Photo Journal - Josie Boettcher

For some reason, I can't remember much of what I did today or what thoughts were going through my head. Hmmm... Ollie went to school, for sure. She didn't fuss, which was nice. I did some stuff? Mostly at home? I have no idea. But we had oatmeal for dinner and Ben went to Alex's to read in the evening. It was one of the most chill nights I've had in a long time.  I'm finally feeling more relaxed and less anxious. Every day, I start out worried, checking my calendar, checking my to-do list, and then, once I realize there's nothing urgent on it, I sit back and calm down! It's been good. I still don't have enough time to read or watch TV yet, but I'm not rushing around like a crazy person anymore. Hooray! It's fall! 

Well, I had the hard talk with Jane about not being available on Monday mornings and...guess what! The team agreed to change the time! I'm relieved and I really think that this will help my weeks to feel less stressed. It adds an additional morning for me and Ollie to do things and relieves the stress of trying to figure out what I'm going to do with her while I'm in my meeting/the guilt I feel when I sit her in front of the TV for hours at a time.  We ran out to get a new wardrobe for her this morning at Once Upon a Child, because GUESS WHAT! Ollie doesn't have any damn clothes that fit her either! Somehow, Clem and Ruby both skipped 4T and went straight to XS/4-5 so we don't have any clothes for her to wear that are her size. Freaking out. Clemi also has no cool weather clothes, so I bought her some more pants and will need to get more as the season goes on. Ruby is the only one who is completely covered, thanks to Brit buying her a bunch of loose pants so that sh...

Well, Ben fell asleep at like 8:30pm last night and, having nothing else to do, I also went to sleep super early last night. I woke up pretty well-rested this morning though! We went to church and then dropped Jonas off at a birthday party. Then, Ben and I got into a fight and ignored each other for the rest of the day. Hooray. :( So...I have this issue with always thinking Ben is looking out for himself WAY before me and that he takes every opportunity to interrupt what I'm doing if it will make things easier on him. He swears that this is not the case and that I'm being an ass even thinking it of it. Thus, the basis of our argument. I snapped at him because I was relaxing, and he wanted some help with something he was doing. Maybe if the ask had been quick and easy, I wouldn't have been quite so irritated, but it was frustrating and took forever. After I accused him of roping me into something just because he "hates to see me relaxing", he gave me the silent tre...

Even though I got to sleep inside last night, I woke up very tired! Ben and the kids were pretty exhausted too and Ben spent a bit of time napping. We had the Dwell Community Festival to go to this afternoon and I had very high hopes of staying until really late at night. I thought it would be a lot of fun to be there after dark, hanging out with HC people, but we ended up leaving by 7:30. Ben was in a pretty terrible mood and I was tired of spending money...which the kids seemed to want to do endlessly. 

Getting the anniversary project done really helped to lighten the load of stress on my shoulders. I went to Jenny's this morning a much less anxious person than I was yesterday. I knew we were hanging out tonight, but Ollie begged to go over there and I figured it's never bad to get an hour to catch up alone. It was good, as always and Ollie was a little less grumpy than usual with Andrei.  We went to Homebuys afterward, a store I have NEVER been to, and I spent $90 on alcohol, which...wtf. Why did I do that? But I did. Can't undo it now. Ben and I took Ollie out to the Dublin North Market for lunch and that was absolutely delicious and when we came back, I stressed about work for like 2 - 3 hours and helped get camping stuff set up and dinner cooking.  Once my work meeting was over, it was smooth sailing. The Popes came over and the camping night began! It was so fun! The kids were going crazy, of course, but dinner was great and sitting around the fire visiting was really...

Today felt like a disastrous day in some ways. And I know that's not really fair. Like, even my disastrous days are still great in comparison, honestly. AND I got to have a visit with Brit, onto whom I word-dumped all of my stresses. 😅 But, starting from the time I woke up, I felt overwhelmed. Kids were screaming and fighting, nobody wanted to get dressed, Ruby was mad about pants, Ollie was starving but hates all of our food options, etc., etc. So I finally get the girls to the bus stop and get Ollie to school (drop off actually was very good today!) and I get home, ready to kick the days ass! I finish getting dad and MJ's surprise ready (ALL DONE! FINALLY!!!) and move on to the laundry room to do a little painting. But wait, I can't find my $6 Starbucks tea. Where did I put it?? Aha. There it is. SPILLED ONTO THE FREAKING FLOOR BY MURPHY! 😡 I was so looking forward to drinking it and it is SO expensive. I wanted to throw a tantrum, truthfully. Just stomp my feet and scr...

Today was another day full of Ollie's tears and screaming. SO MUCH CRYING. We got out of the house pretty early today, dropped off something someone should have come and picked up (WHY AM I BEING A PUSHOVER), and then headed to the park for an Ohio mom's play date. There were five of us moms there! It was a great turnout for us. The park was a lot of fun and the kids seemed to have a pretty good time. At least all the kids got along. :)  Afterwards, me and Ollie went to Anne's house for lunch and some time to catch up. We were just spending so much time together during the late summer that it feels really sad to barely see her anymore! It's been tough making time for anything since Ollie went to school a few weeks ago.  Ollie fell asleep on the way home from Anne's and I managed to transition her down for her nap without any trouble. I went to an eye appointment that went great and was super quick, ordered my contacts, went to the P.O., and ran to the library. When ...

