My CRAZY Life

Things have calmed down somewhat, but there is still plenty of CRAZY to come!!

If you're wondering about my brother-in-law, he had a successful surgery and got out of the hospital in only 5 days after the amputation. The initial recovery was excellent and he's still recovering well, but the "phantom feelings" and nerve sensations in the leg that he doesn't have are really bothering him a lot right now. If you pray, please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. Sigh... we saw him yesterday.

I will try to blog again soon, but the past few weeks were simply insane. My parents arrived on the day I taught my last classes, but they didn't come to our house. We picked them up at the airport (late at night) and drove them my aunt's house so they could help care for my disabled uncle for a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I printed my final exams and gave them to two graduate students who administered them for me, because I had to travel to Florida for five days with my son's robotics team and their teacher. We drove in two cars, 12 hours the first day (Thursday) to St. Augustine, visited Kennedy Space Center the next day, then took it easy on Saturday. On Sunday was their competition (they finished 8/23, similar to last year in California), then we still drove 4 hours from Orlando to Savannah, GA. On Monday we drove back.

It was harder than the California trip last year because of all the driving, and also, more kids. We had 6 kids last year and were in one mini-van, this year there were 8 kids... and they kind of trashed my new (to us) mini-van. :-(

After I came back I had to go pick up the final exams and grade them, then I drove to get my parents, then helped cook lunch at the elementary school, and volunteered taking photos of an event in the evening. This Saturday were the day-long concerts for my son's high school (morning, afternoon and night!) that I didn't want my parents to miss, then yesterday we drove two hours to spend Mother's day with my mother-in-law and K's two brothers (K4 had driven down from Canada with his family to see K2 after the surgery).

Now I have to gear up to go on my son's 8th grade class trip, then comes the graduation, my husband's birthday, my son's birthday, trips with my parents, etc...

Sigh... and there's more, but I'll write about that later!

P.S. Last Thursday my husband became a U.S. citizen too! I think he's happier than I am about it. He even made a speech! It was kind of cute. ;-)

Busy Weeks 5-6 (Before & After Photos!)

I've almost forgotten weeks 5-6 already, but I'd like to write about them before I write about weeks 8 & 9 and before grueling weeks 10 & 11 begin tomorrow.

I guess I could sum up weeks 5-6 in a few words: working out, helping refugee family, swim meets, house guests, French horn lessons, yard work and house cleaning. I guess having that followed by week 7 was perfect, no?

On week 5 we didn't have the house guests yet (my brother-in-law and his family and my mother-in-law), they arrived on Monday of week 6, but we had a swim meet (only my oldest son competed this year) and a French horn lesson and I worked out every day with my friends in the morning in addition to spending some time helping the refugees. We started cleaning the yard -- my husband began to use our brand new pressure washer and he loved it! I took tons of before and after photos and will share some below.

On week 6, the family arrived on Monday and I continued exercising in the morning (my sister-in-law joined us for two days and was really sore) and even did double workouts on Thursday going to yoga and feeling the strongest ever. SIL and I went to the Farmer's market and I helped the refugee again for several hours on Thursday and Friday. We had a swim meet in our town and Grandma got to see her oldest grandson swimming, but K was late with my younger son and our nephews and they missed Kelvin's races.

Before, WIP (work in progress), and After photos, I tried to select as few as possible, but I take too many photos!

The most satisfying before & after set: 

power washing:

 Cleaning back brick patio:

weeding, power washing, spreading new sand:

 Weeding back flower bed:

April,then June, WIP, mulched

 Last, but not least, weeding.

Raised bed, and some of the back (WIP) --

the part with the most poison-ivy.

  It was because of this weeding (and also hugging my cats) that I got some poison ivy right before we traveled. :-(

P.S. I also changed the knobs of the vanities in our three bathrooms, but I only have before and WIP photos so maybe I'll share those another time, together with the 2011 photos of the before & after of kitchen cabinet knobs! ;-P

Week 4: Exercising and Helping Refugee Family

This has been the most intense week yet, bordering CRAZY intensive!

And I just had to create two new labels: Exercising and Helping/Volunteering. The second one is already a HUGE part of my life as you may recall from last year's post about my "'indiscriminate and reckless' helping," but this year the helping is quite difference and more practical.

OK, so thanks to my friends Laura & Cali I worked out SIX DAYS this week, starting Sunday, and for four days (Sunday to Wednesday) we did it at SEVEN IN THE MORNING! I never, ever, EVER even wake up at 7 am, only when I'm in a trip and have to. I'm a night owl, so I love sleeping in. I did, it though! And I've enjoyed working out a lot. It's mostly Barre led by our friend Laura, mixed with some Pop Physique (yesterday and today we actually did it with Pop Physique DVDs).

Starting Monday, I began to make and drink a green leaves (Kale, Collard greens) + frozen fruit + orange juice smoothie after I got home because I need the calcium. I am bound to have osteoporosis, given my slight frame and the fact that my mom has it really bad, so I need to do this: strength training (Time magazine from last week) and calcium rich foods.

I was really tired on the first few days, particularly because I didn't sleep much one one of the nights, but I've been getting enough sleep and also taking my medication some days (Wednesday and today), which helps with staying alert. I'm glad that many of our friends have been joining us in exercising, so I think that I'll be able to exercise a lot and be in incredible shape by the time we travel to Florida. This will be the first time in my life that I'll actually be pretty fit at the beach!!

I also helped the newly arrived refugee family this week a lot. They are from Congo (but lived in a refugee camp in Rwanda for the past 17 years) and have six kids, aged 20 to 6 years old. Last Saturday I drove them home from church (in a large 15 people van -- I hated driving it) and spent time with them walking to a local park (after we gave them a used soccer ball). Then I visited them Tu, Wed. and Thu. On Wednesday I also went grocery shopping for them, in addition to helping them learn how to use the cleaning products in the house and trying to teach them how to use a washer and drying (they still can't do it on their own).

Everything is new for them and they don't speak the language (only the dad speaks some French), so it's overwhelming both for them and for me. I hope to write more about this later, I need to go clean my house now, it's a wreck! (also because my husband has been working like crazy with summer teaching and we've been watching movies too).