Sorry for the long delays and lack of posts lately, I am still waiting for my good computer to return, and it should be here any day now. Things have been busy. I have negotiated an interesting deal about the house, which will hopefully lead to both a good place to live and a great place to do child care. I have started the paperwork to become a registered day care provider, so that ball is rolling. Hopefully by mid-January that process should be done and I should be approved. I have also decided with the bigger space that I will pursue another avenue I have been wanting to do for a long tie but the timing was just not right. I have put in an inquiry on become a foster parent. So we will see where that leads. I know that from inquiry to placement is often a year or two, so starting the process now puts us well into having everything else solid by the time any placements would occur.
My car is still in the shop. The total estimate was over two thousands dollars, so I talked to my step father and he can do a couple of the things that are needed --one of which the garage estimated would be nearly $1000 parts and labor, parts being more than half. But looking online I can find the parts for less than a 1/4 of what he quoted, so my step father is going to do that one. So the garage is doing the struts, wheel bearing and new tires. It should be ready tomorrow afternoon!!
My chickens are doing well, getting feathers and liking being in the big coop. I am worried that they will get too cold over the next couple of days. I still have the box with a light in it that they sleep in to keep warm. But unlike the past few days with temps in the 40's and 50's, the lows are heading into the low twenties (my two button does not work on this computer so I have to write out all numbers that contain a two). The forecast is an 80% chance of snow tomorrow, and not just flurries but accumulations of up to 6 inches!!! What a way to have first snowfall of the year! sheesh!!!
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
A quick update ....
HI All,
As it has been so long since I made a full post, and I am still on an ailing computer, I wanted to try again to make a quick update of a variety of my life areas.
The kids:
School for Gonzalo is going very well this year. His behavior has been much better than in previous years and he is learning well. School for Josiah is still up and down, he has his good days and he has his bad days, some REALLY good and some REALLY bad!). I believe his teacher is trying and I also believe that she truly is a teacher that ca not think outside the box, so this is a struggle for her as much as it is for him. Luckily his assistant (surprisingly) CAN think outside the box, as does the spec ed teacher, principle, and CSE chair. So while still a struggle, he is moving in a positive direction. By November I think we will be on an even keel.
The other big thinks going on for Josiah have just been with his medical/physical special needs. He did not get his dental surgery last month because he had a nasty cold and could not go under anesthesia. And since they book months in advance who knows when he will get in again. His hydrocephalus has been on our minds, as his CT scan last year raised some eyebrows with his neurosurgeon, but as he is not presenting any symptoms, it has just been a process of getting a second opinion from a doctor who is more familiar with pediatric hydrocephalus, and that took a while. We saw him in June (or was it May or even April!) and he wanted to do an MRI to see how the fluid was moving through the brain to see if it is coming in faster than it is going out, which would cause it to build up slowly over time. As it was 60-90 minute MRI he had to be sedated. Luckily he has not had a cold lately and we had the sedated MRI scan yesterday. The doctor should get the results later this week and we will hopefully know something within the next couple of weeks. Hopefully fluid is coming and going at the same rate and he will not need another brain surgery or a shunt. The ventricolostomy will hopefully continue to work as it had done early on.
Other issues with Josiah lately--his hips are rotating in too much and his neurodevelopmental doc thinks that he should have hip surgery. We are scheduling an appointment for him to see his orthopedic surgeon to see if he agrees or if her thinks it is not necessary. There is the visit with the eye doctor which we missed because I wrote it down wrong on the calendar and did not check phone messages for a couple of days (which I do let go way too often, I really need to start checking phone messages daily). So I missed the reminder call which said the 3rd and my calendar said the 6th. So we have to reschedule that one. Overall though even with some potential problems beginning to show, Josiah has been pretty healthy this school year, and seems to be weathering the change of schools well health wise.
The income/housing issues:
I am working on the LONG process of getting registered as a NYS childcare provider to do family home day care (up to six kids). As I am doing this I continue to babysit the two year old and her brother after school. I also have another family that has asked me to babysit occasionally for their 3 year old and 9 month old. I told them that I had to work it so that I only had a maximum of two kids at any one time until I am licensed (state law--as an unregistered provider I can only watch two kids at a time on a regular basis in addition to my own). So it is a bit of schedule juggling but should be a good start.
