Just regular folks.

I don’t really know how it’s possible, but I feel busier than ever. As I’ve aged, I really feel like I need more sleep and downtime (obvs) and my ability to transition between things has been diminishing. I probably used to be able to turn from one thing to another in quick succession, picking something up and then putting it down – there was a period of my life where I was: working full time, going to school half to full time, running and training a lot, and raising my kids. I look at that now and say…woah, how did I do that?

The big sad news is that our friend Erik Ledbetter passed away very suddenly at work about 3 weeks ago. You can read about him here. The funeral service was this weekend, so we got to see Owen and Lynn and met Erik’s mother. And, as is true of both weddings and funerals, we got to say hello to lots of friends that are in the neighborhood but we never see. (Vince and Owen became eagle scouts together). And see lots of grown up boys we’ve known since they were in 2nd grade. It was wonderful to catch up and also sad to be together for this reason. Erik followed his heart and became a park ranger about a decade ago and he loved it so much. I’m so happy he got to do that because he was so unhappy at his desk job before – did he go to Yale and Hopkins? I want to say yes.

I’ve been busy trying to get Edda settled into her day program which is supposed to start on August 11th – though still slightly unclear. I’m also trying to switch Eliana and Ginny over to the new system which will pay them less than they were being paid by the youth programs. I will spare you the saga and total weird vibes we’ve gone through with the onboarding which feels…like a big weird scam. At each point in the process, I’m like, is this a scam? It sure feels like a scam. And we proceed. And as they will be paid less than they were just 4 weeks ago, we will supplement their pay to bring it up to what I consider a fair-ish wage and covering the onboarding fees. Both Eliana and Ginny are stepping through the process without complaint – if you can believe it, it’s already been like over $150 of fees per person to onboard onto this new company and we haven’t yet finished with it all – maybe 50% done.

I’m also busy looking into joining a bunch of parent-led organizations for housing for adult special needs kids. The most compelling is called the Neighborhood of Maryland which is a model in which there are 19 houses that you buy (only 1 house, probably about 1-1.5 million dollars each (!)) and then there is a neighborhood enrichment center for the kids to go to during the day. I like the energy of the folks running the program, I’m not quite sure it’s right for Edda, but I’m going to help out to see what it’s about.

Jeremy’s been so busy at work which is a good thing, but I just see him squirreling away at work stuff all day – which makes him in a good mood and then I’m in a good mood.

He’s also been hard at work trying to buy us a new car. We’ve been talking a lot about cars – this is what we have now – a 2014 Honda Accord hybrid and we are borrowing my parents’ 2010 Honda CRV for the summer while they are on the west coast. Having two cars shows just just how rarely we use the 2nd car. We probably drive the 2nd car once every 10 days.

But, the 2014 Honda Accord drives me crazy in a few ways: it doesn’t fit Edda’s wheelchair very well, you have to kind of tetris it into the trunk and it make a high pitched whine when you accelerate that I can hear and Jeremy can not hear. And, of course, it’s not a modern car with Apple play and all the computer integration and cameras, etc which we really enjoy when renting a car. It barely knows about Bluetooth. My parents car from 2010 is even worse – without a backup camera, you have to twist your entire body to see out the back window and even then, you don’t know if there is a short toddler like 2 feet behind your back bumper (important to us, because there is an errant toddler in our neighborhood who is known to elope and wander the ‘hood by herself with no fear).

Our general philosophy has been to buy new cars and drive them into the ground, but this can not happen anymore. We drive so infrequently and for such short distances that we no longer can “use up” a car. We are essentially, car-wise, little old ladies that only use the car to drive to church on Sundays. Then we have to shift our thinking because I want all the modern conveniences and safety features of a new car and I do want to try to keep up with new technologies and not be afraid of trying new things. Is the 2014 Honda Accord “used up”? The answer is clearly no. But do we want a new car? The answer is “yes”. We probably have to switch our mindset from a “mileage” age to just a straight “age” age.

