Insta-Friday

Insta-Friday at Life.rearranged

 

My week started with this viewpoint. Yikes! My oldest son is in the midst of taking Driver's Education. I was  fine with dropping him off and picking him up for class. However, this particular school has a "parent ride-along" near the end of the driving time. I had seriously hoped to skip it, but it was changed so both my hubby and I got to head out with our son. Oh.my.gosh. I was in no way prepared to have my fifteen-year-old son drive me through town. Let's just say I'm really praying his father is able to take him out from now on. I'm afraid I'll give the kid a complex. Oh and he did just fine. It was just his parents having nervous breakdowns in the backseat.

On Wednesday we were invited over to my in-laws for dessert (aka dinner) with both my inlaws and Grandad. We were commenting how even though we all live on the same property together, we rarely have opportunities to just sit and talk. It was nice.

On their deck they have four hummingbird feeders hanging and the hummingbirds love them! There were at least six or so there fighting for a chance to eat. I was able to snap a couple pics. I love watching hummingbird.

A couple weeks ago my hubby splurged for me and bought me a bike rack for my truck. My two younger boys and I like to bike, but my truck is too small to fit them inside. The rack holds four bikes. 

This was our maiden voyage. I couldn't figure out how to bolt it to my truck, so we had to wait until my hubby had a chance to install it for me. He did it on Wednesday, his day off no less! The boys and I were super excited to try it out the next day.

While my oldest was at Driver's Education, the two younger boys & I biked over to this relatively new park in town. It's a very easy ride across a foot bridge that spans the river, up a small hill (only stretch of street we need to ride on) and then we're there. The path down to the park is steep and has a couple sharp S curves. I thought my youngest was going to end up in the river! He went around the last curve rather hard and sharp. It's hard being the mom sometimes! 

Along the path is exercise equipment. There are five stations. Each one uses your own body weight to work. This particular one has you stand on the platform and move side to side. It works the oblique muscles (the ones on the sides of your abdomen). It was pretty easy but oddly it made me dizzy so I only did it once. 

The next one had three pieces of equipment. You sit on one and have push bars to the side above your head. The goal is to lift yourself up by pushing on the bars. I barely manged ten. Phew! The other one is similar but you pull down rather than push up. I did two. Sad I know. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to lift the bikes on to rack if I did too many more! Seriously! Obviously I need to get back to my weight routine. The third piece at this station was like a stair climber. 

We also did one that is like an elliptical machine. At this point my middle son had taken off to into the bike park that is next to the path. He LOVED going over the moguls fast! I couldn't watch. Yeah, I know. I should send his Dad with him next time.

Overall we had a great time. We stayed for about a half hour. I'm really happy we now have the bike rack. It allows us to go bike more spots including the rail trail in the nearby city and the dirt rail trail in the next town over. I'm sure we'll hit both before the summer is over!

Insta-Friday

 

Insta-Friday @ Life Rearranged

Once again it's Friday. Time to share my Instagram pics. I need to get better at taking more. It looks like we didn't do a lot this week but it sure feels differently!

Early in the week I took the kiddo for a bike ride down the road. We did an easy six miles. We stopped half way for a quick water break. I attempted a self-portrait. Obviously it's a skill I need to keep working on.

My oldest son is ::gulp:: 15 years old. He actually turns 16 in just a couple of months. Next week he will be starting driver's education. Oh my. It seems like yesterday he was just a toddler running around! Now he's yards taller than me (not hard to do) and growing by leaps and bounds. 

On Tuesday we had to make a trip to "the city" where we used to live and the boys were born. In gathering the paperwork and things he would need to sign up for the class, I realized that the only copy of his birth certificate was the hospital souvenir copy. When I called the City Clerk they said I could walk out with the copy I needed if I applied in person, so rather than trust the postal service, we headed down.

Being the homeschooling mom that I am, I wanted to add something to the afternoon to round out the educational opportunity. We started the morning at piano lessons. At City Hall, while I waited the ten minutes (seriously - I was amazed at how fast it was!) to get the copy of the birth certificate, the boys spied a fantastic clock in the hall that spanned two floors. I did not get an Instagram photo of it, but I did snap this one....

We then headed to the local college to check out their art museum. They had a display of astrophotography that was very impressive. The boys had a good time, but we didn't spend a lot of time there. We arrived as a lecture was happening on the lower level. I was also told no less than three times by the kind elderly volunteer..."They won't touch right?" ::sigh:: So we looked and took a bit of photographic proof we attended and then walked the grounds a bit (where the photo of all three of them above was taken).

Yeah, they were that thrilled to pose for a photo for me...again.

Wednesday found us at our cooking class. This is week five of six and it was a bit different. We met at the local Farmer's Market. It's held at the old jail location and we were able to use the kitchen facility. We made some homemade ranch dressing and had veggies to dip and some toasted bread with sunflower oil on it (yum!). We were also given a tour of the market. Unfortunately, Wednesday afternoons are still pretty slow there. They are also open on Saturday mornings. Unlike most of our cooking classes, we didn't spend the time cooking this week and did not make a full meal. 

My youngest getting help slicing up a radish. 

