IEP Post Observations

In my last post, I talked about observing Micah at school. There were so many positive things about the school that he is going to, and most of it is due to the attitudes of the students around him.

I still walked away with a good long list of suggestions for the teachers, though even those were mostly positive.

Then we got to his 7th period class. The students were great. The teacher just doesn't want him there. It is evident in everything that this teacher says and does the whole class.

Anyway, I walked away, typed all of my observations and suggestions in a long email and sent it in, requesting an IEP to discuss the class and more appropriate accommodations that were obviously necessary, and the fact that accommodations already in the IEP were not being given.

This is what happened in the IEP meeting this morning. I was first pulled aside to ask me if Micah and his aid could sit this meeting out because it was probably going to be confrontational and they didn't want that to affect the relationships they have even further. In the 45 minute meeting, I found myself citing IDEA to the teacher and being backed up by everyone else on the team. Micah's  engineering teacher explained how he was grading participation and it was determined by the team (though the teacher strongly objected) that he should be excused from that particular grade since it was all based upon social interaction. Testing was also determined that it was not appropriately given according to the modifications allowed in his IEP and now Micah will be able to retake all the tests.

The teacher was still very defensive and determined to get Micah out of the class, constantly referring to another student with autism that was doing fine in his class. He was reminded by the program specialist (a district level administrator) that he cannot compare students with autism, that's not how autism works.

Anyway, the suggestions that I gave about giving Micah group assignments early so he can work on them with his aid before class and she can work on his group work skills alongside speech therapy and the study skills instructor were put into the IEP. These suggestions I gave to the teacher before this, but he constantly argued that it was not okay because his aid didn't understand the  engineering involved. I told him that it didn't matter because she was just working with him on how to ask questions that he may have and to help set himself up to do the work. Besides, Micah understands the engineering.  The teacher was still very confrontational, but it's all in writing and he said he would try.

I think the worst thing about the whole discussion was that when the teacher was asked what areas Micah did well in, he said he couldn't think of anything in his class that he does well. He even went as far as to imply that I did Micah's homework for him. I just couldn't believe that Micah did nothing well, especially since they are working on coding for their robotics right now and coding is something that he excells at. At this point it feels like the teacher and Micah are both in a routine of failure.

The best part about it was that the only person who wasn't agreeing that what was happening was unacceptable was the teacher. Speech therapy more fully understood goals of group work and said that she would work on his group skills even as they specifically apply to that class and could do some of his make up sessions one on one in that class if scheduling worked out. The program specialist had a difficult time keeping a straight face when the teacher made observations that were obviously discriminatory and called him out on it more than once. Micah's case manager was nodding every time I spoke and did everything to make sure that I was viewed as an expert on Micah and knew what I was talking about and not just asking for the teacher to give him an easy A.

Overall I think the meeting went as well, at least as well as I thought it could have. I started to feel bad for the engineering teacher, knowing that he was fighting against everyone in the room, and I have been there and it's a hard place to be. Still, the things he was digging his heels in about were not about learning, they were about changing his behavior. I just didn't think that I was asking for anything that was unreasonable. They were minor changes. The biggest thing was asking him to give the assignment for the day to his aid earlier in the day so that she could discuss it with him and help with prompts, and that does not seem that unreasonable.

The opposition was not unexpected, so I really feel that the meeting went as well as it could have given the attitude of the teacher. When the discussion came up that we would revisit his continuing in the program next semester, I didn't actually say it, but there is no way I am going to allow my son to stay in a class with that teacher. He doesn't seem to want to teach my son, and Micah doesn't have to put up with that. He is a blessing and so very intelligent and anyone who refuses to see that doesn't deserve him.

Observations

I went to school with Micah yesterday. I decided to observe him and give pointers to his para (1:1 aide). I also observed the classes and the special ed teachers involved seemed quite interested in my input. There were some issues with one class, one of his mainstream classes, but I really don't want to get into that here. I'd probably walk away as angry as I was at the end of the school day yesterday, and I would much rather focus on the positive.