Compounding our car desires, we want to buy an electric car that is 1) not a Tesla, 2) Edda can get into and out of easily and 3) has trunk space for her wheelchair. This is not an easy combination. Jeremy has been going to car dealerships and measuring the distance from the ground to the seat in various models. What we really want is a station wagon, but literally no one in America makes a station wagon anymore. Everyone loves the SUV or small SUV form factor which is too tall for Edda to get in without installing a chair lift.

Anyways, I think we are going to buy a Kia (!). And Jeremy is looking over the financing from a few dealerships to see which one has the “best deal” which is incredibly difficult because they leave out key fees and clear documentation and just focus on the monthly payment – so one can’t figure out immediately which one is “better”. gah. drives me crazy that it’s so hard. After months of being sort of unhappy about getting a new car, I’m quietly excited. It’s so expensive, it also took me time to really wrap my head around how much cars cost these days which is….a lot.

I made snickerdoodles last night. I was fixated on a stick of cinnamon sugar butter that Felix purchased a few weeks ago that was occupying space in my refrigerator. Did you know you could buy a stick of butter with cinnamon and sugar mixed in already? I did not. But I needed to get it out of my fridge and into some cookies. These are AMAZING. perfect. They even look like store bought cookies with the little wrinkles in them. Snickerdoodles by Sally’s Baking Addiction. I told Felix to bring them to work today, otherwise, I’d eat them alllllll.

My IUD is stuck in me. They lost the strings and so rooted around there first visually, then with sonogram and then now, I get to have light sedation so they can really root around there without me caring very much to get it out. I’m on hold for the doctor’s office while I write this post. I overheard that a patient was on hold for over an hour trying to get an appointment. Hmmm. I love my IUD, I think this is my third one and they’ve given me no trouble until now. I guess it’s fine that I’m not in a huge rush to get it out of me. No more babies!

Things are very busy, but moving forward well. We are still moving very slowly to getting her adult benefits in place and funded. I can see that it’ll be OK, but it’s still slow going.

I’ve also been doing some gardening, planting lemon lime elderberry in the front yard. They were half eaten by deer. Is that good? Like they tasted and then decided it wasn’t any good.

I went to Alice’s grave yesterday – it was her birthday. Alice – I miss you.

Jeremy came home on Saturday night from CA. He brought me this little ring from Tienne who made it to resemble Elka.

Felix decided to extend his stay here in the US for another three weeks, but since we thought he was leaving yesterday, we had invited everyone over for a goodbye party. So we hosted a party for 16 (18?) on Sunday for which Jeremy handformed 5 pounds worth of meatballs and I baked two cakes.

My cousin, Chris, who’s been doing an internship in MD came over. So did Bob and Katherine – we had a full house.

We went swimming at the pool to see Felix in action at his job, the doggies came from PA.

While we hosted all these people, we were/are battling an infestation of flies. I ordered these fancy fly traps with UV light which work only at night and, I think, work sub par. And I bought two fly swatters and we just went to town. I felt I was being punished by pestilence.

Can I tell you that I’m killing it on the home front while Jeremy is gone? I do not pride myself on my home making skills – Jeremy really is the chef in the house overseeing all things food and kitchen cleanup (I do neither of these things very often when he’s at home), but I’ve cooked so many meals, cleaned so many dishes, packed many lunches and baked – a pear/apple crumble and a chocolate banana bread – mostly because I had aging pears and bananas in my kitchen. I haven’t had to do take out (take is so expensive these days, I don’t want to spend that kind of money on convenience really), I scrounge in the kitchen. Feeding sometimes just me and Edda, many nights plus Felix some other nights plus Ginny and Joab. It’s kind of a wonder to me – like I can be a housewife, this would not be one of my top skills.

Now, what had to give in order for me to do this? Well, mostly my paid work. I’ve learned that in order to keep the house running smoothly while Jeremy is gone and for me to not feel pinched, I have to take about 1-2 hours a day off of work to make it happen. I usually don’t need the entire 2 hours, but it makes me feel better that I can have that. Even with the time off, I’m behind at work. But it’s how it goes. When a day is really packed with house duties, I might take the entire day off of work.

