Maybe heal as someone mentioned above. Heal from hurts, relationships, heal physically and emotionally, heal your faith. Or seek…seeking good relationships with hubby and family, better situation for hubby, a new relationship or two for you and the kids, seeking God…

I hope this is a better year for you!

I love that word choice! That’s a great way to focus on the positives! Honest communication about your goals and the most important parts of your routine will help, and thinking about these parts you can share or even let go. My dh has been home since 2000, but we’ve had lots of different seasons depending on the kids, his health etc… so lots of adjustments over time!

My kids are always thankful for instructors like you! And I think most students understand Covid changes. It’s the other, seemingly arbitrary ones and having different info in three places that doesn’t match and instructors who keep moving due dates for projects and midterms just because it’s so easy to make changes that are frustrating. It was an issue before Covid and continues to be for some classes. Just education in the modern age!

It’s not surprising. Kids have a ton of info thrown at them on multiple platforms now. And professors are constantly changing dates on them. Why read it when they are just going to get an update in class, through email, or online that changes things? (Or sometimes, as has happened to my kids more than once, conflicting info in multiple places. Or syllabi that were cut and paste from previous semesters and not appropriately updated.) It’s really not like when I went to school and the syllabus was everything.

The bolded…a paper trail from a bathroom?! I couldn’t leave that unremarked upon!

Actually I read it was Bobye’s husband Jim that fell asleep. "Bobye testified that Jim regularly counseled Duggar during those two intervening years," the defense said. "She said she still wanted to help him. She testified that she and Jim met with Duggar in their bedroom to discuss matters further. Bobye testified that during the meeting Jim actively participated but, eventually, fell asleep—she continued to talk to Duggar as her husband slept." https://www.eonline.com/news/1311600/josh-duggar-inappropriately-touched-girl-while-reading-her-bible-stories-family-friend-testifies

Great update, so excited for your boys! Congratulations! Your posts over the years were so encouraging to me, especially when nothing seemed to interest my oldest. The gap year for him wasn’t fancy—local job and a lot of time exploring online. But he also finishes this week with a BA in Media Studies and a Certificate in Digital Media Production (emphasis in film editing) and is doing a few freelance jobs right now. Praying God continues to lead and bless your boys!

Yes! Wow, you have a great memory! Crazy indeed!

Congratulations! My oldest graduates this week too!

I’m supposed to vacuum the utensil drawer? Seriously, a bullet journal can truly be any thing that you need it to be. Everyone’s looks different because it is a tool that should serve you. So you would just use the kinds of things that you personally need. It doesn’t have to have checkboxes and bullets. Although I will say that I resisted the bullets at first, and now I kind of like them. I don’t do all the symbols, but I like either axing things out that I have done, or using the arrow showing that I forwarded the task to a new week. And if I decide I just don’t want to do something, then I can just draw a line through it and it’s gone!

Thanks for posting the year at a glance pixels picture, they gave me a great idea for tracking some things. I’m going to put one of those in my planner! I loosely consider myself a bullet journal-er, lol! It drove me nuts to not have a pre made calendar in my planner and to have to draw all that out. Plus I hated having tons of info I really don’t need to keep mixed in with info I do need to keep. Then I went to a planner that had 60-80 blank pages in the back for notes and collections. I liked that, but I hated having to copy the information that I wanted to keep year after year like how to fix my printer, my ever-evolving ways of cutting my hair, my word-of-the-year list, financial goals, tips on how I did the taxes or filled out Healthcare Marketplace or FAFSA, Bible study ideas, various household tips etc… So…I settled on a yearly planner and a collections bujo. I use a monthly and weekly planner for all of our appointments,work items, and my to-do lists. I also make sure to choose one with at least a two-page spread I can use for future planning. Bonus for colorful accents and tabs! I keep my planner for one extra year just in case I need to look back at previous appointments or notes I wrote about them. Then I can toss it, because any notes that I did want to save get transferred to my collections bujo. My collections bujo has index sections for health, home, finances, faith, and work. I like keeping the index categorized—it makes it so much easier to find what I’m looking for! I do use threading, and just use the next open page for whatever I want to save next. Doing it this way, I can save lots of collections in one book, and I don’t have to either reference a whole bunch of different books or keep lots of weekly and monthly information that I really never need to look at again, plus I don’t have to recopy much from year to year. It does defeat the purpose of having just one book to carry with you! I end up taking a notebook plus a planner most of the time. In addition to my collections bujo, I also have a book for scripture quotes and promises of God, one for tracking finances, and I use different things for actually journaling thoughts and for a prayer journal. But I really love that I can index and categorize my journaling. Bujo was transformative for me in that way (I can find what I wrote!) and for having one place for storing all the various tips. I don’t get fancy other than some washi tape sometimes!

