Marsia's Diary

Llama said:
It's so sad that schools can be allowed to get so bad nobody with the resources or influence to make a change will send their kids there.
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I used to volunteer with other high schoolers in high school. We'd go to first grade classrooms and help kids struggling with reading. I often think about volunteering for something similar now. I just wish I had the time. Maybe K will want to tutor kids in math and things. She's a math whiz and used to help everyone in her classes with math questions. It is really sad how the government doesn't put money for education where it's most needed though. I think we need drastic reform in how we allocate resources here.
Cate said:
We rarely go to see movies but want to see Elvis in a cinema. It sounds good.
I love that you live in frog land 🐸💚
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It was both an inspiring movie and also a sad ending to a very creative, vibrant person's life. It was told from the perspective of his manager, and in that way it got at the emotional life of Elvis as a performer, but it made you want to have another movie just on the vibrancy of the musical communities around him.
Llama said:
Frogs are awesome!
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I'm thinking of naming our house Frogmore Manor for fun. Such little, unassuming creatures put on whole symphonies every night and hop across our windows entertaining us with their gravity-defying abilities. I never thought moving to the South would mean being surrounded in frogs!

Ok, today I must actually get the peanuts planted! I'm making a cup of tea and heading right out, no distractions from massive dirt digging and lots of planting!!
 
I love Baz Luhrmann so I must definitely watch the Elvis movie.

I was wondering why Frogmore sounded familiar - that was Harry and Meghan's house, haha.
 
I hope you have a wonderful, productive day in the dirt. I like the name Frogmore on its own. I tried thinking of a name for our place years & years ago, but G & the boys didn't like my suggestion so I just shelved it. Nothing ever seemed just right. I might have another think about it....
 
Hi Em and Cate! Frogmore Manor didn't fly with my family. I like Frogmore on its own, too, but can't copy Harry and Meghan now that Em told me that! Back to the drawing board!

We had a great gardening day. J and K helped and I got peanuts, beans, summer squash, and herbs planted. I just need to put up a few more things and can take a break from gardening and focus on the house and homeschooling for a while. We had a nice Independence Day. We went to a festive cafe near the waterfront (and I did have cake) and studied, then went to the waterfront and watched really nice fireworks in a lovely park with a nice crowd of people. It felt like going back in time 30 or 40 years to when events like this were small and it felt like a lovely community event.

Yesterday we went to visit a local private school, and though it is a good school, it's just like the schools K has been in - more like a Montessori with project based classes, but still structured the way the school wants and still not what K is interested in directly. It's the kind of school I would have begged to go to, but K has had enough of doing other people's curricula, and it was good to find this out and move on to home schooling. I am doing free online classes for home school teachers and everything they are saying about how to save money by having homeschooling high school classes also count for college sounds like it came out of K's mouth. She is definitely an unschooler!

We went out for fried chicken yesterday, which is nearly the best fried chicken I've had in my life. And the sides were healthy and delicious with fresh herbs and fresh ginger in them. So good. I will have to take it easy with food for a good while now. I ordered a bathroom scale, as I still have no clue where ours is and I'll give one to J and keep the other in my bathroom. So when the scale comes, I'll start tracking again on MFP.

Oh, forgot to say I meditated and did yoga last night, though I did fall asleep while meditating!
 
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Good to hear K has a clear idea of what she wants to do with her remaining school time. I hope the two of you can remain a team for this!
 
Yes, definitely, LaMa. I worked at university libraries helping people with research, so love this sort of thing, though it will be a challenge jumping right into this with no preparation. K seems really into it, so I think we'll be a great team!
 
Thanks all! Yesterday was another day going out. One of J's employers was on Kiawah Island on a golf vacation, so we went and had brunch with him and his family. I got very nervous about socializing and ate a lot of cheese before hand, but ate a normal amount of delicious brunch with a lot of fresh fruit salad. But later I made sweet tea with honey. I need to only use the zero cal sugar for mine once I unpack it in the future. We also went out for open mic at the sports bar. They really liked K. She has fans!

So I really want to severely limit going out and if we do go out, I need to ask how the food is prepared and only get really healthy stuff. I know I regained some weight and want to get it back off quickly.

I'm ordering a lot of herb seeds today. The place with the delicious fried chicken inspired me to cook with more fresh herbs!
 
