Photo Journal - Josie Boettcher

I am so ready for it to be Friday! Haha two days of school in a row and I am BEAT. We got everything done though, which is a plus. That doesn't happen too often. I had a dentist appt. to go to at 1 and then ran a couple of errands and shopped for Ollie's birthday, which is coming RIGHT UP. So crazy how old she's getting! I truly do not have a baby/toddler anymore. So wild.  But at the same time, she really still acts like a baby/toddler a lot of the time. It's very confusing. I think that it's tough for her to have to share me this year. We were so connected the last couple of years and spent every single day together. She got so much individual attention from me! This year, she shares me all day long. She rarely gets alone time with me and even when I'm focused on her, there are still usually other people around. If I had to point at a cause for her worse behavior this year, I'd say it's likely that. BUT I can't really do anything about it! She isn...

Today was a day jam-packed with conflict and I am totally exhausted! To start, we woke up to a crazy thunderstorm and tornado sirens going off. Ben insisted that we needed to get the kids up and take them all to the basement. While I agreed in theory, in reality I just wanted everyone to stay asleep. Nonetheless, we took them all to the basement to be safe. I was able to go back to sleep afterwards, but all of the girls, and Ben, were up for the rest of the day. This meant lots and lots of crankiness in this house.  I took a shower first thing so I could be ready for the maple event we were signed up for at Slate Run at 1pm. We finished school around 11:45, and Jonas was screaming and crying about having to go to Slate Run in the cold. I was like, what's the big deal? You'll be cold for a little bit. So what? He was so pissed that I was making him go that he punched the wall a bunch of times and anger screamed/cried. 😕 Seriously? I ended up texting all the other moms who were ...

Ugh. Today was miserable, honestly. We all woke up too early, nobody slept in the car, Ben is in pain, and it rained for the whole drive. He was so mad most of the time that the drive seemed to take FOREVER. Oh, and the kids fought nearly the whole time too. Gosh, I was desperate for it to end!  Once we got home, things weren't too much better. I unpacked and cleaned for hours and hours, while Ben grumpily sat around telling me to sit around so he wouldn't feel guilty. And the fighting continued forever. I finally escaped up to our bedroom and turned on the movie Dune. Ben joined me and we put kids to bed at their bedtimes and just paused to do that. After all the kids were in bed, Ben made me some delicious, buttery popcorn. It was a good ending to a bit of a bummer of a day.  We always stop at this rest stop in WV that has beautiful murals on the walls. I never pass up an opportunity to get a photo when we're there! 

I feel like I started today off on the wrong foot. I really wanted to chill, drink my tea, and read a book for a bit before we headed out, but the rest of the family had different plans, of course. Thankfully, Ben took the kids to the arcade alone for a bit while I did those things. They had a great time and I felt busy and rushed. But that's the way it is when you're on vacation with kids!  After they got back, we headed to Colonial Williamsburg for about four hours. We did some of the things we didn't get to do the yesterday, but honestly, walking around town just takes SO LONG. It doesn't seem like it's going to, but next thing you know, it's been 30 minutes and you still haven't made it to the place you intended to go. We went to a program where Native Americans tell you a story from their tribe and Ben and I were both rolling our eyes when we showed up, because these were obviously two white girls. However, they were both registered members of different...

First day in Colonial Williamsburg was a success! It took us a while to get acclimated though. We were just kind of wandering and I think we underestimated how long it would take to walk places, so we kept missing tours, which was annoying. But the wandering was fun. Haha biggest takeaway was how amazing their cabbage and lettuces were growing, despite the winter weather! I mean, I know it’s a little warmer there, but not THAT much warmer. I was pretty excited about that. The interiors of buildings were really cool and I thought it was awesome that the tradespeople actually do these jobs IRL. Maybe that would be obvious to some people, but there were guys there that just work full time making wooden shingles, or silversmithing, or making shoes. I asked one of them what they do with the stuff, and apparently it is all pre-ordered and very expensive. Who would’ve thought? We hung out for about 4 hours, grabbed some pizza, and checked in. Our Airbnb is at a time share resort. This is good...

Travel day!! While I am very used to taking the kids on long car rides, it still takes a lot out of me every time. Ollie was so excited for our trip that she was up and dressed by 5:25am. I tried to fall back asleep and so did she, after I informed her that it wasn’t even close to wake up time, but neither of us managed it. We gave ourselves a slow, relaxed morning though, and got out of the house around 9. The drive went smoothly and we stopped at a hotel about 2 hours from Williamsburg. If we had planned better, I think we would have just gone all the way there and not done the unload and then reload 12 hours later thing. We took the kids to Applebee’s for dinner and the food was good, but the kids were antsy and Ollie was just SO TIRED. We had to run to Walmart after dinner to grab a few things and were all desperate to get into jammies and go to sleep after that. I put Ollie to bed before 7 and Ben was asleep by 9:45. Hoping for a fun day in Colonial Williamsburg tomorrow!!

I got to visit with Jenny this morning for a while and that was really good. School was kind of a bust after that though! Me and Ruby finished her work up, but I started feeling stressed about getting packed, so I didn’t do school with Jonas and Clem. They got their math done and some handwriting, at least. I worked on packing for a while, ran some errands, and then, when Ben got off of work, I convinced him to go for a hike! I got my 7th Winter Hike Series stamp!!! Woohoo! But the hiking is much more rewarding than the stamps. Prairie Oaks was awesome and we had a really fantastic time. I think Ben is in vacation mode, which definitely helped his mood and his flexibility a bit.  When we got back, it was a huge rush to get food ready for dinner and then get Clemi to her friend's birthday party. After I dropped her off, I met with Anne at La Casita for some chips and dips and convo. I'm so glad we were able to make a little bit of time to do that!  So ready for vacation tomorro...