I began the day with Micah wanting to go to school earlier. It was strange for a kid to want to go to school and be there before it begins, but he wanted it, I wanted to see why and so we went. He went and stood outside and said "hi" to people. Not random people, he was selective. He wanted to talk with people he knew. Once people came that he knew, he said "hi" then some formed a group, he stood back a bit for a while looking at them, then he went over and smiled at them. He seemed to have no idea how to add to the conversation, but he hung out with them.

Nobody looked at him weird. Nobody made him feel unwelcome or strange. He just stood in the group and listened and smiled and he was just happy.

I thought this was a strange phenomenon, as he had never had this kind of experience with others before. Even the youth group at church said "hi" and never really tried to make him feel unwelcome, but he just sat and colored. At his old school kids mostly said "hi" and walked by. Striking up conversations was usually facilitated. These people weren't just tolerating him for the sake of a grade or something that they could put on their resume. They just treated him like the peer that he is and just let him be a friend.

That smile on his face during the interactions that I found were not isolated incidents but the norm for down time spent with peers including lunch time and time in the hallways between classes made me realize that my son is a person with autism, but also quite the extrovert.

This seems odd to me, but I couldn't figure out why. I mean, autism doesn't really change personality, it changes how it is expressed. I just never figured him for an extrovert. He usually ignores people. I found the difference, though. He doesn't ignore people who don't consider him odd. People who talk with him like anyone else are the people he is drawn to. Can you blame him? Nobody wants to be treated like the odd one out.

Micah went through his routine for the day, stopping in the hallways to talk to certain people, knowing that his aide doesn't let him talk to more than 2 people en route to his next class for expediency purposes. He chatted his routine small talk, never really going farther than his rote conversation that is just "Hi! How are you?" One day I hope he will be able to go past that, but at the moment it is working for him. He sat with cheerleaders and football players at lunch, which make up the majority of his circle of friends. His aide told me that her son is on the football team so most of those kids know her, so she just made talking to Micah normal with them by just saying at the beginning of the year, "It's no big deal, he just wants to be friends." The kids just ran with it.

Now some people will talk to Micah and allow him to sit with them but really just look at him sideways and tolerate him. This really isn't the case. Micah picks up that kind of body language. It happened at his last school. These kids just treat him as the silent guy in the group and accept him. They know he doesn't like to be touched beyond a fist bump, so they give him his fist bumps and just include him. They also know that he doesn't like foul language so their conversations tend to be clean. It's the funniest thing when Micah tells a huge football player "Hey, use nice words!" and they apologize.

My boy cracks me up. He's such a good guy. No wonder people want to hang out with him.

A Different Life

It has been a while since I blogged. At that time we were applying for a house that we didn't get.

Since then I have taken the kids and my mom and grandmother on a cross country road trip, moved to a new house (a different one than the previously blogged about one, but enormous and gorgeous), changed my kids to new schools, and have struggled with all of the new.

I can't fit all of that in one blog. Well, I could, but it would take a while. Instead, I think I will probably skip all of the changes and just write about life now. 

Don't worry folks who want to know about the road trip, I will share about that later.

At the beginning of the year, I talked about the year of rest.

HA!

Okay, so life kinda went crazy on me. Still, I believe that the message of rest has still been extremely important to me this year. In the midst of the chaos and stuff I just can't control but still manage to worry about, I still found myself really focusing on rest. It's why I could actually go on my vacation knowing that I didn't actually finish all of the packing that I was supposed to, knowing that my new house was going to be ready while I was gone and Tony was going to have to move, ask people for help (which is totally outside of his MO), and just trust that he had it handled because I just wasn't going to lose my deposits or the full payments for the things that I had planned for that month. It's why I could handle when we moved and were going back to a new home and I had to trust that Tony was going to enroll our kids in school so that they could start in the weeks that followed our return.

After the trip, I came home to a new house and a ton of boxes. It was a long trip and pretty hard, but still restful. I no longer had a job besides staying home and caring for my grandmother, who during the trip learned that she could do more than she was doing before the trip, but still needed 24/7 care. I managed to work hard and get the boxes out of my kitchen, then the living room, then the dining room. Then we took the boxes out of the girl's room because they wouldn't unpack for themselves more than the few things they took out of the boxes when we first go there so I decided that they just didn't need that stuff. It's in the garage and I'm still in the midst of considering what is the best way to just get rid of it.  Micah's stuff went into his closet and his room is the cleanest of all of us. 