Oh my gosh. Ollie is killing me! She was freaking out this morning about nothing and freaking out this afternoon about nothing. But SCREAMING and screaming and screaming! It's driving me insane. I've been so pissed off and overwhelmed and her freak outs are just the icing on the freaking cake. She did go to school ok this morning though. Surprisingly, no screaming then! We went to a play date after school for a little while, which wasn't super fun, but it was fine. I just worked on stuff and tried to check things off my list. I got Ollie's school paperwork done and made a lot of progress on my parent's stuff. Everything just takes so long! Praying tomorrow is a better day.  Haha she certainly looks happy in all these pictures! It's a trick!!

The fever is gone!!! The attitude is not though. 😏 Gosh, I wish I looked as good as Ollie does in a sweatshirt and leggings. She is style goals, for sure! We didn't go anywhere today, just to give Ollie a little more time to recuperate. We took the girls to the bus stop and I did go to HC alone, but that was it. AND, for the first time ever, I went to prayer before HC! It was actually really good and I'm glad I went.  I'm starting to get overwhelmed with life. I am behind on SO many things right now and it's crunch time for my parent's surprise. I have paperwork to turn in for both Ollie and Ruby and COUNTLESS other things. I ended up kind of freaking out on the kids. I'm so sick of Jonas not getting his chores done and having to nag, and nag, and nag at him every single day. I'm so tired of the girls making huge messes every day and never being willing to clean them up! The kids all get a good amount of allowance and for what??? For sitting around, complai...

We stayed home from CT today because of Ollie's virus and I feel extra bad, because we were supposed to be working in the nursery. Even though I don't feel sick at all, it still seemed wrong for me to go and hold other people's babies when we have this happening with one of our kids. Ben has been complaining about how busy we are for a while though, so complaint answered! We had an entire weekend of doing nothing and seeing no one.  Ben got a bunch of work done in the side yard and back yard and with Ollie's fever slightly lower (102 degrees, instead of 104.5), I got a few things done too. I'm wondering what this week is going to look like and really thinking about taking a small step back at work to free up some of my "me" time. I made some homemade biscuits this morning. They weren't as good as store bought, IMO, but they had potential. They were pretty fluffy and buttery, but I think they needed a little more salt. I also put the pool cleaning crew ...

Well, we did not get a good sleep last night. I guess it wasn't terrible, but we were woken up by 6am by an extremely feverish little toddler who wanted to "[s]nuggle" with me. By 6:40, I was convinced that I needed to take her to the hospital. Laying in bed next to her burning hot body, listening to her shallow breathing, and feeling her rapid heartbeat made me feel like I was being absolutely neglectful not bringing her anywhere to get checked out and felt shocked by how sick she suddenly seemed to me.  I got dressed, brought her to the hospital, and two and a half hours later, brought her home with no infections or diagnoses to be found. She was miserable while we were there and kept begging to leave. She had to get a COVID test and they did not hold back with getting the swab WAY up there...prompting her to cry inconsolably for 10 minutes. THEN they had to do a strep test, when the COVID test was negative, and that was negative too.  We did manage to get her fever dow...

Ugh. My poor girl is still sick. I took her out for a very short walk today and we spent some time outside in the evening, but for the most part we just sat on the couch together. Her fever is so high, it is honestly pretty alarming. Trying not to freak out. She also didn't eat a single bit of food for the entire day and barely drank anything! I hate this.  Ben and I were hoping to celebrate his NEW JOB today!!!! But it didn't really happen that way. We did get food from a new place, an Argentinian restaurant that is close by and we had a drink together and watched a show in the evening, but that was about it. Hoping for good sleep tonight for all of us! 

Ollie came down with a fever yesterday evening. I'm really not sure where it came from. She seemed fine and nobody else is sick! Ruby was sick last week, so maybe it's that? Or it could have been school on Tuesday, I guess. But she didn't even go to Oasis on Sunday. I don't know. In any case, she was so much worse today. She had 104.5 degree temperature and hasn't been herself all day. She has a little cough too. She's still trying to play and is talking a lot, so she's not acting like she feels terrible, terrible. I'm really hoping she's doing a bit better tomorrow so I don't have to take her to the doctor. I have spent hundreds of dollars on sick appointments over the last couple of months.  I literally did nothing but work a little bit and take care of Ollie all day. And it looks like tomorrow will be more of the same! We were supposed to go to Marietta tomorrow afternoon and stay for the weekend, but that's not going to happen now. Ugh. I...

I had my 6 mo. post-surgery appt. this morning and it felt like a complete waste of time! I guess it was good to check in and be reminded about the important things for me to do if I want to continue losing weight, but, overall, it was pretty pointless. Thankfully, my 9 mo. appt. will be a video call.  After the call, I grabbed some Raising Cane's and headed to Brit's for a play date. I felt a bit distracted. With what? I have no idea. At least I got some pictures while I was there!