A weird week

We've had a weird week at the Pauley household.  On Saturday, while walking into the high school (our rival high school) for Will's wrestling meet, I slipped on the one patch of ice in the parking lot and fell like the middle aged person I am and wrenched my ankle.  A lot of drama ensued but long story short, Glenn took me to the ER where I found out I didn't break anything but just sprained it.  For the first time in my life, I have crutches although by this point in the week, I'm feeling much better and don't need them anymore.  

Well that was weird.  And super inconvenient because I had a ton of Christmas chores to get done. 

Yesterday and today, Reina has stayed home from school with a virus that is not covid, the flu or strep.  That's the good news.  She does feel pretty puny and we had to miss the annual trolley/Christmas lights tour but she got some meds for the accompanying ear infection and hopefully she'll start feeling better soon.  I stayed home with her today because she wanted the company and needed someone to bring her sprite and jello every 5 minutes.  

Dress shopping with a teen

 Reina had a school dance at the beginning of December and she wanted a winter-y dress to wear.  She showed me some pictures online and finally on Black Friday, we braved the mall to do a little shopping.  

Our first stop was TJ Maxx because I remember finding cute prom dresses there.  Unfortunately we didn't find anything that passed the Reina Test even though I lobbied hard for these festive kitten overalls.  Holiday!  Velvet!  Cat!  Modest!  

Next we went to our only big department store in the mall and hit the jackpot.  The entire junior dress section was full of moms and teens looking for the perfect jr high dance dress.  Some of the dresses were even on sale.  I really liked this one and Reina didn't mind it so we got it as a church dress but not a DANCE dress.  

Reina and her chaperone on the big night. 

The winner!  She was happier than she looks in this picture. 















 

We are a wrestling family now apparently.

 Will is a couple of weeks into his JV wrestling season.  He's never been on a wrestling team and except for a brief two week camp in second grade (third grade?), he's never wrestled.  He joined to help get him ready for next year's football season.  The workouts are tough, the rules of wrestling are confusing (to me) but he is making it work.  I printed off a 'wrestling for dummies' cheat sheet to take to his first competition last week and he won in a pin after about 30 seconds.  That's one of the fun parts of wrestling - none of these pesky 60 minute games and time outs and halftime and everything.  Just wrestle!  He participated in a tournament this weekend and won 2 out of his 3 matches.  He keeps trying to practice his moves on Glenn and that's probably not going to end well.  Will thinks that Reina should try wrestling next year because there's a girls team too.  Mom has thoughts.  Until then, let's go watch some wrestling!  

Snow Day

UGH it's been way too long since I wrote on this lonely blog.  Fate intervened and we have a snow day today.  A snow day that's exactly 4 days away from a two week Christmas vacation for the kids.  To clarify, today is not a full snow day, it's a virtual learning day which means Will is holed up in his room powering through all of his classes as fast as possible and Reina and I are sitting on the sofa while she works on earth science and I write this post.  Later we'll do some baking, maybe some house cleaning (ha ha ha) and start the Christmas letter.  Glenn is on a work trip and may be there for a little longer than planned if this storm is a bad as predicted.  I'm going to catch us up with one post an hour today.  Here we go!  

Obligatory cute cat picture

Randomness

I'm trying to get back into the habit of documenting some of the minutiae of our daily lives.  This year, I've touched on the highlights of kid sports and accomplishments but when I look back on old posts, I enjoy remembering some of the randomness that takes place in our household.  So that's my goal for November. More randomness.   

We finally had our first snow of the season this week.  We ended up getting between 3 and 4 inches.  Yah for moisture!  I'm saying that now .... check in again in a few months.  

The view from my office as I left work.  It was really starting to accumulate. 

Our chickens have been molting like crazy and they didn't appreciate the snow.  We have two old chickens who lay once or twice a year and three younger girls who lay regularly when they aren't molting, being broody or whatever their current problem is.  

The spectators for my morning workout.  It's slightly disconcerting.  Do they think it's a drive through window?  

Halloween with big kids

Halloween was on a Monday this year which felt weird but we made the most of it. Reina trick-or-treated with a group of friends in our neighborhood.  Will was tempted to go out there but he was home from school because he was feeling under the weather so that made the decision for him.  We had a lot more trick-or-treaters than usual because the weather was mild (it wasn't 10 degrees and snowing) and I enjoyed seeing all of the costumes. Tootsie and Trigger loved greeting the kids and their candy buckets.  Charlie did not.  Charlie's least favorite evening is Halloween. 

Facebook reminded me of the many costumes the kiddos have had over the years.... cowgirls, pirates, slice of pizza, Union soldier, football players and so much more.  This year, Reina went to a school dance a few weeks ago as a 1920's flapper but she needed a warmer outfit so she opted for scary clown face.  

All makeup by the artist.  Nailed it!  

Without any cute toddlers available to dress up in costume, my attention turned to the cats.  Coco as a scary fish.  Eeeek!  She definitely has murder on the mind.  

Thankfully, we still have people in the house interested in pumpkin carving.  Glenn and I grabbed this giant pumpkin at a farm a few weeks ago and it was big enough for multiple faces.    

Happy Halloween!  

 

Reina's Confirmation

 

Reina was confirmed at our church on Sunday.  She's had a different confirmation experience than most.  She started the process during the Covid shutdown, had a lot of zoom classes, then in-person classes and finally confirmation.  We are proud of her and can't believe that she's growing up so fast.  To wrap up their classes, each confirmand was asked to write a statement of faith.  Here's Reina's (sharing with her permission). 

My faith statement, what God means to me.

                To me, God is faith, God is someone that will always be by you in sadness, anger, fear, grief in any emotional state you might be in. God is a friend, a friend you know is there, a friend that you can talk to, a friend you can trust. He understands you, understands when your angry, sad he understands you always. God knows when your hurt, he knows what you’re feeling and is always with you when you are in pain.

God wants me to live my life with no fear, he wants me to be always happy, sadly he can’t always control that, so when I am suffering he wants me to know that he is always by my side no matter what I am going through.

To those who struggle to believe in God, he isn’t mad, he understands, and he is there to lead you through every step until you find the mindset to believe in him, and if you still don’t, he is always there never mad, never sad, he will love you always. He forgives your sins; he accepts your apologies without any doubt because he knows you love him, and he loves you.

When you are under God’s wings you will never fear death you will never fear pain or grief because you know he is always there for you. Joshua 1:9 “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be that dismayed, for the lord thy god is with thee wheresoever you go.” The verse from the bible is exactly what I’m trying to say.