Feeling Accomplished

This has been a productive week in several aspects. Amber started out still feeling great and accomplished many lessons and even all of her assigned chores on the correct day.  She did wear down over the week and is now back to feeling pretty puny. We aren't sure if it's the storms that rolled in and are here sporadically for the next week, or if it's the slow weaning her from all medications in preparation for Mayo. I personally think it's the storms; she did the same thing with the last round of bad weather. 

Despite feeling less chipper yesterday and not being able to get out of bed yet today, Amber will probably finish up the last of her required school hours today. However, she's not finished with all of her assignments for the school year yet, but the final core hours needed will hopefully be recorded today. Every year we give a little sigh of relief when all the hours are officially completed. 

You can really see the difference between Tuesday and Thursday above.  But she was still diligent in her school work.

Amber also started her private confirmation lessons at church on Monday. Evening lessons with her class were too rough on Amber. She was exhausted before the class began, had trouble understanding and focusing, and felt awful the next day. She didn't make half the classes of the last module and had to make those up individually. This time we arranged for her to take the module individually during her good part of the day. It went as well as expected.  I'm not sure if we will continue this way for 8th grade or not. Amber still goes to Sunday school with her class and some of the social activities. She just can't handle the evening lessons, or the evening sports related social activities. 

Math went splendidly again this week. Life of Fred is really working for Amber. She also supplemented it a little with two items we are reviewing: one is online and one is a physical book. I think we like the online supplelement with LOF best. Amazingly, Amber willingly did more math than assigned every day this week. She might yet finish algebra 1 before the summer is over.

Amber continues with a huge emphasis on language arts and history and is nearly finished with her research report, I think. That alone is a huge accomplishment.  I checked her log for this year and she has something like 190 hours of language arts, and nearly equal hours of history.  Science and math are pathetic and under 100 hours each.  But honestly, if I told that child her entire school work was reading and writing she'd be happy.  She pushes each day just a littler farther if the next subject is language related. 

We saw the Avengers: Age of Ultron on Sunday.  We really liked it, but Captain America: Winter Soldier still might have been better.  I'm bummed that Thor 3 is a 2017 release though. At least the next Captain America is 2016.

Sadly, yesterday I put our Rush concert tickets up on Stub Hub. These were supposed to be my birthday present and are awesome seats, however I'm not sure about taking Amber anymore. Fred says I still have a Pollyanne-ish attitude toward Amber's condition.  She went to the last Rush concert in 2012 and I thought she could do it this time, but she wasn't sick then either. It's Rush's last large scale tour, and I've been to a concert on every one of their tours since the early 1990's. I guess if the tickets don't sell we will try to go anyway.  I'm very very concerned about the after affects on Amber and honestly she won't last the entire concert. I suppose we could go and just leave early. The tour starts today, which means there is not even a set list published yet. 

Yesterday, I finished a rough plan for Amber's high school years and am definitely glad I started on that early. She will need a couple credits in eighth grade to provide a buffer year for math and science. Technically on the plan she isn't scheduled for either subject in 12th grade, but given the problems we've had the last two years with brain fog and those subjects, I expect she will be pushing it to finish 4 credits of each even with a buffer year.

New foods this week:  We made "cheez-its" from thin slices of cheddar cheese.  They really do taste like the crackers. But we store them in the fridge since the only ingredient is cheese.  And... Amber and I tried First Watch on Thursday.  We used to love it there.  Apparently, that entire plate of food is safe for us both.  Who knew.  Lastly, the silverware wrapper from First Watch.  It cracked Amber up because I say that almost every single day.

Amber has officially, for the moment, decided on pursuing an English degree with an emphasis in writing. With two parents in science and math, Amber is definitely proving to be her own person and choosing her own path.  She excels in understanding math and science concepts, however they don't make her happy. I'm proud Amber had the courage to step away from our choices and select what makes her happy.  The current high school plan reflects her interest and the requirements local universities have for such a degree. 

Thankfully, Amber started German in seventh grade, as pretty much all the local and viable English programs also require the equivalent of a foreign language minor.  Perhaps we can have the majority of that work completed prior to graduating high school.

She even did school work in the car between clothes shopping locations.  Also a trip to the eye doctor (no sign of vascular problems, yay!).  And Amber climbed that entire flight of stairs on Tuesday without a problem.  By Friday she couldn't walk from one room to the next.  I hate dysautonomia.

On the blog this week I talked about our favorite gluten free and fructose friendly products.  These aren't recipes, but products that save my sanity.  Check it out if you are interested in a gluten free diet.

This weekend is pretty low key for us, I think.  We will see my mom one day.  Fred's mom now lives out of town, so we will just talk to her.  It's supposed to rain here all weekend and it might be nice to simply relax and not worry about "doing" things for a few days. 

Happy Weekend and Happy Mother's Day!

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