Such a busy day! We started by going on a field trip to the Ohio State Courthouse for a field trip in the POURING RAIN. That’s kind of an exaggeration. But look. I knew we’d end up parking far away and walking. I was totally fine with that! But rain complicates that a bit. I had everyone wear rain jackets and I was going to bring an umbrella…but I forgot the umbrella. So we ended up walking in a drizzle there and a drizzle back. Not a huge deal, but lots of anxiety! The field trip was informative and educational, but not very fun. After the Courthouse, we headed over to COSI. My membership is about to expire and we were already in town, so I thought, why not? This is where the pouring rain comes in.   Boy, was it POURING! Me and the kids ran as fast as we could from the parking garage to the front door! I was exhausted after spending a couple of hours there, but the kids had an awesome time and really seemed to appreciate that I took them. We went through a new exhibit on biol...

I was so productive today!! Haha that is not something I get to write very often. We got A LOT of school done. I’ve been trying really hard to get caught up, but I’m only getting 2-3 days of curriculum-type school each week, making “catching up” very difficult. But I’m working on my mindset about school (still). It’s a process! I need to consider our co-ops school, as well as our field trips, but it’s hard when I’m looking at the curriculum and seeing us falling further and further behind. After school, we headed to Main Campus for my staff meeting and, man, it was encouraging. We read through a chapter of a book that I don’t remember the title of…something about fireflies? But it was good. And our discussion afterwards was awesome too. I wish I didn’t hate leaving the house so much; staff meetings would be so much better if I didn’t feel like I had to drag myself to them! On the way home from the staff meeting, we stopped at a car wash and I spent, literally, 2 1/2 HOURS vacuuming and...

It ended up being a beautiful day! I was worried it was going to be really cold when we went to nature group today, but it was perfect. We all had a great time visiting, hiking, and playing outside. Well, I didn't play, but you get the idea. The kids got SO muddy. Yikes.  We had to do a little bit of school this afternoon, because we're a little behind in a few subjects, I made dinner, and then Ben hung out with Alex while I read homeschool books in bed. Not a bad day!

Happy President's Day, I guess? Haha I was just happy to take the day off of school. Ben is in terrible pain again today and, boy, he is really, really, really upset. His marijuana gummies are barely touching the pain at all. Because of that, we ended up doing nothing today. I had two ideas and really wanted to do one of them. My first idea was a good, long hike somewhere we haven't been in a while. My second idea was moving the washer and dryer and starting to get the plywood and tile down back there. Both ideas were SQUASHED, even though I had talked about them all weekend. He, of course, invited me to do either of those things alone and I could have, but I didn't. He didn't actually want me to do those things alone. He wanted all of us to be as miserable as him. But I would not! Instead, I finally made the yogurt in the instant pot, I took Jonas to the fish store, I came up with a menu for HC snacks and made all of those, I made bread and chili, and I cleaned the hou...

Today was a pretty chill day. CT went well with no Oasis issues and then we came home and hung out for the rest of the day. Ben went to play MtG at Marty's with Travis and Kwin and had a good time, although he complained about it non-stop before AND after. He didn't get home until after 8 and Jonas went to group in the evening, so me and girls just did nothing, really. I ran out and got them McDonald's for dinner. Ben keeps having pain and it's been very stressful. Praying that he can figure out how to have painful days that aren't miserable for everybody in the house. He pretty consistently takes his bad pain days out on us and it's hard to talk to him about it when he's in this terrible mental space. 

Oh, I felt so FREE today! I know it's ridiculous but having no extra plans this weekend (including MONDAY! WOO!) just helped me feel like I can do anything I want! I mean, that's never really reality, but the day was really relaxing. We really just played in the snow and sat around all day until we went on a date to Gallo's, which was A-MA-ZING!!! Ben and I were getting along great and had a super fun time with each other. We went to Walmart afterwards and picked up a couple of things for Ollie's birthday. There was a sphere meeting tonight that we had planned on attending, but Ben really didn't want to go, and I really didn't feel like arguing with him about it, so we skipped. Truthfully, I wasn't in the mood to go either, but I would have still gone if he hadn't been so opposed to it. I feel like this is a recurring theme, but we're getting along so well right now that I really don't want to bring it up. Hopefully he'll start swinging the o...

School was going wonderfully this morning and we were getting so much done, until, suddenly, Ruby and Ollie run into the room screaming, in tears, "I saw a RAT!!! I saw a rat running across the couch!!!" Instantly, I'm sick to my stomach. I really hate having mice in the house. It makes me feel so dirty and reminds me of old times when I stayed in infested houses, when mice would run across my feet at night while I was using the bathroom. Not times I like to think about, but every time we have a mouse in our house, it reminds me of it! I was ready to kick it into hyperdrive and scour the entire house of crumbs and any sort of dirtiness, but we had to leave to go to Get Air a half hour later. So, even though I was agitated and really wanted to start cleaning and FINDING THAT DAMN MOUSE, I got everyone ready, and we headed out. I think I should just say here, I really don't enjoy being at Get Air. I'm glad the kids get exercise and enjoy themselves, but I don't ...