I set up a new chore chart for a new house. We had rooms we had never had before and I wanted everything to just stay clean all the time. I changed from a weekly chore system to a daily chore system, started filling in holes in cleaning with chore sticks for when people do things that are not okay, and my house stays pretty clean all the time. I really felt like I accomplished something with that one. I never felt like that in the ten years of being in the old house. Same kids, mostly the same system, but the new house set up a new feeling of clean. Everyone actually feels like we have a clean house when we are done. 

Hooray! I accomplished something!

School was and still is a bit more difficult. The twins are fine. Bored, actually. Still, they are working and feeling like they are actually smart kids. It's because they are and their school is a bit behind their last school, but their self esteem is significantly higher which is helping them achieve more. Ali came home many times last year frustrated that she "isn't a math person" which is an absurd notion put into her head by well-meaning folks who just wanted to make her feel better about her 3 (the grades are 1-4 there) in math. Her 3 was ridiculously close to a 4, which is a 90% or higher, but the idea that "some people are just not math people" was put in her head anyway, and her grades slowly declined because she had it in her head that she didn't understand.

Now Ali is in a class that is still doing grade level work, they reviewed stuff from last year at the beginning of the year like teachers normally do, and suddenly everything clicked in her head. She has 100% in math this year. An "A" in this school district. She has a wonderful teacher who loves to listen to her stories that are relevant to the conversations about the history and books that they are studying. She is not teased here in the same way that she was in her last school, though she is still having trouble making friends. She has trouble when people are not listening to her even though she is right, and that is not helping her. I'm good with her staying right, but she has to learn to do it without screaming at people that they should listen to her because she knows the right answer. 

Zoe has fewer issues, but she's a little more ahead of her sister in interpersonal communication. Still no trouble in school. Straight A's, but she didn't have the trouble that Ali had at the last school. She didn't have kids teasing her all the time, so she had an easier time of it there. 

Becca is a whole different ball game. She was used to higher standards. She had teachers who took GATE seriously and did quite a bit of project based learning and encouraged her in many different ways. Her new school's only class that is considered "advanced" is Algebra I for 8th graders. I went to her open house and the science teacher went over the different things that they were going to be doing that year, projects that would be really fun, but Becca sat next to me and said, "I did that last year" over and over. There wasn't a single project that had not been covered last year in either her science class or her MESA Math class. It's been difficult keeping her motivated. Her English class is the worst. Writing assignments are few and far between. I think there has only been 2 this year. The teacher assigns AR tests to keep track of the student's reading (multiple choice, 10 question tests about each book...it's stupid). There is no room for creative expression in his class. His quizzes and tests are vocabulary and spelling. When I had a parent teacher conference and told him, in the nicest way possible that my daughter was bored, he said that she should be getting and A then, but I found that the only reason why she wasn't was because she stopped turning stuff in. She would do his assignments and they would sit in her backpack. She turned them all in, decided to actually try getting on a computer to take AR tests so she could get scores for those grades, and everything that she has turned in was perfect. She's still bored, but at least she will get a good grade. I gave her a journal for her to write and draw in so she had an outlet. Every bad grade that she has can be attributed to boredom. I told her that it is just one year. High school will have clubs and sports that she can join (there is nothing like that at this school) and she will no longer be bored.

Micah's school is very different as well. He had great grades last year. This year is getting rough. It started with his Engineering class. He did amazing at his last school in engineering. His teacher recognized his innovative mind and gave him the tools to let him run with it while teaching him engineering concepts along the way. Don't get me wrong, the first few months of that class were horrible until the teacher realized how to communicate with Micah and how to get him to express himself in ways that everyone else could understand. By the end, Micah had the highest grade in the difficult class because he was trying and loved it. 

This school has a very different focus for engineering. Now, engineering is a very broad field of study. There are core concepts, but engineers are diverse in application. The old school and the old teacher recognized this, asked the kids about the fields that they were interested in within engineering and allowed for expression and would explain why the core concepts  were important for those fields. When it came to projects, he encouraged expression in the fields of interest within the bounds of the actual assignment. He was growing engineers.

