Shouldn't have said a thing

     I've noticed a disturbing trend about my child  - as soon as I brag about him, he tends to go and prove me wrong. Case in point, my last post I was bragging how my son had stepped up to be more mature and responsible while his dad has been gone. Well, come to find out, that is not exactly true. Seems my dear child decided that he did not need to do the reading for his AP human geography class or his English lit. class. Since both classes test on material found only in the books, this was a bad plan. What was a worse plan was when directly asked if he had done the reading, he lead me to believe that he had done it. Not acceptable. So, there go his after school activities. Which is sad, since he is Senior Patrol Leader in his troop (essentially the head scout). However, the rules are simple in our home: homework/schoolwork first, then fun.
    Overall, his attitude has also started to take a downturn. This is due in part to my attitude, which has been miserable, I admit it. My allergies have come on strong this fall, which means I get no sleep from all my sniffling and coughing or I sleep all the time from the allergy medicine, which means getting nothing done. Either situation makes me cranky. I've a lot of homework and studying to do, which means I do not appreciate having to follow-up to see if someone else has done his homework. Sigh.
    Yes, there are worse things that could be going on right now and people are going through worse.  My MiL starts chemo on Monday, with her stem cell transplant scheduled for Thursday. It is a very aggressive round of chemo; hopefully the side effects will not be too severe for her, especially not so severe that they have to forgo the transplant.  (odd coincidence, in the background  a commercial just played supporting the ACS fight against blood cancers). Another friend who loves in Korea just had emergency surgery for cancer of the appendix (I didn't even know it existed). They did a hemicolonectomy. She's only 40. A classmate's fiance was killed in a car accident. She's been overwhelmed with all the planning (he was a semi-famous BMX rider) and worry of what will happen to his daughter, the little girl who she has considered her own, but the law probably won't see it that way.
     So yes, life could certainly be worse and I do appreciate that...but I'm still tired.
   

Fall's groove

It's hard for me to believe it is October already, as it seems as though it was just October yesterday, and by October yesterday I mean October 2008. Time seems to go by so quickly and I've lost my grasp upon it. Normally I would complain about this, as I feel like I've not had time to enjoy what is around me for as soon as I blink, another month has gone by.
However, I'm actually glad time is going by quickly since Hubby has been away. The time has been passing by in an expedient manner, which is good because that means he'll be home soon. Well, not until November (we hope), but that's just around the corner.
I had worried with this TDY that my son and I would clash constantly, since our buffer, hubby would not be here. Luckily, we both recognized early on that either one of us might just might have a bad attitude/ be in a bad mood that had nothing to do with the other person but that would still be directed to the other innocent party. We've both apologized to each other a few times over the past month, we've recognized the need for space and sometimes the need for closeness as well.
It is interesting to see how much maturity my 14 can display when he's called to action. There have some days where he has been more mature than me (I'm still getting used to full-time school and all the studying that goes with it).
What is also interesting to note is that our laundry loads have decreased 3 fold and our grocery bill has been cut in half, which does not really make since since only  1/3 of the family is missing. Our leftovers are not being eaten at a quick enough pace, which means we throw-out a lot more food too, much to both my and J's chagrin. I do enjoy the reduction in laundry quite a bit - I can get it done in one day vs. a load every other day.