Thankful Thursday

 

1. Margie was able to have her fourth chemo treatment, which had been delayed when she had COVID. This means she only has two more to go! She has decided to decline the radiation treatments that were to follow. 

2. Ian and Nadia participated in a Bible quiz on Romans chapters 1-14 on January 7-8. Nadia did better than she had at any previous quizzing event. She won't be able to attend the quiz in Indiana in May because it interferes with one of her drama performances, but she's looking forward to attending the finals in South Carolina in June. Hopefully she'll do even better than she did at the last quiz. 

3. I have really been enjoying the fact that for the first time in my life I have a heated seat in my vehicle. I really, really love that feature! My Aunt Janet has raved about how she loves a heated steering wheel so maybe I'll be able to enjoy that additional feature at some point in my life. 

4. The kids enjoyed their first ice skating lesson since 2020 on January 13. The lessons are longer than they were in the past without an additional charge!

5. Paul didn't have a severe case of COVID, and he didn't lose his sense of taste or smell. He slept on the couch for 6 nights to decrease the chances that I would catch it, but he returned to sleeping on our bed on Tuesday night. Also, it seems that at least Ian, Nadia, and I didn't come down with it. Oliver had a fever for a few hours on Tuesday evening. If he had COVID, he had an extremely mild case. I realize that other respiratory bugs still exist so he might have caught something else. He still has a runny nose. We quarantined for a few days. None of us went to church the past two Sundays first because of an ice storm and then because of Paul having COVID, but I did drop Nadia and Ian off at church yesterday afternoon for Bible quizzing and youth group. I missed my ladies Bible study last night because Oliver hadn't gone 24 hours without a fever at that point. I ordered our four "free" COVID tests. I use the word "free" loosely because obviously taxpayers are paying for them. If I had a test, I would have used it on Oliver last night even though I know it's easy to get a false positive with those. 

6. A twelve-year-old girl who attends the Christian school at our church was finally able to have a surgery to remove a malignant tumor. For many months, her parents couldn't find ANY surgeons willing to attempt the surgery, but finally a doctor in Minnesota agreed, and the surgery was a success! This was the answer to the prayers of many! 

7. Things went smoothly at the kids' dentist appointments on Tuesday afternoon. I'm thankful that so far none of them have ever had any cavities. 

8. Nadia was able to attend her drama class on Tuesday for the first time since September 6. Here's to hoping she is actually able to participate this semester, which didn't happen last semester due to my broken ankle. 

9. It's getting much harder for me to stick to my price points when grocery shopping, but I still occasionally can get a good deal. Recently I bought 3 boxes of Frosted Mini-Wheats (the bigger size box) for a total of $4.50. I submitted the receipt online, and Kellogg's rewarded me with a $5 gift card to Amazon. I like being paid to buy cereal, especially as that is one of Nadia's most favorite kinds of cereal. 

7. I had gotten stuck on a plateau as far as making progress with learning Spanish, but I recently got back in gear and have been making progress. Duolingo has leagues. The highest league is the diamond league. I've been in that league for 25 weeks. Recently the had a tournament in the diamond league which lasted a few weeks. My first attempt in the tournament I only made it to the semifinals, but last week I won in the finals, which according to Duolingo puts me in the top 0.5% of Duolingo users. Well winning that tournament doesn't actually mean anything, but hopefully I can eventually become fluent in Spanish. I have a long way to go before that happens. Conjugating verbs in the past tense is so hard for me! Hopefully I will keep plugging along. 

8. I love it when read aloud books lead to independent reading by the kids. For example, Ian really enjoyed the book, Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians, and now he's begun reading the rest of the books in the series on his own. We listened to the five Penderwicks books a while ago, and Nadia recently just finished reading all of them. Next, she's planning to read the five Vanderbeekers books which we also listened to together previously. 

9. We've seen Paul a lot more over the last five months than usual due to a variety of reasons - our vacation, his back injury, my ankle surgery, and the fact he had COVID. It's nice to have him around more!

10. We got a couple of inches of snow on Sunday night. The kids enjoyed playing in it on Monday. Proof that I am still making progress with my ankle would be that I shoveled the driveway. It was definitely the most cardiovascular exercise I had gotten in four months. 

11. I've made a lot of progress with planning our trip to the southeast in May. I started to put more thought into our trip in September, and then I found out that other cities have enacted COVID vaccine requirements for everyone ages 5+. I'm hoping and praying that these will just be temporary, especially considering that this vaccine is not incredibly effective (Paul's office manager/salesman had all three shots including the booster and still tested positive for COVID last week). I'd hate to think we'll have to avoid a long list of cities for years to come just because our kids haven't had this one vaccine. My kids have had every vaccine their doctors have ever recommended they have except for the HPV. In light of the fact that we'd be very limited in cities like Chicago and Boston, at the moment we're thinking maybe in September we'll go to Texas and Louisiana instead. Houston and San Antonio don't have vaccine mandates. New Orleans does, but it wouldn't interfere with any of our sightseeing plans. We'd just have to eat outdoors or get takeout in New Orleans if the vaccine mandate in that city isn't lifted over the next eight months. Who would have thought you'd need to show your driver's license and a medical record to enter a science museum or a restaurant in the USA?!?! I never would have dreamt this would happen. I remember needing to show our passports when we went to church in China in 2006, but that's the only other time in my life I remember needing to show ID to enter a building. Thankfully, I don't think any of the places we plan to visit in May in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, or Tennessee have a vaccine mandate in effect. 

12. Nadia got an A on her last physical science test! It was on Newton's laws and other similar topics. Yesterday I gave Nadia and Ian a test in history for the first time in their lives. Ian got an A, and Nadia got a B. It's a little tough for her to swallow when her younger brother does better on her when they take the same test, but I was just pleased that they both did well. I'm trying to ease Nadia into the concept of grades since I have to start giving her report cards in the fall when she's in high school.

13. Ian accidentally ate something with tree nuts at youth group last night. Paul called me and said he was going to the hospital as he thought Ian needed to go to the ER. Thankfully some Benadryl did the trick at home. Ian was very shaken up due to the difficulty he had breathing. I'm very glad that he's okay, and I hope he will be more careful not to eat anything with tree nuts in the future!