Praying you have a safe trip! I’ve done a lot of that trip before too, and I know in the winter it can be really sketchy. Thanks for the updates.

Lol, you blew his little squirrel brain! “I KNOW I saw a basket of treats here!” And I’m lol at the thought of all those wrappers ending up on someone else’s porch!

I have never had Sherpa fleece be the same again after washing.

I’m sorry! People don’t even realize how inconsistent they are being in their logic. Does trusting God mean surgeons don’t need masks or to wash their hands to avoid transmitting infections to their patients? God owns everything, so why even work—just trust God! I do think we should fully trust God. But I think he also calls us to be good stewards of our resources, which includes our own health and the health of our community. And it’s such an easy thing to put a mask on, even if one thinks it’s only for the comfort of others.

Here’s a bullet-point update of day 3. https://www.theashleysrealityroundup.com/2021/12/02/live-updates-from-josh-duggars-child-sex-abuse-trial-day-three/

God may yet bring even more joy out of a year like that. Read James 1:2-4, and also Romans 5:1-5.

I have done a word of the year regularly since 2013, but also did one in the mid 2000’s. My word this year was a phrase: strong and courageous. I chose it in honor of my Uncle Mark who died on Dec.26 last year, yet somehow managed to call me and many others on Christmas Day. I got his card just after he passed, which was a little eerie but such a joy too. In it he encouraged us to “think good thoughts, do good work, and live in today’s blessings, not yesterday’s losses.” His card included Joshua 1:9, “Be strong and of good courage; be not frightened, neither be dismayed; for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” God is the source of our strength and courage. So I endeavored, as my uncle wrote, to face 2021 “with the Lord’s promise and help.” 2021 certainly asked a lot of me, and it was a good word to remind me where our strength comes from. I haven’t thought of. 2022 word yet. 2020 was planted, which also led into my 21 choice nicely.

Thanks for asking. Better than the first few years after his diagnosis, but never the same again. He was diagnosed 21 years ago, but likely infected another 15 years before then, so it had a lot of time to wreak havoc. He slowly got sicker over that time, starting with joint pain and memory issues that doctors dismissed, until he couldn’t work any more. His symptoms today are like a combo of chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and PTSD (light, sound, motion, and chemical sensitivities). Short outings to a store or things like 30 minute conversations usually leave him needing to rest for hours. It’s hard to be around people (and he’s an extrovert) and he can’t go to church, which has been the hardest part for him. But homeschooling was a huge blessing and he has good relationships with our kids…we try to count our blessings! God has carried us through so much and provided for us all these years.

I agree, I would not hesitate to do a month long course of anabiotic’s. My husband is disabled from late stage Lyme disease that went untreated for years. You don’t want to wait for symptoms to show up to decide what to do with Lyme disease.

Ugh, so sorry. What a pain!

I’d go removable. I had a bonded one and had it removed, and my teeth shifted quite a bit. But they need to understand that they need to keep wearing it—if they stop, their teeth will likely move.

I find regular, non-memory-foam foam is hard to find! What kind of bed do you have?

Do you know what it’s called?