The new school has a different approach. First of all, I have to note that this is a brand new, first year teacher for engineering. He has a plan and really has a hard time with the idea of adapting that plan. He explained to me that he was hired to really help out the robotics team. Micah is in the second level of engineering and they are still learning core concepts, but the application is all within the field of robotics. Micah doesn't like robotics. On top of that, every project in the class is within a group. Group dynamics is not a strength of anyone on the autism spectrum. I should also point out that engineers are not exactly known for their desire to do "group work." This teacher is not growing and equipping these kids for life, he's trying to recruit a robotics team. 

So, as a mom seeing all of this and watching my son fail the class because it isn't the engineering that he was sold on last year, I ask my intelligent son, "Do you want to change your schedule and get out of that class?" Not that I want my kid to have to be successful in everything. I don't care about his GPA because he is planning on attending a 2 year college and just get some certifications for what he wants to do anyway. I just don't want him so frustrated and stretched beyond his limits that he starts to melt down constantly.  

My boy said that he wanted to stick with engineering.

I have to respect his decision even though it's kind of killing me right now. I'm also in the process of waiting for improvement because the teacher seems to be ignoring the adaptations that are very specifically lined out in his IEP. His attitude is that he just doesn't want Micah in his class and at this point Micah knows it and is acting out because of it. It's really making me mad.

I want to step in and scream at people, but the reality is that they just don't know my kid. I quietly send emails and save all of the communication. I gather data and at times, with as little hostility as I can manage quote laws that they are violating. I am working with his case manager who now meets with the engineering teacher to discuss compliance with the IEP.

The grades are not improving. The grades make it look like modifications are not actually being used. I am shadowing him tomorrow. If that does not go well, I am calling an IEP. I will probably call one either way. 

I hate this stuff.

Rest. 

My rest in the middle of this is daily. I am making it a point to actually read something each day. This could mean a million different things, but the rule is that the topic cannot be on the struggle of the day. I can read stuff to help me in the struggle, but it doesn't count as rest.

I'm consuming all kinds of information about rest and slowing down. It has been great.

I'm still having MS issues. I think those issues have more to do with the heat because I moved to the middle of the freaking desert than with stress, though. 

Oh, one more change is coming. I'm very excited about it. My mother is retiring. She is retiring next month. Just a few short weeks and my grandmother, who is not real fond of me anymore, will have someone else to complain to. YAY!

Okay, my mom will be a lot happier too, which means my house will be happier. She has lived tired for far too long, working all day then coming home to care for my grandmother. She gets time off when I can work that out, but it is really hard for me to help her out with that since I have 4 kids and a husband to care for as well. It will be nice to see the division of labor changed so that I can break her when she needs it instead of me breaking her so she can go to work. 

I will also have the break from the house I need as well when I go back to work. I have applied to substitute teach again, but no response. I am probably going to go for some seasonal work for a while when my mom actually retires so I can bring in some money until I figure out what else I want to try. I just don't know yet, but I'm excited to try.

This will not replace my rest. I'm determined that the changes in my life will not take away from my rest. I need it for sanity. The boxes that are still all over my bedroom and filling my garage will not keep me from rest, either. Everything will have it's place eventually...or it will sit there until we move again. I have decided that I will get work done on my timetable and nobody else's. It's not procrastinating if I'm working without a deadline, right? ;-)

Prayer, Packing, and Plans

It's an overwhelming theme in this blog (and my life) that things just don't go as I plan. 

Last time I posted, I talked about having to move, and how that sucks and stuff. I'm over it. I really want to move.

God has a way of making me ready to do things that I don't want to do by cutting away at my comfort zone so that it just doesn't exist anymore.

I should explain. One of the things that really made me want to stay was the school district and Micah's place there. He has an amazing aid and a great team at the school working with him and he is succeeding. It has been a great year. Well, I found out that the district "lost" the papers that I turned in to keep my son at his school even though the high school boundaries are changing. Basically, I was informed that he was leaving that whole situation anyway. I also found out that my son's aid has an internship next year and will be leaving him as well. There went all of my carefully crafted work to put my son in the best situation. All of the plans for his behavior are laid out in an extensive IEP (individual education plan), but the thing is that it would travel to the next school anyway, even if it is out of the district. Micah's plans are going to be different anyway.

