Updates on Us

Let's see....where to begin?

Larry has taken a 2nd job (God bless that man!) to help make ends meet. He's doing part-time security work for the police department at a college about 30 miles away. While we had never hoped or expected to have him get a job that required wearing his bullet-proof vest, handcuffs & gun belt again, life sometimes requires us to do things we never expected. Going back to patrol duty was not even on our radar, but about 3 weeks ago a friend of his mentioned that they might be hiring. Since he was looking for a part-time job to bring in some extra moo-la, he checked it out & voila...he's got a 2nd job. It will mean missing some family things now and then, but we take comfort in knowing that it's just for a season.

Savannah (15, 10th grade) is reaching an age where she is being forced realize that she is different from many of her friends. She's always been very intelligent & more mature in some ways than many of her friends. These, unfortunately, are not necessarily traits that high schoolers admire & respect. She is her own brand of quirky & sweet, hyper-focused on schoolwork, reading, writing, her walk with Christ and other pretty 'grown up' things. She's becoming more & more aware that just about everyone else is more concerned with looks, boyfriends/girlfriends, parties, fitting in, fashion and other typical high school things. We talked about it at length last week. I reminded her that high school is a difficult time for most kids. Kids like her don't have lots of friends sometimes, but as high school ends & college begins, the focus shifts & kids grow up. They'll realize that they must buckle down & get to work on grades and thinking about the future. Savannah will be a step ahead of those kids when that time comes. Mr. Wonderful (and all the friends she would love to have now) will show up in her life and things will change. {Don't get me wrong. She has some friends now, but feels like many of them think she is weird or odd or whatever. Thank you, God, for those who are true friends and love her for who she is right now -- beautiful & wonderful & quirky & silly!}

After many years of wondering whether Samuel has ADD/ADHD, we had him tested last month. We were right! It was determined that he has ADHD-Inattentive Type. He began taking a super low dose of Concerta last weekend. So far, he's having no side effects, but we're not really seeing any effects of the medicine yet either. The doctor started him out on a dosage about 2 levels too low for his weight just to watch him & make sure he didn't have side effects. He was clear that we would very likely bump his dosage up a little bit after we determined whether or not he would have any side effects, so next week when we go back to the doctor, I fully suspect we will leave with a new prescription. Otherwise, Samuel is doing great! He's on the verge of moving up another rank in Boy Scouts & that tickles him to death!

Sarah is continuing to grow like a weed. She's a busy 5th grader these days. Tomorrow morning Larry will go to her school for their annual Veteran's Day program while I'm at work. Then in the afternoon, I will go to her school for an hour of walking with her during her PE class for their American Diabetes Association walk. She has announced to us that she wants to be in band next year when she's in 6th grade. We are crossing our fingers that she can play the French Horn like Savannah. Wouldn't it be fun to have 2 French Horn players in the family? (Do you hear Christmas concerts in your head, too??!!)

And lastly, there's me. As the holiday season fast approaches, I have begun my annual Christmas shopping & budgeting. We took our our annual loan to buy all the gifts last week & I've already made a couple of online purchases for FAR less money than I expected to spend. Yay me! I'm considering doing photo cards this year if I can budget my gift-buying money well. I've always wanted to do those, but we can never seem to get it together & find ones that we can afford --- or rather that I'm willing to pay the price they want for. Maybe I can find a template online & create our own this year? Hmm.....

It's 10:30pm and my eyeballs are drifting south, so it's time for this blogger to say goodnight.