Talk Nerdy To Me: Thankful Thursday

Wednesday, March 06, 2019

Thankful Thursday

You know the weeks where you feel like life is sucking up all of your money?

This was definitely one of those. Gary needs a root canal and crown (make sure your teenagers take care of their teeth, parents!) and has already reached his dental maximum for the year so it's out of pocket. Then we had to pay for Kai's braces (we actually went the Invisalign route). The total of these two is over $7,000 that we have to pay. I feel like every month we're like "next month we'll save!" and then life. Oh well. I'm grateful that we don't have to go into debt over it and we have the money saved but it's such a very unfun way to spend money. Very. Parents of young kids, start setting that money aside!

This week I am thankful for:

1. An afternoon with the two younger kids at the beach. Kai stayed home to work on Math 8 (online) and there was NO FIGHTING with two kids. Having three kids is not hard logistically for us, it's just so hard because they fight so much! Nya is not one to ever instigate it so it drives me bananas that the boys can't just be kind to her.

2. This guy. He works hard and puts up with my "moods".

3. Dukoral. We probably should have taken it on previous trips (like Thailand where Gary ate from street vendors and got food poisoning) so I'm glad it's mostly covered and we can take it before we head to Mexico.

4. Cooking shows for kids. It has inspired Koen to really WANT to get involved in the kitchen. Here they are making pizzas from scratch for the bbq.

5. Online school. Kind of fun that Kai is taking Math 8 online. "Fun" in the sense that I can see how other people teach the course. He just needs to go into the office to write his tests but his homework and quizzes are submitted online. He's done about 1/8 and at 100% so I'm confident he's able to do it. It is a lot of work but he's pretty good at math and we are able to help him through the lessons when he needs it. This was not my idea, it was his. I took about a month to talk to several teachers and the guidance counsellor to see if it was a wise decision. So far I'm glad we've done it but it feels a bit rushed to finish by June. Will he do more online courses in the future? I'm not sure. I personally see the value of the classroom (I mean, we're both teachers) but for a course like this it works well.

6. New bathing suits. I picked up two new ones from Superstore. Kind of random but I had PC Points so they were "free" and they had a sale on the bottoms ($16). The other one is a black ruffled and off one shoulder and this is my "stay safe in the sun" suit. I've had three moles removed now and I don't want to go through that again! This one is likely too hot for Mexico but will work well here this summer.

7. The series "Losers" on Netflix. The first episode has some bad language but overall I've learned a lot about different sports and I love the documentary type style. Gary and I both enjoy this series.

8. Books! I took Facebook and Instagram off my phone so that I had more time to read. My self control is not awesome so this made a huge difference! I finished two books this week. Becoming is good; it provided a lot of insight into the process of Barack becoming president and what his job (and hers) entailed. Michelle and Barack are highly educated and articulate individuals so I appreciated learning more about their story.