Another thing was the Challenger baseball program that I am in charge of needing to continue. Well, this year has been the most challenging for getting people behind our kids. I have had so many difficulties this year in the league that I'm ready to give up. The other teams won't buddy, we only have 9 players, so there's nobody to play against, the other leagues in the area won't travel with Challengers, the coaches are having trouble making it to practices and games, and the team is just losing all spirit. I don't know what to do to make it better, but I feel like it needs to be someone other than me trying. I just can't do it on my own. I am throwing a big party and game for the end of the season, and I hope it turns out well. I can't do much beyond that at this point because we just have nothing left.

As far as my girls go, at this point, I'm not upset about them leaving their schools, though I wouldn't be upset about them staying, either. I'm not totally tied to it either way. I love subbing for the twin's school, and if we move far I won't be doing that, but honestly, with my grandmother's condition, I'm probably not going to be doing much in the way of subbing anyway.

Becca is probably the kid with the shortest straw. She is super involved in everything. ASB at school, cheer at school, praise team at church, and a ton of other things that she just loves doing. When we started this process, I told her that we would look for a place where she might have her own room, but we couldn't say for sure that she would get one. If we get the house I really want (I will get to that later), she won't get her own room. As an 8th grade kid moving to a new school, ASB is probably not an option. Cheer may be, but it depends on the program at the next school and what is done there. She will also be a new kid at a new school again, and she had a horrible time that happened, and that wasn't during puberty. Leaving for her is still a bummer, but life is full of stuff like that, and I just can't fix everything for her. She's learning resilience. 

So many of the things that have been holding me back from liking the idea of moving are just disappearing. While all of this is happening, I'm packing and checking out houses. I'm praying over the move, asking for a place to go where I will love everything. Somewhere where our family can function far better than we are currently. We searched, applied, got turned down, and searched again. I really thought that we were going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place, not having a home. We are getting to the point where timelines are starting to be a thing, and June is not going to be a happy time if we have nowhere to go. 

Yesterday my mom and I went to take a look at a place in Perris. If you aren't familiar with SoCal, it's just the middle of nowhere. There's a freeway nearby where people speed by this place to get to somewhere else. I wasn't really in love with the idea of this place at first, but I was praying about it, looking into the schools, looking into the programs around there for kids, and everything else, and I wasn't really unhappy with the findings. It's still not far from my in-laws, but not Hemet and quite a bit closer to a freeway making the commute easier for my mom and husband. I also have a good friend who lives even further into the middle of nowhere, but nearby where we would be, so that makes me very excited. Then we looked at the house. It was like the layout was exactly what we would describe if we were talking about exactly what we were looking for. My mom and I fell in love...and that's not an easy thing for my mom to do. 

This is yesterday. Last night Tony sent in our application online. We are praying so much that God clears the way for us to be there. I will probably be completely heartbroken if we don't get it, but at the moment I am at peace. I'm trusting God that He will take care of it all. 

Rest: Not Possible in This Crazy Life

There are many things that are going on in my life that I have absolutely no control over...and it's driving me crazy.

Of course it's driving me crazy. I'm Supermommie! I have a plan for everything. Almost none of my plans go my way completely, but I feel like I avoid many pitfalls because of planning.

There are just some things that are not avoidable.

We are moving. The timing stinks, but for reasons that are beyond my control and not really anything that I want to explain, we are moving now.

Here's the weird part about this: I don't know when, but I know it's soon. The house is up for sale and we already have an offer, it's just a mound of paperwork to get it all done properly, so the timeline isn't really certain. The other uncomfortable thing is that we don't know where we are going. Not with any real certainty.

There is a house for rent the size that we need still within the school district that I want that is within our budget. That's right A house. As in one. One single house that actually keeps me where I want to be. I don't like the look of the house, the neighborhood isn't the best (though my neighborhood now isn't awesome either), but I won't have to disrupt my kids' schooling. That's huge. I'd do many things not to have to change that.

You see, I have been working with this school district since my high schooler was in preschool. We have gone round and round, getting him set up with everything he needs and now, due to circumstances beyond my control, I am likely going to have to start over with a new school, a new district, and a new bunch of people who just don't know my kid. That scares the crap out of me.

