Photo Journal - Josie Boettcher

My computer has been acting like a jerk lately, which is why I haven't posted in a few days. Also, not much has been going on. Ben has been really sick and constantly complaining about it, the kids went back to school yesterday, and I've been stressing about not being able to work...because of my computer.  One of my neighbors wants to hire me to do a fantastical family picture for them. They've got a whole lot of ideas (none of them are cohesive at all), and I gave them a few ideas I had, so we'll see where they land! They've never paid to have a family picture done before. I kind of think of it like someone who's never had a tattoo done and they get this idea that every single thing they've ever wanted incorporated into a tattoo needs to be in just ONE tattoo, even though it should be a few different ones. I think we'll be able to work out something that makes them happy and it will give me a good idea of what it's like to try to bring someone else...

Happy [worst] Thanksgiving [ever]!!! I woke up this morning realizing that I have gotten the stomach bug. :( It was mostly stomach cramps and urgent runs to the bathroom, but I also threw up for the first time in over six months and that sucked. It could have been worse. Honestly, it wasn't fun, but I had plenty of time today when I felt decent. Throughout the day, I managed to pull together all of the Thanksgiving dishes I was hoping to have, and, by dinner, I felt decent enough that I had a bite of almost everything. Jonas was a HUGE help with dinner prep and did the lion's share of three different dishes. Also, getting a rotisserie chicken, rather than cooking a turkey, was great for making things easier today. I read a lot of my book today (Fairy Tale, by Stephen King), finally. I've been putting it off for a very long time, but I didn't have anything else going on...since I couldn't do much! I also ended up taking a little nap after I threw up, because I was ju...

I feel like things are looking up a little today! I went and did a grocery pick up this morning. I'm planning to cook all of our favorite dishes and have a decent Thanksgiving dinner at home tomorrow.  I really didn't do much productive stuff, BUT I did start playing Luigi's Mansion again and that was really fun. :) Literally played for 3 hours today. I prepped a couple of the dishes for tomorrow too. Jonas and Ben seemed to be starting to feel a little better, thank goodness. I'm definitely not looking forward to tomorrow at all, but it'll be fine.  One super frustrating thing is that I was trying to fix the sink in the kid's bathroom and spent an hour on it, only for it to be worse at the end. I actually sat and cried from frustration eventually. I cleaned their bathroom, finally. It's been on my to-do list for 3 weeks. 😬 Also frustrated that I've basically been parenting alone for 4 days now...bedtime alone, breaking up fights, baths, etc. I'm th...

Even though Clemi and Ruby went to school today, it feels like Thanksgiving break has already started. The day was pretty chill, maybe. I don't know. I felt stressed, but not that much happened. I did have to go to an appointment and that took about an hour. I brought Ollie with me and she was great. WE GOT OUR FRIDGE DELIVERED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hooray! The delivery guys were awful and super grumpy, but whatever man. I have a fridge in my kitchen again and I am so, so happy about it. And then I had a work meeting + Jane meeting, which took ALL afternoon. And THEN I had some Dwell Oasis stuff to work on, which took a little longer. It feels like I finished up work and Ben was instantly asking me to go grab a pizza. I normally have a break, but not today. I got the pizza, we turned on a movie, and then it was bed time. So, the day was smooth. It was fine. But I just feel like I didn't have time to do the things I need to do. I have all of these administrative household things pi...

Ben started complaining of heart pain the day before yesterday and it got really bad for him last night. Today, he woke up with a super high fever, body aches, chills, and a sore throat! He took a COVID test and it was negative, just like Jonas's. We're pretty sure he has the flu. Jonas is still feeling terrible too and Ollie says she's feeling bad. Her cheeks are all red, but no throwing up and no fever. I'm guessing she's getting what Jonas has.  Even though half of the family is sick, I wanted to make sure I got to church today. I didn't want my first week alone to be one that I called off, especially not being sure if I'd be there next weekend or not. I have really been enjoying it though, surprisingly. There is plenty of work to be done and it's been fun meeting all of the volunteers and seeing friends at church. Clemi "babysat" Ollie while I was gone and boy was I gone a long time. I expected to come home early, but since I didn't get...