However I have noticed that my neighbors, who are retired and older, are not so happy with all the kids running around, as we share the porch and yard in our duplex. So I have been looking into other housing for a while now. It is slim pickings up here. But I have been talking to a woman whose son is in Josiah's class and who I grew up with (she was a couple years ahead of me in school so we did not know each other well). She has been trying to sell a large building that used to be her family's laundromat. It has been on the market for quite a while and has not sold. She is willing to do a rent to own and allow me to convert it to a residential home with the intent to do daycare. So that is in the works. I need to make sure that my investment and hard work of converting it from commercial into residential (which will not be a problem, I have already talked to the zoning/building code man from the town-I'll just need building permits and such to renovate it), the contract needs to protect my investment and be written in a way that does not screw either of us in this endeavour. Thank God (literally) that A's niece is a lawyer and her husband a contract lawyer. Even though A and I are separated, the family still is open to helping. So, if the contract goes through well, I will begin renovating the inside and maybe even have it done by Christmas (as long as I have enough tie to work on it on a regular basis).
Health wise:
For me, weight loss is still a struggle. I do well for a few days with being careful about what I eat, watching my blood sugar (ice cream is VERY bad for blood sugar, so is boxes cereal). But then life gets stressful or busy or something else is going on and I turn my attention to that and fall back to my bad eating habits for a few days. Then I push forward again on developing new habits, and well it is a cycle. I think overall, that cycle is moving towards better and better eating patterns when I look at the overall picture, but I really need a solid month of really focusing on changing my eating habits themselves, so that I fall back on good habit and not on the ones that are so ingrained that there is a rut there. Two steps forward, one step back is still forward motion as a whole.
Other stuff:
My car is ailing and need work (tires, brakes, steering, etc...) AND i have the money right now to get it all done--so YIPPEE!! I take the car to the shop tomorrow and hopefully he will be able to get the parts in and have the time to fix her within the next week. I am guessing it will cost nearly a grand, but as I bought the car for $400 last February and she was worth so much more, it is worth putting that much money into her.
My chick are growing big. They were hatched on September twenty seventh (my two button does not work) and have been growing well since they arrived by ail at a day or two old. They are nearly two weeks old and have gotten their wing feathers. they are still in a big b ox here at the apartment, but will soon be moving over to my father's property. I have to build a new chicken coop as his is not is great repair. So i think that will be a project fro the4 coming weekend as they are getting to be a bit too big for the box. In a couple of months the extra roosters will become dinner (not something I look forward to, it is hard for me to eat animals I love, but I can not keep them, they will fight each other to death as they get older and territorial, only one or two will be kept with the hens. Then in 4-6 months I should have a bunch of fresh eggs daily. It will be wonderful. I have wanted to have chickens for so long. As a kid, my chore was caring for our chickens, and they were my friends. I loved having chickens and caring for them. I have always wanted to have a flock of chickens, and now I have them. Maybe when I move into the new house I can bring the chicken coop over there, which would be great.
Well, I should end now. I will write more soon, and when I get my computer back should be able to do short posts daily again rather than these intermittent postings.
Hope you are all well and enjoying autumn--my favorite and most productive time of the year.
As it has been so long since I made a full post, and I am still on an ailing computer, I wanted to try again to make a quick update of a variety of my life areas.
The kids:
School for Gonzalo is going very well this year. His behavior has been much better than in previous years and he is learning well. School for Josiah is still up and down, he has his good days and he has his bad days, some REALLY good and some REALLY bad!). I believe his teacher is trying and I also believe that she truly is a teacher that ca not think outside the box, so this is a struggle for her as much as it is for him. Luckily his assistant (surprisingly) CAN think outside the box, as does the spec ed teacher, principle, and CSE chair. So while still a struggle, he is moving in a positive direction. By November I think we will be on an even keel.
The other big thinks going on for Josiah have just been with his medical/physical special needs. He did not get his dental surgery last month because he had a nasty cold and could not go under anesthesia. And since they book months in advance who knows when he will get in again. His hydrocephalus has been on our minds, as his CT scan last year raised some eyebrows with his neurosurgeon, but as he is not presenting any symptoms, it has just been a process of getting a second opinion from a doctor who is more familiar with pediatric hydrocephalus, and that took a while. We saw him in June (or was it May or even April!) and he wanted to do an MRI to see how the fluid was moving through the brain to see if it is coming in faster than it is going out, which would cause it to build up slowly over time. As it was 60-90 minute MRI he had to be sedated. Luckily he has not had a cold lately and we had the sedated MRI scan yesterday. The doctor should get the results later this week and we will hopefully know something within the next couple of weeks. Hopefully fluid is coming and going at the same rate and he will not need another brain surgery or a shunt. The ventricolostomy will hopefully continue to work as it had done early on.
