August {2012}

{How is this already the second half of October??}

August was my husband's second month of working a freight position full time. It's his "until I get a better-paying one" job, in addition to his three-evenings-a-week job and the Army Reserve. I probably mentioned before, but he is working 50+ hours a week (about 68 when it's drill week). August was also the month in which a railroad company paid for him to fly out for a panel interview for a manager trainee program. We felt like he was very well qualified because of his specific background in the military and his bachelor's degree. He thought he would get the job . . . but he didn't. However, he learned from the whole experience, and while on the short trip he got to go (with another job candidate from our state) to a cool museum:

It was my mom's birthday, and we went to a farmers market. My husband took this picture.

For about six weeks this summer our van was our only working vehicle, because the Civic needed an expensive repair. We decided to sell the Civic instead, nearly ten years after he bought it. It sold very quickly, and that was kind of a sad day. But the stereo had been stolen -- for the second time while we've lived here -- a few days earlier, and it was time to say goodbye to that car. We bought a PT Cruiser. Although the van needed two repairs in order to pass safety and emissions testing, and the Cruiser already needed a small repair (I don't remember what they needed), that total is still a few hundred dollars less than what it would have cost us to fix the Civic.

I didn't mind being at home more (grocery shopping was one of the few challenges). The girls and I couldn't do M__ Park Monday and F__ Park Friday anymore. Many days we walked to nearby playgrounds, or just walked to see the ducks, or ate lunch outside in our neighborhood. They love pretending and coloring in our fitness center while I use the treadmill. Oh, and we swam (the girls mostly sit on the steps) in our pool a few more times. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I love swimming for exercise, even though I doubt my strokes look very good and I'm still a slow swimmer. It's never felt as good as it did this year. We reorganized our dresser drawers and Shboogoo was excited about folding things "the new way" so we can see everything. Some days we cooked delicious new recipes I found online, like this Mexican bean and rice casserole. If we wanted to see friends, they were able to come to our place. And we're thankful that we were never down to zero working vehicles.

Marbleworks

We like to make flowers out of fruit.

Here's a picture of my husband and me on a date in August. We're trying to go out together at least twice a month. We are also having regular meetings and writing down what we discuss in a notebook; it was his idea and it's been very helpful. We're more aware of things, and we're starting to actually budget!

Might as well include this here. He sent this photo to my phone one day, after asking a coworker how to write it in Spanish.

On August 29th, I had the baby in the actual seat part of a shopping cart, and let the other two kids sit in the part where you put whatever it is you're going to be buying. I wasn't looking at the kids and accidentally bumped the cart into the corner of a display. That made L fall right back out of the cart and hit the back of her head on the hard floor. She had been sitting on the edge, not down where she was supposed to be. She started bawling right away, and a bump formed. I took us straight to the closest emergency room. Daddy was working his part-time job but came over before we even got to see a doctor. The doctor said L seemed just fine; she didn't think there was any reason to do a CT scan.

The next day L was a little different. She was not her happy self and did not have much of an appetite, so in the afternoon I took her to the pediatrician. He said, from the way she was acting (maybe I don't remember everything) she had a concussion and we needed to give her extra fluids. 

Then, when she was in bed about 9 p.m., she threw up. The next morning (August 31st) she threw up a little two times. I called the pediatrician again, who told us to go right to the ER. At the hospital they examined her and of course I had to explain several times what had happened. They did a CT scan to see if there was any internal bleeding. She was not afraid at all, just laid perfectly still during the CT scan. Daddy came up from work, and by the time he arrived we found out the results were good. The last doctor who saw L said he thought she did not have a concussion, and that the throwing up was not related to her fall, since she didn't throw up until over 24 hours after she fell. It was a 12-hour stomach bug, I guess. We're so glad she is fine!