Well, Ollie got the stomach bug. :( She was up three different times in the night with puke all over her. I tried to get her to sleep in my room, but she said she was uncomfortable and wanted to sleep in her own room. Many sheet changes and wake ups and vomit mishaps (like chunks of it ALL over the hallway carpet). Jonas had a sleepwalking episode again too. I did not get much sleep. It was a mess of a night.  Today was actually not too bad though. Ollie was still throwing up a lot, but she made it into her bowl every time and didn't seem too upset about it. 🤷 I cleaned a TON (even shampooed the carpet!), did many, many loads of laundry, and also spent a bunch of time working on a puzzle! It was a slow, relaxing day for me. I made turkey pot pie for dinner. Oh, and I posted on Instagram every hour today. It was a weird thing to do, and I feel like I bored everyone out of their minds, BUT it kept me with my camera in my hand all day and I LOVED that. It reminded me of a couple year...

Today kind of felt like a weekend day because all of my plans were cancelled and Jonas was home from school. The poor kid has a fever, a cough, and a terribly sore throat. I spent some of the day relaxing though. I gave up on my book. I can't get through it and I've wasted three weeks trying. I cleaned A LOT and did some laundry. I wanted the house to be clean before getting Christmas decorations up and I promised the girls we'd do that this weekend.  Jonas had another one of his weird sleepwalking things last night. It wasn't as bad as last time, but still freaky. Again, he woke me up hovering over me, but this time he instantly hugged me when he saw I was awake and said, "I LOVE YOU SO MUCH." super forcefully. Weird, but I have to admit, also kind of nice. He's not big on affection at this stage of his life. I listened to his nonsense gibberish and then walked him back to bed. I tried to tell him a story to change his thinking and had him drink some wate...

Such a better sleep! And such a better day. Nothing terribly interesting happened today, but my mood was just 100x better after getting a decent amount of sleep. Ollie still got up in the middle of the night, as always, but I went to sleep at 9:45 and that made a big difference.  I kept Clem home again today, even though she felt 100% better. I don't know, it just felt weird to take her to school already. Maybe I'm being dumb about it, but I just felt like it would be safer to give her one more day to recuperate before she went back. I took Ollie to school and got a few errands run. I read for a little while. OH, one of my errands was getting my wedding and engagement rings polished (and the guy did it for free!)! Because...guess what...I can wear my engagement ring again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woohoo! So, that officially means that I've met ALL of my weight loss goals. Yay! I just thank God that this surgery has worked out well for me so far. I feel like a new woman. I have so ...

I did NOT get a good sleep last night! I feel like I should have started with what's worse, which is that Clemi has the stomach bug now. But, instead, I started with "woe is me". Typical. Anyway, Clem came in about 10 minutes after I fell asleep to tell me that her stomach really hurt. 20 minutes after that, she came in crying, saying that she threw up. I got out our sick mattress, cleaned her up, got her water, and on and on, and we both tried to go back to sleep. It took me forever, and Clemi too. It feels like two minutes after I fell asleep, Ollie came in because she had a bad dream. I took her back to bed and, two minutes after that (not really. It was like 4 hours), Ollie came in to tell me that she soaked her bed. I got that cleaned up and that was it for my sleep! Pretty terrible.  Clem obviously stayed home from school today and I cleaned and did a bunch of terrible chores all day. Also, I had to cancel all of my plans. It sucked. The end. 

Ollie was up so much last night and I am SO tired this morning. I went to Brit's for a play date after Ollie finished school and caught up a little bit. I feel like I was out of it the whole time though, because of the sleepiness...which caused grumpiness.  Our internet went out today and Ben had to go into the office. Rather than pulling away from his upsetness, like I usually do, I was extra nice to him. We ended up getting in the hot tub together this evening and watched a show together afterwards. We had a really nice night, but I'm up way too late, as always. Hopefully I get to sleep through the whole night! Crazy that just a few months ago I was sleeping through the night every single night. It's been a while. 

