Health-wise I think things are starting to look up. My back is fine now and I think we’ve hit on a migraine medicine that may be working. If I can get quality sleep now I think I’ll be set. Although I was starting to enjoy the insomnia-induced, all-night art/craft time.

So I started making calls. Orthopedic office made appt for another ESI (epidural steroid injection) and told me to go back on Neurontin and take oxycodone for pian. I made a long overdue appt with a new family doc too.

Thursday I went in for the ESI. The staff and doctors at Advanced Radiology really are wonderful. The injection hurt and really did feel like they had poked “Steve” in the eye.

After the numbing wore off though, things got worse. I had a horrible headache, my leg hurt even more and my back was aching. Friday I was able to get to the Amish and to the Planetarium but I was crashing… on a Friday (visions of another ER trip going through my head).

After a few phone conversations, and the help of a friend, I was back at Advanced Radiology with the diagnosis of a spinal headache. The doc was wonderful at explaining things.

I agreed to go with a “blood patch” to cover the spinal leak caused by the ESI. Basically they draw some of your blood and inject it into the same space the ESI went into. Wholly beejeebers!!! The blood draw didn’t go well and the injecting… That was nearly more pain than I could take!

It’s now Saturday. I felt pretty good when I woke up. Pain at a 2. But after about 5 minutes of being up that pain was at a 5 and didn’t go away when I lay down. essentially I am back where I started pain wise. Frustration.

With a little luck, the ESI will kick in this afternoon. Barring that the increasing Neurontin should start helping. Barring that the Oxycodone should knock me out. Depressing.

I hate to end on a downer note so here are a couple really great things that happened this week:

The kids are still loving the yoga so there is some great good coming from it. They are getting really good at arm balances and backbends. It is cute to see their faces light up at doing things they thought beyond their level.

At tea time this week, Jessie read poetry aloud for the first time. Very cool! Afterwards she even wrote her own.

And if that isn’t enough goodness, I’ll close this post with a quote from Jessie: “Thank goodness you have family and friends to take care of you. ”

Indeed!

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I had intended to do a third C5k session on Friday but decided against it. Hurt too much.

But I did one session more than last week plus yoga so I’ll mark that as improvement. Hmmm… May stick with week one until I can get three days in one week.

On the homeschooling front, I tried something new with Jessie’s handwriting worksheets. I had her practice writing in both Spanish and English. Made the sheet using StartWrite software. She seemed to like it too. Always a bonus there.

Second session of a.m. yoga with the kids today. Boggles that running does not hurt but yoga (and just about everything else) does. ??????

Even tried some karate today. I can do punches and blocks but that’s it.

Time is up. Gotta hit the hay.
????! (( _ _ ))..zzzZZ

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Back: Siff and sore from C5k W1D1. Hoping yoga will help keep the muscles loose and the advil will keep the nerve inflammation down. Tomorrow hoping to try W1D2!

It is so weird to not hurt when I run or stand but when I sit or walk a lot. OUCH! But I think this is good…. errr… “normal”. Weird. Taking advil in the evening makes the morning less painful. Weird too. But I’m feeling good in the evenings so another good… pretty sure.

On homeschooling: Have started gathering items for next school year. Love this part. Getting pretty excited! Found some neat resources for Jessie: Chinese games… Tiu-U or Chinese Domino Cards (lots of math involved there) and PiaJi and… and… and…

… and now I must get to bed. Got too side-tracked planning next year and didn’t plan tomorrow. Doh!

Friday we had what I think was our first really combined lesson. Of course it really wasn’t supposed to be

Sam’s math lesson that day was 3D figures and “nets”. Thank goodness for teacher’s manuals! I had no idea what a “net” was. Mathematically speaking.

Found a website where you could download patterns to make various polyhedra. It helped a bit I think to define the vocab by pointing to the various parts of 3D models rather than flat images. But Sam still looked a little befuddled after but I let it go. We’ll revisit it again soon.

His sister however had this to say:

Oh yeah. She’s been studying Ancient Egypt.

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steampunk chamelions made from polyclay

Yesterday we had some awesome art time. Both kids and I sat down for about an hour-and-a-half and made polyclay figurines.  Do you know how rare it is for ALL THREE of us to be engrossed in the same activity for that long. Like so rare it has never happened kinda rare. LOL! I felt so energized by it. And the kids still want to do more! ME TOO! All kinds of ideas are flowing. And… after Monday’s science flop session it was a revitalizing!

The catalyst for all this was, Steampunkery by Christi Friesen. We each gave a try to making steampunk chameleons. Okay. Typing that just makes me wanna giggle. Never thought of putting those two things together. But hey! It works. So you can bet we’ll be buying lots of polyclay for a while.

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Took Sam to get his hair cut, stopped by Petco, took us out to lunch, took the kids skating. Afterwhich I was took-ered out.

Came home and got the kids going on their lessons for the afternoon.

Sam is zooming through the first few assignments in Singapore Math 6a. This is his first open foray into Algebra. Though I pointed out to him that he’s really been doing algebra for a while. it is only that no one called it that until now.

Jessie did another sight word lesson. We took time to review yesterday’s words by gluing the paper strips onto a sheet of paper. She remembered all of them. Then she continued drawing new words. Tomorrow I think we’ll do a word building exercise.

All their lessons and chores were finished I’m time for electronics hour. Yay!

By dinnertime I was completely wiped. Thank goodness for homemade soups in the freezer!

My upper back is now in a yelling match with the ruptured disc in my lower back. But meds are all onboard and I’m waiting for them to take effect.

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This last week has been full of activities so there’s been less bookwork. But here’s a pictorial review of the highpoints:

the painted lady butterfly came out of its cocoon one evening.

Jess & Sam built propeller cars to study equal and opposite forces They went surprisingly fast

We went to the Japanese festival in STL

one by one our caterpillars have become pupas

and Jessie is riding a big bike now

A little side note:
I’ve been very bad about planning lately and it has shown in our daily progress but I’m going to get back on it next week. Trying to remember the “fall down 7 times get up 8″. It helps. Also remembering that downtime is good too. But sometimes it all feels like so much work and I feel worn down rather than polished up.

So if you ever wondered… yes, sometimes it all feels like too much.