12 Days and Counting!

Only 12 more days of school left. I thought that once the end of the year came near, time would slow to a crawl. Instead, it's absolutely flying!

Andy didn't go on his trip on Tuesday. He woke up on Tuesday morning and said he didn't feel well. He looked pale and said he had a headache, but I'm ashamed to say that I thought he just didn't want to go on the trip. Well, I was wrong, because shortly afterwards he made a mad dash for the bathroom to get sick. After a couple of times of this, I figured going to school probably wasn't such a good idea! I can't believe that we managed to have perfect attendance up until just lately, and now he's missed three days, fairly close together. I had intended to go into school to do what I had to do, since Jerry was home because it was raining. I changed my mind, though, when I thought about the fact that Jerry probably wouldn't want to help Andy clean up after getting sick. He's not very good about that, and it usually makes him sick! I called the school and told them I wouldn't be in. I didn't think to tell them why; I just said I wouldn't be able to be there. Later Tuesday night I talked with the mom of one of Andy's friends from class, and she said that I had everyone worried, and they thought something must have been awfully wrong because I hadn't missed a day volunteering in two years, and I hadn't said why I wasn't coming in! I guess it's nice to be missed. I felt terrible about not going in, but Andy came first. He got over it quickly - very quickly! By Tuesday night he was hungry and would have eaten everything in the house if I hadn't made him slow down! It turns out his class trip was postponed because of the rain, so he didn't miss that after all.

I had a great day yesterday. Jerry and I went to two thrift shops and the farmer's market. Well, I went into the thrift shops while Jerry waited outside! Sometimes he likes to go in, but he said he wasn't in the mood for "thrifting" yesterday! I got great stuff! Here's my haul: I got a very nice (new) fleece shirt for myself, a pair of Adidas shorts for Andy, a dress for myself, a Rock 'em Sock 'em robots game, Lord of the Flies book, a Spongebob Squarepants book for Andy, a Playstation 2 game called Harvest Moon, and a lamp. I spent a grand total of $18.00 for all of that! That's it.

I'm not usually a name-brand person, but I know that Adidas stuff holds up well, as Andy is on his second year of Adidas hand-me-downs that Tom wore! I just had to get the Rock 'em Sock 'em robots! They were like a blast from the past! The boys and I had seen an ad for them a long time ago and I had told them how they were around when I was a kid, so naturally when I saw them yesterday I had to get them! The lady working at the thrift shop and I played a round to make sure that both of their heads would pop up the way they were supposed to! We were laughing so hard! (She won!) I had wanted to use Lord of the Flies as part of Andy's reading curriculum later on, so was surprised and pleased to find it yesterday. The Spongebob book was a bonus find! I couldn't believe that I found the Playstation 2 game. Both boys had wanted this game but never got it. We don't think it's ever been played before. It looked brand new; the disk was still shiny with no marks on it at all, and the instruction book was still new and crisp, with everything still neatly in the case. Andy has been playing it since yesterday! He's playing it now while I'm writing this. It is a role-playing game in which you are a farmer trying to save your grandfather's farm from being turned into a theme park, and you have to prove that you can make it a successful farm. It takes a lot of thinking and planning to play the game. For instance, yesterday Andy hatched an egg (you have to remember to put it in the incubator), and then had to raise his chicken by remembering to feed it and bringing it in at night or in the rain. Each day you need to check the weather forecast and plan accordingly; either work on your garden, tend to your animals, or go to town to buy supplies (and like real life, the stores are only open on certain days, and certain hours, so you have to plan this accordingly too!). Well, one of his chickens didn't get brought in out of the rain soon enough and got sick. It figured that he didn't have any animal medicine to give the chicken, and when he went to the store, it was closed. The chicken ended up dying. Then a second chicken died because he was busy tending other things and forgot to feed it. You have to name each of your animals, and he had named these two chickens. I guess he was afraid of getting attached again in case something happened, because today when he got another chicken he named it "832"! When I stopped laughing long enough to ask about that name, he informed me it was because that particular chicken was a lab experiment! Farming in West Virginia should be an adventure! Maybe we'll just stick with growing vegetables.....