It's hard to believe November is almost halfway over already! This month has been very busy so far. We began November three days after a major wind storm blew through our area from Hurricane Zeta. It knocked out power for several thousand people in our state. We only lost power briefly a few times during the storm around 1:00am (so I was awake and battling our house alarm system because the code box kept chirping since it didn't realize what time it was and it would reset every time the power went out!). We had some wind damage and some slight roof damage that caused some rain water to leak into our home. We'll call a roofer out soon to take a peek. However, our damage was so much less than what it could have been and we're very thankful that no trees fell on our house, etc.
My dishwasher's start button was fried during the storm, so I haven't had a dishwasher since October 29th. My new dishwasher's name is Reba and she's a hard worker. :) I'm super grateful to be married to an electrician who can figure things out and he has narrowed the problem to the circuit board and we'll be ordering a new part soon. Whether or not it will officially fix the problem, we are unsure but it was a better use of our money to try to repair it first before buying a new dishwasher right before the holidays.
At school we ended the first nine weeks on Monday November 9th, so I scrambled around during the first week of November to solidify grades and to complete the make-up assignments so many students needed since lots of students were without power for some of that first week of November. In the end, though, I got it done and am glad to be in the second nine weeks. This section of the school year moves quickly because of all of the holidays and breaks. This nine weeks technically won't end until January 29th, but once I'm in the spring semester, I feel like it's a downhill ride to summertime so that makes me happy.
The boys have done well in being virtual students this year. We had the option to send them back to school for the second nine weeks or we had to choose to keep them virtual until the second nine weeks is over. We opted to keep them virtual since flu season is starting to pick-up around here and I didn't want to expose them to flu and covid in the school setting.
They are both excelling academically and I think they truly enjoy the extra time they get to spend with their grandma during the day while Aaron and I are at work. Noah's teacher is pregnant and will be leaving in the spring semester, so we knew he'd have to transition to a new teacher at some point. The school decided to go ahead and switch his original teacher back to in-person teaching and bring in the kindergarten virtual teacher to teach both virtual kindergarten and virtual first grade. So his new teacher took over last week for the virtual first grade class and I think the transition went smoothly. Noah's original teacher worked alongside the new teacher to show her exactly how the students submitted assignments and what lessons they were currently working on, etc. I'm so very thankful that she took these extra steps because it made the transition seamless. Michael's teacher has been the virtual third grade and virtual fourth grade teacher since the beginning of the school year so she's already used to juggling two class loads at the same time. He's continued to do well and is even working on cursive writing!
At my school, every teacher is both a traditional (in-person) teacher and a virtual teacher. So whenever I have students transition to traditional learning, they come in my class as an in-person student and they don't have to undergo a teacher transition. At times it feels like extra work to load and create lesson plans online and tweak those plans for in-class learning, but it's really not so bad in the end.
We have one full week of school coming up, then we'll begin our Thanksgiving break by having Monday and Tuesday as county-wide "eLearning Days" which is code for "everyone will be virtual students on those days." It's nice for me because I get to be home on those days (just checking email every few minutes and answering any questions that students ask during the 7:45am-3:00pm time frame). It's also nice for my boys because they don't really know the difference between a regular day of school and an "eLearning Day" since all of their schoolwork is online anyway.
On Thanksgiving Day, my parents will host the meal in the late afternoon once my mom gets off of work. I'm super excited because my older brother and his family are coming into town and my younger brother is off of work so we all get to be together. My dad and I will handle the bulk of the cooking so that my mom doesn't have to do much of anything once she gets off. Aaron will fry a turkey breast and my dad will roast a whole turkey with stuffing. I plan to make a green bean casserole, a sweet potato casserole, bake rolls, and a couple of pies (cherry and crustless pumpkin). My sister-in-law or me or my dad will assemble mashed potatoes and a seven layer salad. Thanksgiving is certainly one of my favorite holidays mainly because of all of the family time.
The weekend following Thanksgiving, we'll have a meal at my mother-in-law's house when my brother-in-law comes into town with his family. I'm not sure what I'll be making for that but I imagine it'll be a green bean casserole and maybe a pie as well.
I had my follow-up at my doctor's office on Wednesday. Although my a1c went down, I'm still technically considered a Type 2 diabetic but able to be controlled by diet. I would say exercise as well, but I've slacked off on that regard so I won't say that my medical improvements are due to something if I'm not actually doing that something. I do plan to incorporate exercise again though. The doctor didn't write in my chart that I have Type 2 because she says with the labelling comes a change in life insurance options, and she won't prescribe a medicine because I've shown that I'm able to adjust my eating habits to accompany this new lifestyle demand. As a side note though: I will not change much on how I eat at Thanksgiving. I don't overstuff myself anyway, and I'm going to allow myself to participate in the day's eatings and not feel sanctioned off.
This was a big update and I'll write more soon about Michael's recent endocrinology appointment and Noah & Avery's well check-ups!
Until Next Time,
Much Love, Reba
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