Honestly, my girls will adapt, but my son is not that easy. He has an IEP that would make most special needs parents jealous. I have worked my butt off to make that thing the best document possible for my son, and to leave the district now is just plain stupid.

So, we have all this stuff happening with the house, which means I'm packing daily, though I'm still caring for my grandmother. I don't like packing and caring for my grandmother isn't my favorite task either, so it's kind of a rough day every day for me right now.

Then my mom's car broke down while I was driving it home from taking my girls to the rehearsal for their musical. We decided after a long examination of the vehicle that it wasn't worth salvaging. It's now sitting in front of my house waiting for us to figure out how to get rid of it...when we have time.

Our savings for the move had to be dipped into to get a down payment for another vehicle. Hooray! we have a bigger van for our trip!

We are still doing the cross country road trip. We have already paid for the reservations, bought scrip for the gas, so we are going. Good thing I already planned most of it out.

Back to moving. If we don't get that house in the right place, then there is a good chance of a long commute for those still working. That means that the good car goes to them. Boo. Oh, and it also means that I have no backup from my mom or Tony if some emergency arises. MS, Grandma, autism, or something going wrong with the girls and I have to have backup that isn't 45 minutes away. This means moving closer to my in-laws.

I love my in-laws, but they live in Hemet. Hemet is within our price range and there are many houses for rent out there that are the size and accessibility that we need. Hemet, from many different perspectives, is the logical choice.

I don't want to move to Hemet.

I don't want to change schools for my boy. The middle schools out there fail miserably on every rating that there is, so Becca is going to have a harder time.  It's hot. It's the desert. I just don't wanna!

Sorry. That was whining.

I already live 20 minutes away from my church, going to a 45 minute drive just isn't going to happen, so there's another change. I absolutely abhor church shopping. It's the worst thing when you have a person in your family with special needs. Last time we did that we were literally told in some places that there was no place in their church for him. I never want to go through that again.

There are other, minor concerns, like the fact that this is only my second year with the Challenger Division at our local Little League, and if I'm not there to help run it, it may not happen. Tony started a volunteer umpire program there, too. He obviously won't be able to keep that up next year. Honestly, he is one of a small few that is actually pulling for the volunteer program, and he is making it happen. If he's not there next year, it will probably be gone.

Okay, pause for a positive note: We are currently living in a house with 3 bedrooms, a make-shift converted garage, and a trailer out back with 8 people and there's only 1 bathroom. Moving out of this house will be a good thing. We need more space. 950 sq. ft. is just not big enough for all of us. This will be a good change in that way.

I know it doesn't seem like it, but I know that God is caring for us right now. "He has a plan" is my daily chant. I'd love to have a peek at that plan, at least for the next few months of the plan, but that's obviously not going to happen.

My theme of "rest" for this year is obviously one I needed to prepare for this time of trials. I just wish I had the full year to really rest before the crazy began piling up. This week is the worst of it because the girls have their musical this weekend, the last week of Awana, and the twins a huge project for school due Monday. It's all piling up for them, too. At least for them we know when it will all end.

Crazy, huh?  As soon as I have a direction, I know I will feel better. For now I am just going to pack and be there for my family. It's the only thing I really know I have to do.

The Next Great American Road Trip: Gas and Food

Going on a month-long trip, you don't want to run out of gas...ever. Since we are going on this trip as cheap as possible with all the people involved, planning this carefully is really important.

Our church sells scrip gift cards to raise money for youth to go to camp. The gift card savings plan works well for us. Since I'm not working as much now that I'm caring for my grandmother, we have decided to spend most of my last big paycheck on the scrip for gas. I don't want to overspend too much on gas, so it was time for some math.

First I had to figure out how many miles were in the trip. I checked my Furkot map and found that the trip, just getting from one place to another, is 6,549 miles. I decided to add on several miles to make up for any time that we will be spending in different locations. I rounded up to 6,800 miles just to be safe.

I know that my van gets anywhere from 15-26 miles per gallon depending on the type of driving. I decided to do the math at 18 miles per gallon, just to be safe. So at 18 miles per gallon, a 20 gallon tank, and a cost of about $50 per tank of gas in California (probably close to the most expensive place on the trip to get gas if not the most expensive), I figured it at around $950 for gas.

