xander, but also had to wait for Brendan to come out. So I had Phil call JP to make sure he knew he had to wait for Brendan. When JP and Brendan arrived home later than usual, we found out that JP had dropped off Xander and started driving home before remembering Brendan, turning around and getting him. Meanwhile little 8 year old Brendan was quote very nervous when he didn't see someone to pick him up. A dad of another little swimmer told him to wait inside the Y so he wouldn't cacth a cold, and he waited inside until he saw JP's car pull up. I hate that poor Brendan had to feel that way for those 5 minutes. We told him that it shouldn't happen again, but if it does, he can always go sit back on the pool deck and watch Xander swim so he will be with his coaches and safe. Then Phil took Declan to his game and I jumped in the shower and then heated up some leftovers to eat with Brendan. JP went to shower and all was peaceful until I get a call from Phil asking why Xander was calling him from the Y. It was 6:40. Ugghh! I threw a coat and shoes over my pajamas and drove to pick him up, but wouldn't you know it, the stupid bridge closed in front of me! I turned around to go the long way, and called Xander to tell him what happened. I told him to take a shower at the Y while he was waiting and then I would be there in ten minutes. He protested slightly as he didn't have the proper undergarments to put on afetr the shower but I assured him that sweatpants and a sweatshirt was fine until he got home and could put on pajamas.
Last week I got groceries from Aldi's because the prices are good there, and it still cost me $400. Over the weekend we needed some more items that Phil ran out to grab and it cost another $93. $500 a week on groceries is crazy, right? We don't buy anything special or organic, always buy generic brands and the cheapest fruits etc (apples and bananas instead of berries). I hope changes are actually coming with this inauguration, but I doubt it. Our gas bill came for December and that was also $400, then we had to get the car fixed so Andrew could speed drive it back to school, and that cost almost $1000.
It's all just so very depressing. January usually is. Hopefully I'll be back next week with more optimistic and uplifting tales from mi familia. I know things could be soooo much worse (the poor LA fire victims!) but I can't only report on all the rainbows and puppies when it's raining cats. Hope you are having a better week!!
P.S. All young adults mentioned have given me permission share their plights.
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