Other issues with Josiah lately--his hips are rotating in too much and his neurodevelopmental doc thinks that he should have hip surgery. We are scheduling an appointment for him to see his orthopedic surgeon to see if he agrees or if her thinks it is not necessary. There is the visit with the eye doctor which we missed because I wrote it down wrong on the calendar and did not check phone messages for a couple of days (which I do let go way too often, I really need to start checking phone messages daily). So I missed the reminder call which said the 3rd and my calendar said the 6th. So we have to reschedule that one. Overall though even with some potential problems beginning to show, Josiah has been pretty healthy this school year, and seems to be weathering the change of schools well health wise.
The income/housing issues:
I am working on the LONG process of getting registered as a NYS childcare provider to do family home day care (up to six kids). As I am doing this I continue to babysit the two year old and her brother after school. I also have another family that has asked me to babysit occasionally for their 3 year old and 9 month old. I told them that I had to work it so that I only had a maximum of two kids at any one time until I am licensed (state law--as an unregistered provider I can only watch two kids at a time on a regular basis in addition to my own). So it is a bit of schedule juggling but should be a good start.
However I have noticed that my neighbors, who are retired and older, are not so happy with all the kids running around, as we share the porch and yard in our duplex. So I have been looking into other housing for a while now. It is slim pickings up here. But I have been talking to a woman whose son is in Josiah's class and who I grew up with (she was a couple years ahead of me in school so we did not know each other well). She has been trying to sell a large building that used to be her family's laundromat. It has been on the market for quite a while and has not sold. She is willing to do a rent to own and allow me to convert it to a residential home with the intent to do daycare. So that is in the works. I need to make sure that my investment and hard work of converting it from commercial into residential (which will not be a problem, I have already talked to the zoning/building code man from the town-I'll just need building permits and such to renovate it), the contract needs to protect my investment and be written in a way that does not screw either of us in this endeavour. Thank God (literally) that A's niece is a lawyer and her husband a contract lawyer. Even though A and I are separated, the family still is open to helping. So, if the contract goes through well, I will begin renovating the inside and maybe even have it done by Christmas (as long as I have enough tie to work on it on a regular basis).
Health wise:
For me, weight loss is still a struggle. I do well for a few days with being careful about what I eat, watching my blood sugar (ice cream is VERY bad for blood sugar, so is boxes cereal). But then life gets stressful or busy or something else is going on and I turn my attention to that and fall back to my bad eating habits for a few days. Then I push forward again on developing new habits, and well it is a cycle. I think overall, that cycle is moving towards better and better eating patterns when I look at the overall picture, but I really need a solid month of really focusing on changing my eating habits themselves, so that I fall back on good habit and not on the ones that are so ingrained that there is a rut there. Two steps forward, one step back is still forward motion as a whole.
Other stuff:
My car is ailing and need work (tires, brakes, steering, etc...) AND i have the money right now to get it all done--so YIPPEE!! I take the car to the shop tomorrow and hopefully he will be able to get the parts in and have the time to fix her within the next week. I am guessing it will cost nearly a grand, but as I bought the car for $400 last February and she was worth so much more, it is worth putting that much money into her.
My chick are growing big. They were hatched on September twenty seventh (my two button does not work) and have been growing well since they arrived by ail at a day or two old. They are nearly two weeks old and have gotten their wing feathers. they are still in a big b ox here at the apartment, but will soon be moving over to my father's property. I have to build a new chicken coop as his is not is great repair. So i think that will be a project fro the4 coming weekend as they are getting to be a bit too big for the box. In a couple of months the extra roosters will become dinner (not something I look forward to, it is hard for me to eat animals I love, but I can not keep them, they will fight each other to death as they get older and territorial, only one or two will be kept with the hens. Then in 4-6 months I should have a bunch of fresh eggs daily. It will be wonderful. I have wanted to have chickens for so long. As a kid, my chore was caring for our chickens, and they were my friends. I loved having chickens and caring for them. I have always wanted to have a flock of chickens, and now I have them. Maybe when I move into the new house I can bring the chicken coop over there, which would be great.
Well, I should end now. I will write more soon, and when I get my computer back should be able to do short posts daily again rather than these intermittent postings.
Hope you are all well and enjoying autumn--my favorite and most productive time of the year.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
100th post!..Finally...
Okay, so....
Life has been a bit crazy lately. And not having good access to a good computer makes it difficult to post. My good laptop is done with repairs and on its way back finally (it had to be sent back to the manufacturer). By next week sometime it should be back with me, and I should be back to posting more often.
So a quick post now and
well, I have to go quicker than I thought I will post more later if I can get this coputer to work again later....
Life has been a bit crazy lately. And not having good access to a good computer makes it difficult to post. My good laptop is done with repairs and on its way back finally (it had to be sent back to the manufacturer). By next week sometime it should be back with me, and I should be back to posting more often.
So a quick post now and
well, I have to go quicker than I thought I will post more later if I can get this coputer to work again later....
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