So, if I'm getting scrip and not just paying for the gas in cash, I need to figure out what gas stations there are along the way. I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket, so to speak. I want to make sure that I can get gas everywhere, so I am getting gas cards for the companies that are actually there. Furkot has an option to look along the route for the gas stations and prices, so I looked all along my route to see which companies and which ones are the least expensive along the way. Pilot and Flying J are all along major interstates. I get a good amount of scrip for them. Fortunately, the card works for both places. Other than those, I got a variety of other companies that are along the route.

As far as food, we are staying at several different places and therefore there will be a variety of cooking abilities depending on the stop. For example, where we are camping, our options differ from when we are in a hotel room. However, the condos we are renting in various locations along the way will have multiple options for cooking. There will also be times when we will need to get out and just go to a restaurant, especially where we find a place that we are excited to try.

My girls are major Food Network Nuts. Seriously, they yell at the television like a football game when a cooking competition is on. So when I tell them that we are going on a cross country road trip, you'd better believe they are doing their own research. Becca is the most involved in this process. Her birthday will be during the trip, so she especially wants to make sure she gets to go somewhere special that evening. Fortunately, we will be hitting Denver that day, so she has several options that are right up her culinary alley. I'm excited to see what she chooses.

All that being said, I'm still working with a budget and we have to be able to eat for the whole trip. Planning is essential so that I can make sure everyone can eat.

On top of this, my mom is diabetic, my grandma has a few dietary limitations that come with her medications, and my son is gluten free and casien free. We never let the dietary restrictions stop us from experiences, planning solves most problems, but they are factors to take into account.

I was thinking about doing something like I had done with the gas, but I am worried that we may need a bit more flexibility when it comes to food, so I am going to limit that option a bit. I'm still getting a few cards for some places to get groceries, but not as many, as I want to be able to taste local flavors. One of my favorite things to do when traveling is to go to farmer's markets and local places to get ingredients. It is a great way to experience the location where you are visiting using another of your senses and support the local small businesses. I can't do that with scrip, so flexibility requires more savings and more planning. It also means that I have to make sure that I have a bit more money available than what we would normally spend on food in a regular month. It's going to be a bit more difficult since I can't work as many hours as I would have before I had to care for my grandmother all the time, but I think we can still pull it off.

Snacks and stuff like that is for a whole other blog, so I think I'll touch on food again later. Stay tuned!

The Next Great American Road Trip: Plans Change Again and Reservations Complete

Now that my grandmother is out of the rehab facility and back in our daily lives, it makes things harder daily, but planning our trip is much easier.

My daily life changed significantly when I cut back my work schedule dramatically so that someone would be with my grandma all the time...mainly me. Don't get me wrong, my mom takes the night shift most nights (tonight I am on it because she just needs to sleep better for a night), and she fields the phone calls and sets up appointments. She's making the hard calls and I'm just there to make sure everything is run smoothly during the day.

All that being said, being a substitute teacher means I can work 2-3 days a month when my mom is off and still have a job. It's not ideal, but I like my job, so keeping it and still caring for family is important to me.

Back to road trip planning, though. The daily life makes things change with the road trip. It means I don't have an income that I can rely on to save for expenses during our travels. It means that some of the trip will have to be a bit different and less expensive.

The thing is that my grandmother is still coming with us. We still have some things that she can and can't do to figure out...and some things for her are not super cheap.

Last time we hit more camp sites and fewer hotels. This time we are only camping twice, for 2 night stretches each.  It's going to spoil my kids and cost way more money, but we gotta do what we gotta do for my grandma. My mom is happier to tent camp less, too, but it really isn't about her.

We have her new custom fit wheelchair, not an electric chair this time, so the whole hitch on the back of my van is going to be unnecessary now, so that takes something off the budget. The next thing I have to do is figure out how to haul that thing. It fits in my back of my van, but not with a bunch of stuff in with it. The other thing is that I wanted to bring a few bikes with us, and our bike carrier goes on the back of the van. I don't want to have to take the bikes off every time I get the wheelchair out. I'm working on a plan to see if the wheelchair will hook securely on the bike carrier. If so, it has space for 4 bikes, I'm hoping to get 2-3 bikes on the carrier with the wheelchair and pack it alll that way. I would then pack camping gear on the bottom of my trunk space, then put things on top that my kids will want to get to during the ride and basically have that storage be accessed only when necessary.