Being "fussy" when out with business relations doesn't really work. But for private outings it definitely makes sense!
 
It sounds like you coped well with the business lunch & open mic night sounds like fun. We use so many fresh herbs. Even in the middle of winter we always have lots of choices with herbs. I am going to plant a lot more I think.
 
Llama said:
Being "fussy" when out with business relations doesn't really work. But for private outings it definitely makes sense!
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I lucked out and it was a buffet style breakfast, so I could pile on the fruit and just have a little of the fattening stuff.
Cate said:
It sounds like you coped well with the business lunch & open mic night sounds like fun. We use so many fresh herbs. Even in the middle of winter we always have lots of choices with herbs. I am going to plant a lot more I think.
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I feel happy I did well with the business lunch. I generally have trouble with hanging out with families of Js bosses, but the wife was shy, and I asked her some questions, but more talked with her son who is at Stanford taking computer programming courses, so I got a lot of interesting info from him. I usually feel like I get along with kids more than their parents. I wish I knew how to feel comfortable around adults!

Fresh herbs are wonderful, and I did think of your herb garden while I was picking out herb seeds to order.

We had a productive day. Went and notarized some stuff for inheritance issues with my mom's estate, got enrolled in a home schooling association, talked to the 4 year college here and found that they will take K as a dual enrolled high school student.
Also started the enrollment process for the local community college, and we went to another really nice open mic. I split a salad with J and had a non-sweetened iced tea, which is almost as good as sweetened with lemon. Also got lots of good advice and leads for classes for K. So things are coming together and I also ate well! Yay, me!
 
All of these 'networking' lunches - a phrase I absolutely despise, by the way - are very awkward. Well done for getting through it. I find them bad enough as an employee, never-to-mind making conversation with people you don't have much in common with at all.
 
Thanks Em and LaMa! Yeah, I agree about how awkward that is having to meet families who I don't have a thing in common with. But J said I did well, and it does help for him getting more work from this firm. They have really cool patent clients and the work is super interesting, so I am glad I did ok.

Today K mowed a big portion of the lawn, and I hauled soil and watered the garden. It was so hot that we came in and took about an hour nap afterwards. We are doing well with homeschool research and are figuring out which classes to take to also get college credit. It's really complicated as K's current school transcript fulfilled different state criteria in CA. I made a nice chicken dish with fresh rosemary and yam noodles, chicken, chicken stock, garlic, onion, ginger, veggies, and coconut milk. The combo of the coconut milk and the rosemary was so good. Can't wait to go to bed so I can have more for breakfast. So sleepy from all the physical and brain workouts! The garden is looking so nice with overflowing beds of green!
 
What a busy, busy 🐝 you are! Dinner did sound delicious. I'm glad I'm not hungry. Going to bed feeling nicely tired is a good thing :)
 
Thanks All! As busy as yesterday was, today was restful. We went to see the Minions movie. It is funny and lovely. I love Gru, and the minions are like mini-Filipinos (who even speak a few Spanish phrases). A couple of DJ minions reminded me of J's twin brothers. Then we saw an old fashioned Jewish deli, and it was phenomenally good with a massive, mind-blowingly good selection. I haven't been to a good Jewish deli since high school with my mom in NYC. I didn't eat well, but completely enjoyed myself - last bad for me meal!

This morning the scale arrived in the mail. Yow! I can tell I gained a lot back, but the end result is 5 pounds down from my CA weight, so I'll carefully weigh and calorie count and hopefully the last weight gain won't be as stubborn to get off. I still have a lot of dirt to move, so it should be fine as long as I stop eating out! Have to go get lots of veggies tomorrow, so I have a lot of nice healthy things to eat!
 
Thanks LaMa! Just popped in to record weight. Starting weight yesterday 200.1. Weight this morning 197.4. I was 208 in CA, so down 10.5 pounds from that, thank goodness! It feels like a huge relief that I'm finally not in the 200s this morning.

Doing well this morning. Just researching what a history class on the Renaissance could look like. Having a surprisingly hard time finding just the right book to use as a text book - most interesting ones are college level history, which is such dense reading. There are excellent documentaries though. Having fun finding good resources...
 
Over 10 pounds down is nothing to sneeze at!
 
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