Photo Journal - Josie Boettcher

A free morning! I'm so excited to just sit here today and get caught up a little bit. I do need to bring Jonas (and the rest of the kids, in consequence) to the pool at noon. I HATE the pool. I wish I hadn't gotten that membership, but I do still feel like it was the best option after deciding we wouldn't put up our own pool this year. After that, though, I also have the afternoon free. I have lots of packing to do still, but I'm spending the morning working on my lists and meal planning. It's good to have a little space to get my brain organized.  Ben and I have been talking about it on and off lately and we have decided to spend the next school year getting the house ready to sell. We're not 100% sure we will actually sell in the spring/early summer 2023, but we'll get the house to the place where we can if the market is good. Ben brought up the idea to rent it out and it's not terrible. I could see that working. It's like letting go....but not com...

I've been far too busy for my liking lately. I know a lot of people prefer for life to be busy and to have a packed schedule, but I really just don't. I like to see my friends, but I even want those hangouts to be relaxed and comfortable. Getting dressed = yuck. Being out in the sun = ugh. Watching my kids play while I'm standing around in mulch = hate it. Busyness also makes it difficult for me to keep up with the house, spend time reading (my very favorite past-time), or to take pictures and blog. :( I shouldn't complain. All of the things filling my time are good, productive, and useful things. I am fortunate to be able to take my kids to the doctor when they're sick, to be able to afford a vacation that I need to prep for, and to have activities for my kids to be involved in. But, in truth, I just want to sit.  Summer: Ollie in the yard in her backwards underwear, making a "potion" with a stick and mud, dirt on her face, huge pimple on her chin. Ruby s...

Roe vs. Wade was overturned today (? yesterday?), leaving it up to individual states to decide whether or not to allow abortions. Ohio is a red state, so we will likely have either banned or very limited abortion access here. I don't support elective abortions (i.e. people using abortion as a means of birth control because I HAVE known MANY women who have done this!!!), but I also don't feel like our country is equipped to take care of the children that they're going to force people to bring to term. AND I don't think it's fair that the responsibility of caring for the children is entirely hoisted on the mother's shoulders, despite the father's equal (sometimes larger) responsibility for the situation. It's a difficult topic for me, because I just don't have enough black and white feelings to argue about it at all and I can see both sides of the argument having valid and persuasive points. I DO believe that fetus's are people and that abortion ki...

WOW. What a week! I was asked last minute to teach a VBS class and I agreed to do it, very anxiously. It turned out to be a great experience. I'm going to list all of the things I feel like I got out of it, because I don't know that I'm up for typing out anything really eloquent right now: Giving my time to other people made me feel more fulfilled. I made friendships with my co-teachers. They were both so fun! I got to know a bunch of children and their parents this week. Lots of great people and fun kids! Many meaningful conversations were had with my kid's teachers. The kids LOVED running into me throughout the day! I ran across Anne, prompting a hang-out where I got to get caught up with her and meet little Ezra.  I also ran across Ellen and had lunch with her and her kiddos. I thank God that she's a friend who's ok with just catching up a couple of times each year! I feel more involved in and excited about my church after spending a whole week there. I'm...

Ben had the idea to go to Clear Creek Metro Park today and even packed up all of the lunch stuff for us to go, since it's an hour away. We ended up going to Rock Bridge, just a couple miles away from there, for a long hike and then over to Clear Creek for lunch and some water fun. It was a success! It was an hour drive and lots of activity, but everyone handled it really well. Clemi lost a flip-flop in the creek and she kind of lost her mind for about 45 minutes. It was a really old flip flop, but apparently she was incredibly attached to it. 🤷 I tried to get it for her, but it got caught in the current and I couldn't catch up. Then it got caught in a tree and I tried to wade out to reach it, but the water got pretty deep and I couldn't see the bottom anymore and I just kind of freaked out and gave up. Thankfully, Ben got the whole thing on video. 🙄 I took so many pictures today, but, honestly, most of them are not good. The dappled sunlight made finding the right setting...

I'm so glad it's almost the weekend! I'm really excited to give Ben his gifts for Father's Day and we don't have a TON going on, so it should be a really fun couple of days.  Today, we went and visited Kylienne and kiddos and this afternoon, Melis and Naz came over to play for a bit. I just love how photogenic our beautiful friends are. 💓 I haven't blogged much this week (obviously). We went to the pool both Wednesday and Thursday. I hated it so much on Wednesday, but Thursday was a lot better. We got there at the opening time and it was more than bearable. Definitely helpful that Ben went too. I honestly wish I hadn't gotten the pool passes. But..........I did. Anyway, I've been heading towards depression. It's not bad yet, but I'm having some trouble getting out of it. AND VBS starts next week and I'm dreading it so much. WHY do I volunteer to do things that I know I'll hate????? I've been signing up for things lately and by the ti...