I went to choir last night. This is summer choir – so really a subset of the main choir. Just practicing one song – Carolina by Taylor Swift.

I was not going to go because I would have to bring Edda, but it all went OK. Edda was very quiet during the entire rehearsal and I’m glad we got out of the house.

Felix is suppose to be going back home on Monday (this may be up in the air now as he’s having a good time working and may be bored at home during the month of August and the flight can be changed without issue) and because of that, I decided to do my workout at the pool yesterday afternoon to see him in action.

This is my childhood pool, where I learned to swim, where I went everyday during summer camp as the hordes of children do now and where I also took my own kids. Now it’s been so long, that when the new renovation at the outdoor pool opened this summer, it’s the 2nd renovation since my childhood. Now this is the new, new pool and I can be an old person where the first pool was basically just a rectangle with a single rickety metal slide. The first renovation featured a beach entry and one big plastic spiral slide. The second renovation now has many water features including a lily pond obstacle course, so many big slides, little slides, 10,000 spraying water features – shaded baby beach entry portion – lots more shade for the chairs and in the play pool, basically nothing deeper than 4 feet.

I couldn’t quite believe Felix when he said there were 20 lifeguards on staff, but there were that many, basically standing sentry in the pool at any activity, along the pool, every 20 feet or so. I was very impressed. When we were young, I felt like there were only three lifeguards for the entire pool.

Anyways, it was great to see Felix at work, the newly renovated pool. I did a lot of the water features including the diving board, the lily pads and the biggest slides. And I did a little bit of a workout. I didn’t eat at the snack bar, perhaps I should have. I fondly remember the snack bar and sitting next to this very cute boy, Andrew who was totally out of my league in school, but summer rules are different and we sat with each other and ate french fries together.

We ran Elka’s DNA test a few years ago and she matched with a brother, Groove and so I messaged them and asked to meet up. But the message got buried and I didn’t receive any replies until a few weeks ago! And now I’m in a text message chat with Groove’s mom. And it’s so fun seeing photos of Elka’s brother.

My friend Lael came for lunch with her two kids and hubby in tow. The kids are 0.5 and 2.9 years old and are super cute and, man, are a lot of work – just watching them at lunch reminded me how crazy it is to have really young children. They were here for about 2.5 hours and it was fun, I love playing with other people’s babies. The littles ate a some lunch and proceeded to nap in various beds all over the house – this tiny one using Edda’s sleep safe bed as a crib because it basically is a twin sized crib.

I curated lunch to be toddler friendly. Lots of colors, everything separate (the adults made sandwiches) – pasta with cheese, but no pepper in case the toddler didn’t want black flakes in their cheesy pasta. The biggest hit was the egg slicer which was used to slice all manner of table food. I love being able to host a low-key lunch at the house – this is a skill to be learned and I learned this from Jeremy.

Jeremy’s on the West Coast for 10 days (as I like to say, saving the world one gas station at a time – figuring out the transition from gas to electric as smoothly as possible) – and he got to see Vince for about 6 hours. Vince flew up for a day and they spent the day just walking around and chatting. It’s been a long time since it’s been just the two of them together. I’m glad this happened.

Jeremy is also spending time with his high school friends (and their kids).

Also, lots of time on his new bike.

Here on the East coast, it was a nice quiet weekend with me and Edda. On Saturday, Edda and I went to lunch at the new Wegmans just a few miles from the house. On Sunday, Edda and I went to brunch with the Rett moms, so lovely and then Sunday night dinner!

We celebrated Megan’s birthday on Monday. I got to make her a cookies and creme birthday cake with a light whipped cream frosting. I was very proud of the cake – I had a big sprinkle “M” on the top which looked like a brown UofM logo. But it was for Megan and not for anyone else.

See? I did the piping too!

Megan got to wear our birthday hat, which turns out was purchased by her in 2023 for a combination of Edda’s and Pat’s birthdays and now lives in our birthday drawer for all folks who want to wear the birthday hat. It is one of my favorite birthday items that we have!

Happy Birthday Megan, we are lucky to have you in our lives <3