AN UPDATE on this GANG

My dad has been writing in his blog several times a week recently and I promised to start writing again if he kept it up... and so here I am. My mom even said something about my lack of writing. . . .  Problem is there are only so many hours in my day and it's been crazy busy and when I finally have a little down time my brain doesn't actually want to get in gear.

There are still a few boxes of apples and pears in the garage that need attending, there are still boxes of tomatoes to pick out in the garden and even a few potatoes to dig and pimientos to pick, but the fall harvest duties are nearly over. My kitchen "remodel" is pretty close to finished, thanks to my mom, and also the barn is clean, the potting room has more shelves and is neat and tidy. The summer accumulation of branches and boxes have been burned and a trailer load of stuff has been carted off to the dump. My mom was here a few weeks and she's a go-getter a lot was done. We even cleaned houses that are not mine - some for pay and some for not.

I have a small job with a card company stocking a couple of stores, I've been selling books on Amazon which keeps me running to the post office, and I play the piano for a Sunday church and do other odd jobs such as cleaning and babysitting to keep Missy's tuition at the Montessori covered. So far I have had sufficient money on time and even a little start towards the next month at each due date. I know that God has been providing and because He has I am more than sure that Missy is where she is suppose to be.

Missy is less intense. She is who she is, but she's not raging at all. I'll take it!!! She is liking the new school, though sometimes she tells me she wants to be homeschooled. She's heard that it's the "IN thing".  I laugh and ask her if she wants me to boss her around all day and she most definitely does not. It's not just me that needs her to go to school She really needs the break from being oppositional and antagonistic during the day. . . at school she is not, but she picks up where she leaves off in the morning  when she gets home. She still cannot just obey her parents. period. But she can obey a teacher. Somehow we need to shift that thinking, but I am at a loss and I am sure it is the RAD at play. She is constantly seeking attention. I am plain not good at handling negative attention seekers... Poor kid.

Those who have been reading since the twins were adopted will be glad to hear that James is doing well. He's happy, cooperative, and doing his homework without being told. He's offering to help and sings about the house. I see much growth towards maturity. He's also maybe a wee bit too giddy sometimes, not sleeping a lot, talking incessantly, and has me wondering when the crash is going to come. It happens every now and again. A few weeks ago it happened at church. I didn't notice at first but the girls were frustrated with his behavior in the service. It became obvious by potluck time and he grew more and more intense by the minute. By the time we reached home and were preparing to go for a bike ride he was screaming. There's no other way to explain it to anyone except to say he was "mentally unstable" there was no reason or reasoning and we had to keep him by Steve and even have him ride in a separate car from all the other kids. This lasted more than a week and then suddenly one morning he woke up happy again. He went from lethargic and extremely unwilling to offering to help.  I wish I understood why.

We had a little scene one morning that was a bit hard to figure out but he did not know how to handle some big feelings and it got a little dicey, and I ended up walking him to school and the teacher backed me up in a very helpful way. He came home and wrote me a letter of apology for being disrespectful.  First my mom read it and I could tell that she was quite taken aback by it and she indicated that I needed to read it. The letter was well written and quite amazing, actually. James was sobbing his little heart out and I held him and we talked for quite awhile. He bonded with me in that moment more than he ever has. He wants a real relationship with all of us and he hates it when he is filled with rage and anger, but of course he does not know how to handle it and I do feel sorry for him when he's helplessly engulfed.

Vanessa turned 21. She is moving along in her Registered Nursing program. Today we drove a few hours away so she could write her LPN exam. I was sick as a dog with a migraine and even though I was going along to help with driving I mostly did the crying and she did all the driving. We left at 5 AM in the pouring rain. We wondered if we would see our first snow of the season on the mountain pass but we did not. We didn't see anything, actually. It was so dark in the pouring rain.

Christina turned 17. She was doing too much, working and college and mentoring, etc... and she had hard classes and she was struggling.  She had to back off on work and mentoring and weed out the extras to keep her ultimate goal in sight. She has been finding people who can help her understand her classes. She was telling us that it's not the smart people who accomplish big things, it's people with grit. So, every time she started to share how she was feeling overwhelmed I would remind her that she's a person of grit. She would pull up straight and say, "YES! I AM!" Today she got the results from her latest calculus exam and it was an A. I reminded her it's because she has grit.

Brianna has finger in every pot. It can be a challenge when you have too many interests. Keeping herself organized is a task and a half. I haven't a clue when it comes to Spanish, but I was duly impressed when she read me a story in Spanish and translated it to me. She did a couple of photo shoots for people and the quality of her pictures has improved a lot due to her online classes...

Steve is determined to save money by riding his bike and the bus. It's a little harder now that it's dark when he leaves and when comes home. It's sort of yucky now that we are getting our fall rains, too. I'm wondering how it is going to pan out when the snow falls.

Missy

Brianna posted this picture of Missy on her blog because she enjoys photography and this is a great picture.

 Maybe not everyone can see what I see, but

 I'm sharing this picture because it is a window into Missy's soul. . .

 I love this portrait of her because it's real. 

There is no fake smile, 

or cheesy grin, 

it's the raw deal...

REAL.

This child has more internal struggles than most people I know, 

but her eyes are beautiful even if they are not joyous. 

The quote Brianna posted below the photo is truth, too.