I'm so bummed. Things are just not really going my way right now and I've been on the verge of tears for days. Have not cried though! lol Sometimes I think it would be better to just get the tears out, like that would make them go away. Anyway, time for complaining: I've been busting my butt the last few days, trying to get organized. I cleaned my bedroom out and the basement, then my office and the den. Hours upon hours upon hours of cleaning and organizing. It's been good and I have been feeling really productive. Yesterday, though, Ben interrupts my work with panicked yelling that the freezer temp keeps going up and asking me what that means and how we fix it. Of course, I have no freaking idea whatsoever, but we start emptying it out. I call dad and he tells me I might as well order a new one now because refrigerators are difficult to fix and you often just need to replace them even if you can figure out what's wrong. SO. We start looking around and Ben is compl...

Well, I'm still on this quest to simplify my days and be more productive. So far? Failing. It always feels like there's *something* keeping me from getting things done. Yesterday, Ollie went to school so I thought I'd get some good, productive time in, but it didn't really go that way. I worked on my Christmas checklist and spent forever poring over Target's sales. They have 30% off of all of their clothes and shoes right now and my kids all get a new outfit for Christmas. I wanted to take advantage of it, but I didn't want to just grab whatever, so it took a long time to choose just the right outfit for each kiddo. I also have a 25% off of one toy coupon that I spent time trying to decide how to use.  Last night, Jonas woke up having thrown up on himself in bed. The poor kid kept apologizing, like I'd be upset that he's legitimately sick! Definitely not the kind of thing that upsets me. But I did spend a couple of hours getting up and down cleaning up t...

The kids were all home today for election day so we planned a playdate with my normal Tuesday crew. But, instead of doing a local playground or something, we decided to go to Slate Run Historical Farm. It's such a fun place to go! We had a great time.  It was a decent day. Long drive to and from the park, but I had a little relax time and did some work. Not much happening. I sold some clothes, which is such a relief because we're freaking BROKE right now. I'm actually stressing because Kylienne and her girls are coming over for lunch tomorrow and I think I'm going to have to buy more stuff to feed them. 🤦 Ugh. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I really need to think. 

Today was a pretty uneventful day. I'm intentionally leaving my calendar a little more free, leaving time for relaxation and just staying home. I haven't quite figured out a balance. So, the idea is that I've been way too busy. I have every single day filled with plans and, while that is great for connections with my friends and good for me in some respects, it leaves very little time to catch up on projects and to just breathe and soak in my favorite season of the year. So I only made a couple of plans this week and I'll probably just do a couple of things a week for the next couple weeks. HOWEVER, I didn't do anything that was really productive today, like checking it off the list productive. Maybe I need more firm block scheduling in mind or something? Let's think about days at home:  8:18... Drop the girls off at the bus stop 8:30 - 10... Read, pray, drink tea, relax 10 - 12... Some kind of house project? 12 - 1... Lunch, relax 1 - 2... Some kind of house pr...

Things have not gone as well as I had hoped today. 🤦 I DID fall asleep a little easier last night than I have been, so that's a plus, but Ollie got up around 3 and came to my bed asking to snuggle. I didn't know what time it was. I thought it was morning, so I just said yes. After 40 min or so, she asked to go downstairs so I checked the time. Lo and behold! It was 3:50. I took her back to her room to resume her sleep and she was back in my room at 5:20am, just up for the day. Until 7, she begged to go downstairs, watch tv, wake her sisters up, eat, and on and on, never going back to sleep. I slept a little in between all of the requests, but not much. So frustrating. I don't know what to do to keep her in her damn room! We have the sound machine that changes colors at 7am and I talk to her about it every day. She's been punished... You know what though. I've never tried rewarding her for staying in her room until her sound machine turns green. I wonder what I coul...