After our tour we headed across the river to a great new park that was created last year. It follows along the river and has workout stations along the way. They use your own body weight. For example, there is one where you stand on a small platform and rock side to side to work your oblique muscles. There is another machine that works like an elliptical and another that is a climber. All told I think there are about 6-8 stations and the path is about a 1/4 mile long. 

We ended the evening with a shopping challenge. Typically we are given a bag of "take-home" groceries which is a set of ingredients for whatever we made in class. Since we didn't cook a meal this week, we were all given $25 to shop at the market but had some parameters to follow. We had to shop as many vendors as possible (there were only five), not go over the $25, and hit as many of the food groups as possible.

There is only one other family who does this class with us and we both ended up buying virtually the exact same ingredients. They included a pound of grass-fed beef, raw milk (we bought a 1/2 gallon, they bought a pint), a bag of salad greens, a wedge of Gouda cheese, a loaf of bread, and a bunch of radishes. We came in at exactly $25 and got extra points for bringing a reusable bag. What did we win? Gratification and yummy food!

And at the end of the week, we spied this moth drying its wings in a parking lot so I had to snap the photo.

It was large - about 4-5 inches across. It's wings were vibrating and slowly moving up and down. Interestingly enough after I snapped the photo, I had someone drive over to ask me what I was taking a picture of. Just a pretty cool looking moth.

Insta Friday

Insta-Friday @ Life Rearranged

Apparently I was so busy this week that I only snapped two photos with my cell phone. Yeah. It's been like that lately.

On Sunday, in driving rain conditions, my 11 year-old son & I biked in the Tour de Cure bike ride. Ironically enough, I was pregnant with this kiddo when I was first told I was a diabetic. It was when he was just four months old that I found out I was a Type 1 - at age 28. Yes, it's considered "juvenile type" diabetes, but I was long past the juvenile stage. It does mean my body doesn't make insulin and I do wear an insulin pump 24/7. But it's purple so that makes up for some of it. And I don't have to give myself 4-5 shots a day so that is awesome!

Anyway back to the ride....saying it was raining would be like saying an earthquake was just "shaking" a tad. It was pouring. Blinding rain at some points. It was was so hard to see at times. My glasses were fogging up so I rode without them. It's okay, I'm not completely blind without them.

My MIL also rode with us. The two of us have done this ride now about 7-8 times. We forget how many. I do know that we've only had sun 2-3 times!! It seems to always be raining! We started out riding the 25K, then moved up to the 50K, and now back down to the 25K. As my boy gets older, we'll probably bump it back up.

But we managed to complete our 25K (aka 15 miles). The kiddo & I were soaked through but I had at least thought ahead to bring a change of clothes and shoes for both of us which was a good thing as we both really needed them!

This shows my grocery shopping for the week. Actually, half my shopping as I had picked up some things earlier in the week. I had two paper bags and two packages of meat underneath that you can't see in the photo. What is sad about the whole thing....it was $70 worth of food and I could have carried it all myself. I really dislike the rising food costs!

That's just a small glimpse of my week. Tomorrow my boys are participating in an Educational Fair.  Our 4H club is hosting it for area homeschoolers. Phew! It's been a lot of work and I will be very happy when it's done, but I know everyone will have a great time.

Insta-Friday Newbie

 

When my hubby first gifted me with my Droid phone last December, I kid you not that the first words out of my mouth were...."Now I can do Instagram!" Sad but true. And it took me almost six months to finally get the app downloaded and start clicking. I've been watching these Insta-Friday posts for a few months and finally decided to jump on the bandwagon today.

Yesterday I had to travel to the "big city" for a doctor appointment. Whenever I head south, I make a day of it. It's at least a two hour drive and considering how tiny our town is (population under 900), there isn't much in our area. I like to take advantage of the conveniences of the city including the fact that there is a Trader Joe's and Whole Foods within site of each other.

I typically take my two younger boys with me. At ages 8 and 11, they enjoy the day as well. It includes special treats such as eating out at a restaurant, road-snacks, special drinks (i.e. soda which they rarely get), and playing on my phone and Kindle while I'm at my appointment. This makes it a "good day" for them.

My youngest wasn't feeling great yesterday and I knew we had a busy few days coming up, so I decided to leave him home with my oldest son. That meant it was just my middle kiddo and I for the day and, boy, did  we make a day of it! We left our house at 10:30 yesterday morning and didn't arrive back until 9:30 that night!

One the way down we had some time so we stopped to check out the world's largest globe.

The last time we were here they were working on the motor so it wasn't revolving and rotating. Today it was and N11 was thrilled.

After my appointment and a bunch of errands before and after, I decided to surprise N11 with a very special treat. We headed to the local airport. Well, it's actually a "jetport." However, he didn't care. My son has gone from being a train fanatic to a plane fanatic. He can rattle off makes and models like he was saying his ABC's.

We did a quick walk-through of the terminal, but thanks to all the newest security measures, you can't really get to a good spot to see take-offs and landings. Not to be deterred, I decided we'd just head up to the top of the parking garage. It was perfect. We saw four take-offs and two landings.

He declared me the "best mom" ever - or at least for the day.