Wonder

When we were with my family in Maryland around New Year's, everyone (except for my Dad and Margie) went to see a movie. The plan had been for about half of the group to see the new Star Wars movie, but the tickets were all sold out. Those of us who were either too young or not interested in Star Wars planned to see either Coco or Wonder. We ended up picking Coco because we weren't sure if Oliver and Grace were too young for Wonder. When we watch dvds, we usually get them from the public library. The downside of requesting new releases is that you don't know when your turn will come up, and they want you to come pick it up within three days. At this time Monday is the day we usually go to the library, and with how precious time is for me these days, I don't like needing to make another trip just to pick up a DVD. So at the beginning of the semester I stopped requesting any DVDs that have been recently released. I had a coupon for a DVD kiosk at our grocery store, and I decided to use it to rent Wonder for one night. It was the first movie I had watched this year. Usually if the kids and/or Paul are watching something, I am getting work done. I decided to splurge and actually watch the movie without multitasking. The kids appreciated that I truly watched it with them, and I liked the movie for a host of reasons. One reason was that my brother has dealt with some (less severe) craniofacial issues. I remember when he was a preschooler how he would hide his face in my skirt when we were in public to avoid the stares and comments. Usually adults have the sense not to make unkind comments, but because his condition was less severe, adults would often misinterpret his facial expressions and think he was mad when he wasn't. Also since the movie featured a boy who was homeschooled from grades K-4, that caught my attention because homeschooling isn't often mentioned in movies. Nadia wants to read the book now.

Speaking of my brother, I am extremely proud of him. He applied to four schools for his PhD (Brown, NYU, Penn, and Austin), and he has received two acceptances (with generous offers as to free tuition, free health insurance, stipend for 5 years, etc.) thus far and has been told he will receive a third. The only rejection he got was from Brown, and he was told that was because they didn't have a professor available in his area of research to be his mentor. The acceptance rate at these schools is VERY tiny. We had been praying that Penn would make him an offer, and they did a few days ago! He was the first one on their waiting list so after one person rejected their offer, they were able to make an offer to Maurice. Penn was #1 on Maurice's list, and I am thrilled because it means my brother will most likely be moving to Philadelphia in August! Woohoo!!! I moved to Pennsylvania in 1996, and this will be the first time in 22 years that I'll have someone from my immediate family (of origin) living in the same state. We live 2.5-3 hours (depending on traffic) from Philly, but that's a lot closer than Brazil and Texas (two places he's lived over the past 6 years). For years my mom and I had talked about the day she and my dad would move to PA to live closer to us, but those plans were dashed when she was diagnosed with cancer the end of 2015. Considering my mom is in Heaven and my dad has moved farther away, it is very exciting to think that my brother will be living closer to me for probably five years.

My first two appliance purchases when I moved to Pennsylvania in 1996 were a washer and a dryer. A few days ago I noticed a burning smell when the dryer was being used. It had already been showing other signs that it was giving up the ghost, but that was the final straw. I certainly didn't want to have a fire from waiting too long to replace the dryer. I don't recall exactly how much I spent, but I am certain I got my money's worth out of the dryer, and sadly I am pretty sure the one I just bought won't last nearly as long. When I placed the order on Lowe's website on Thursday morning, I received an email stating it would be delivered sometime between 8:00am and 8:00pm on Sunday, which I thought was odd. They said I'd get a call either Saturday night or Sunday morning to narrow it to a two hour window. I never got that call, but they did call me 15 minutes before they arrived this morning to tell me they were on their way. This would have been a problem if I hadn't been sick because normally all of us would have been at church at that time.

I have been fighting an upper respiratory bug since Thursday, which includes a really bad headache and a low grade fever. I went to bed at 8:00pm on Thursday night and Saturday night. I would have done the same on Friday night, but I had already purchased tickets to take Nadia and Ian to see Seussical at our local high school at 7:30, and Paul didn't get home from work until 7:00 so I had to take them. Forcing myself to stay awake until 10:00pm was very hard. I was feeling nauseous part way through the musical just from sheer exhaustion. There were two things on our calendar for Friday - Nadia and Ian's art class at 11:00, a

training on campus for helping prevent someone from committing suicide from 3-5, and Seussical at 7:30. I gave serious consideration to skipping the QPR training on campus because I felt so lousy, but I had already said in my documentation for my review this semester that I was attending it. I did leave the training at 4:30 due to how I felt. Yesterday I left the house once - that was to take the kids to an egg hunt in our town's park and to the grocery store (next to the park). The egg hunt was a disappointment as all the eggs were hard boiled (no candy), and none of the kids got a prize egg. Nadia was the most upset because she only got one egg, and her brothers each got three eggs. Paul took them to an egg hunt at the Methodist church near our house this afternoon, and although they didn't find any prize eggs, they came home with lots of candy. I plan to take them to three egg hunts on Saturday. Paul took Nadia and Ian to the Upward basketball awards assembly last night. The program was put on by individuals from Liberty University. Oliver and I stayed home.

Today I had planned to be at church from 8:00-12:15, participate in a mock interview session for education majors from 1:00-3:00 on campus, and attend a Steven Curtis Chapman concert with Nadia at 6:00. When I woke up (after having slept for 11 hours), my head was throbbing and my throat hurt much worse than it had the previous three days. I knew I was not up for singing in the choir, and I knew the best thing to do would just be to stay home today. I texted the alto section leader and the student in charge of the interview event to let them know

I wouldn't be there today as planned. I don't go to many concerts a year. I had to miss one the first week of February because I was sick. Paul took Nadia to that one. I had bought tickets for three concerts. Of the three the one I wanted to go the most was the one tonight. Paul called his brother and asked if he would be interested in using my ticket to take Nadia to the concert. For the concert in April I bought three tickets (for myself, Nadia, and Ian), and it's the day after my birthday. Hopefully I will be healthy enough to go to that one! In early

February I got the bug that Paul brought back from Vegas (I think it was the flu but we didn't get swabbed so I can't say that for certain). I've been healthy since that point until Thursday when I started to come down with this (milder) bug. Thus far I'm the only one who is sick in the family. Hopefully I won't pass it on to anyone! I have a long day planned for Tuesday (as far as work for the university) so I hope I'm feeling at least somewhat better by then. The only time I plan to leave the house tomorrow is to take the kids to swimming lessons at Bucknell University.

Although I stayed home almost the whole day yesterday, that doesn't mean I wasn't getting work done. In addition to a little bit of grading, my main accomplishment was booking our flights to San Diego. If I had booked them in early February when I booked our lodging, we could have flown on Southwest. The prices had gone up quite a bit on Southwest, so I ended up choosing Alaska Airlines instead. I compensated for one of the downsides (no free checked baggage) by applying for an Alaska Airlines credit card which means that I and up to six companions can each take one bag for free. The other disadvantage is the time of day we're flying. We'll be coming back on a red eye, but the price difference was almost $200 per ticket. I'll definitely lose a night of sleep for $1,000! Buying 5 round trip tickets cost us $1,388, and I'll get $500 of that back from the credit card company. I used a different credit card's points to get our tickets to the Zoo, Safari Park, USS Midway, Maritime Museum, Sea World, and Aquatica for free. The only attractions that will cost us money will be LEGOLAND (and the kids are free there) and Disneyland. I'm also hoping to use credit card points to rent a minivan. We're leaving on May 27 so in two days we'll be able to say our trip is just two months away!