I took the kids to the splash pad this morning and we hung out with Shannon and Jing. The kids always have a great time there and I'm thankful I got to hang out with friends, otherwise I would have given up and gone home WAY earlier. It was SOOOOOOO hot!!! When we got there at 9:30 it was 77 degrees, but by the time we left it was in the 90s. I started to feel sick from it. (The car showed 102 degrees after dinner!) I worked some in the afternoon and then we went out to Grandad's Pizza for their happy hour when the guys were done with work. Sadly, I ended up sitting at the end of the table by myself, so it was not a very fun time for me. But that's just the way things shake out sometimes. After dinner I had book club on Zoom and that's it for the day! Not very exciting, but man, I'm ready for some not exciting days. I'd love to have like 10 of them in a row.  I'm sort of annoyed with Ben right now. I've been talking about doing this family dinner thing w...

It was a pretty uneventful day. I worked a lot and prepped dinner and snacks for HC. Patrick is coming with us! I really hope it goes well. I'm going to insert something I wrote in the notes of my phone a few days ago here, even though I'm not really feeling this way right now: Man, I'm lucky. To be surrounded by these beautiful, loving, energetic, and charismatic children every day is such a gift. One that I take for granted most of the time. But right now? I just feel so, so lucky. And so grateful.   

Today is the anniversary of Gabe's death. Some years, I don't even see it coming and it just pops up suddenly, out of nowhere. This year, I was watching it get closer and closer on the calendar. In truth, it doesn't matter. It's just a date. I don't miss him more today than I did yesterday, but there's just something really sad about these anniversaries. The years have continued to march on without him, almost like he never existed at all. It would have been inconceivable at one point in my life, that he wouldn't be around. And now, it's almost unimaginable what life would be like if he were still here. But, for years, we were thick as thieves. He was my Gabey baby and he made me laugh like nobody else could. Things started changing when he was a teenager. Drugs, alcohol, and the people who partied with him took the place of his younger sister (me) and, although I felt left out and suddenly estranged from him, I didn't want to be a part of all of tha...

Today was a nice day. Ben and I went on a date to the Columbus Arts Festival and bought some really cool prints to hang in the house. Uncle George's funeral was this morning and I could have watched the live stream, but selfishly chose to go on our planned date instead. I feel guilty about missing it. I know it sucks. Later we had dinner with the Arikoks and it was great, but I'm starting to feel really bummed about them leaving as their plans move forward. I want the best for them and I totally understand the move, but we'll miss them terribly.  Just including a picture I took of Jonas practicing at camp last week. 

Well, I didn't take the kids to the Columbus Arts Festival today like I hoped to do, but they did create a little art at least?  I don't want to put rose colored glass on when I remember how this went though, because I think sometimes a cute picture leads you to believe it was a good moment in time. I spent my morning on hold with Uhaul, trying to get our hitch appt. cancelled and get my money back ($250!!!) that they forced me to pre-pay in order to get the appt. After an hour of no progress, I hung up VERY, VERY ANGRY. And my anger permeated every interaction I had for several hours. The kids were just being normal kids and I was being rage mom. Ollie had asked me yesterday if she could paint today and I said yes. Then, all morning she kept asking when she could paint as I became angrier and angrier on the phone. By the time I got off of the phone I wanted to break the whole world, but I got out the painting things (angrily) and get everything set up for them (angrily). I had...

It's FINALLY Thursday, thank God. It has been a busy, long week. It hasn't been a bad week, just very long. Today was another packed day. We met with Emily and the twins this morning and, later, went on a hike with our mom's group. The playground was fine. The kids had a great time and it was nice getting together with Emily for a bit. The hike, though, got a little crazy. We were just walking at Indian Run and then decided to go over the bridge in Dublin...probably tripling the amount of time and distance of walking. 😳 I mean, I was down. I was excited. But it just got to be a lot by the end. Ollie fell and scraped her knee while we were crossing the street, which was very dramatic. And one of Shannon's kids was furious and threw a whole tantrum because he got his own shoe wet. But, overall, it went fine.  So, I'm doing ok. I'm holding it together. I'm keeping up. I'm enjoying a lot of the days. Visiting with people has been good and it is nice that th...

Another busy summer day in the books! It was looking like a slow morning, so I asked the kids if they wanted to go to the pool. We haven't been yet and I have been wanting to check it out. Of course, they exclaimed YES! We all got dressed and headed over and when we got there, they told us that they don't open until 12. :( :( The kids were SO UPSET. Ollie laid on the ground crying and everyone else just moped around confused. Super frustrating! The fact that I paid $300 for a pool membership that I'll only be able to use at inconvenient times is not something I'm happy about at all. The pool opens at 10, so I thought we'd be able to go at 10! As a consolation, I took them to the splash pad in Hilliard. They had a good time and nobody complained once they knew they'd still get wet and have fun.  After the splash pad, we rushed home, ate lunch, refreshed waters, dropped Jonas off at camp, and headed to Fancyburg to hang out with Melis and Naz. It was so good to se...