Happy Birthday, Grandma

Today would have been Paul's mom's 77th birthday. From December 26, 2019 until her passing in May 2021, the kids and and I only had one visit with her, it was on her 76th birthday which means it's been exactly one year since we gave her a hug and were with her in person. It's been six months since I talked to her. She is greatly missed. I know she's in a better place and am very thankful she's free from the physical suffering she endured, but today it's hard not to cry. 

Within a period of eight days we had electricity issues in our home. Milo electrocuted himself on October 29. Yesterday I decided to try to vacuum the family room. I asked Paul to move the office chair into that room and thought I could vacuum while sitting in that chair. Oliver brought me the vacuum and plugged it in. Unfortunately, he didn't plug it in correctly. I screamed when I saw the sparks and smoke coming from the outlet. Paul was sitting very close to the outlet, and he pulled it out. One of the prongs was still in the outlet. Quite a few things have been broken by the kids during the past month. Nadia broke our hamper; I ordered a new one from Walmart. Nadia also broke part of the kitchen chandelier when she was trying to replace a lightbulb. The kids have put some pretty big gashes in the walls when they've been carrying Milo's crate down from Ian's bedroom in the morning (usually that's my job). If we actually have to replace the vacuum, that will be the most expensive thing that was broken during this time. Paul is going to try to just replace the plug. We're really going to miss the vacuum until he fixes it or we replace it, especially in Nadia's room as the guinea pigs make quite a mess in there. Paul usually goes to work on Saturdays, but he hasn't felt well the last several days so he decided to stay home yesterday. This meant he was able to go to the library and go grocery shopping for me, but it also was a big help that he was here to turn off the breaker and extract the melted prong from the now blackened outlet. 

Last night I went to bed a little after 8pm. I'm not a night owl like my mother-in-law was, but that's very early even for me. I tried to make myself stay up because I thought the night we were turning the clocks back an hour was not the night to go to bed early, but I slept almost 11 hours. Because I went to bed early, I was asleep before Nadia and Ian came home from the Bible quizzing event in Ohio. There were eight teams competing in the event from four different churches. Three of the teams were from our church. I believe our church's teams included three 6th graders, three 9th graders, two 8th graders, and two 11th graders. The competitions include a written portion as well as oral quizzing with buzzers. There are both individual and team competitions. The teams were divided into two divisions. The team Nadia was on won 1st place in the B division. The team Ian was on won 2nd place in the A division. It was Ian's first experience with quizzing. They both had a good experience. This time the quizzing was only on Romans 1-8. In June the nationals will be held in South Carolina and will be over all of Romans and James. There will be two other quizzing events prior to the Nationals - one at our church in January and one in Indiana in May.

As of today it's been seven weeks since I walked on two legs or drove. I decided this morning I was going to figure out how to make our bed while hopping on my left leg. I know it's a little thing, but it felt really good to look at a made bed for the first time in two months. Progress!