I also bought a car top carrier so that we could pack some things up top. This will help with carrying all the things that are extra for having my grandmother with us.

Last road trip, my kids were smaller. It was back in 2012, so Micah was 10, almost 11, Becca 8, turning 9, and the twins were 5, almost 6. Now I have a 14, almost 15 year old, a 12, almost 13 year old, and 2 9, almost 10 year olds. The size difference is significant. Space in the car is going to be at a premium. Having the space to get everything we need to bring along the way is going to take some Time Lord science (bigger on the inside for those unfamiliar with the Doctor Who reference). I will probably blog more on that later, once I get more organizing ideas.
After a long time and a whole lot of research and a help from Furkot, I have all of the reservations for the places to stay. I'm excited to have that all planned (and paid for!).  One step closer!

Rest: The Next Chapter

I keep wondering how far this rest thing is going to go.

The next place it has taken me, though not truly because of my focus, is that I am not working. Well, technically I am, just only a couple of days a month right now.

Huh? I love my job. I'm good at it. It helps pay the bills and gives me a little wiggle room in my budget that we have never had before.

Yeah, then my grandmother got out of the hospital.  Her stroke affected her tremendously. She has to have 24 hour supervision now. Here's the thing: hiring someone to care for her would cost about my salary. Yeah, I'm not working to pay someone to come in to take care of her. She doesn't qualify for assistance since she worked hard all of her life, was frugal and set herself up financially so she wouldn't be a burden to anyone in that way. That's awesome, but I doubt she considered the fact that she would be unable to be physically independent when she and my grandpa planned for this stuff.

Anyway, she needs care, she has family who love her, she's getting care.

I'm not a caretaker type. I had babies, and this is kind of like that in that there is some diaper changing, coming when she cries, holding her when she needs it, and feeding her. Still, my youngest are 9 and I'm kinda over that. Plus it's way grosser as an adult. It's not my first choice to do this kind of thing, and certainly wouldn't have been a career choice for me.

I don't mean to complain. My kids are learning first hand how much family means to me. I'm doing things I really kinda hate because I love my grandmother. I know there were times when she was there for me growing up when she really didn't want to be. I was a horrible child.

If I could change things, I would. If my mom was financially capable of retiring, she would be able to care for my grandmother most of the time and not be as tired all the time. Unfortunately she is a couple of years away from that. Until then, I'm up to bat for a while.

So, it may not seem restful that I am taking on my grandmother's care, but in reality, it's keeping me home and making me focus on slowing down more than I ever have...and kinda driving me nuts after the first week.

I find myself wanting to fill up the extra time at home. I keep contemplating going back to school and getting my masters online or something. That won't help me rest, though. I am still feeling like this call to rest is being forced upon me further.  I'm looking forward to seeing what God will fill the time in my life with as I seek His rest.

Rest

I will be back to the road trip plans another day, but I had to get this off my chest.

I'm not a person who normally makes resolutions at the beginning of the year, but I usually have goals. To be more accurate, I have lived most of my life constantly going from one goal to another and often failing because I have too many things that I want to do. Lately I have felt a void as far as goals are concerned. I keep thinking that I need to do something new, but I have nothing that I am really excited about, so no goals are incredibly appealing to me.

I recently asked myself why I seem to have a lack of goal. It's not that I don't have a purpose, it's just that I am content with who I am and what I am doing. It's a great place to be. I know that I am not without flaws, but overall I think I am okay with my current rate of personal and spiritual growth. That may change, but I'm not looking for a change.

Here's the thing, I just couldn't stand to not have something that replaces a goal. I'm so bothered because I am so goal-oriented. Being content is a good thing, though!

I found my solution. I have decided to give the coming year a word that will help me focus. That word for me this year is "rest."

I don't mean sleeping all the time or being lazy. I mean rest, like in music when the rests make the piece more exciting and unexpected. I mean the rest that is provided by God when we come to Him after a long day of work. It's not lazy, it's not doing nothing, it's rest.

For me, at least right now, that means not taking on more projects than what are currently in my life to fill the quiet moments. It means not taking every project that comes to mind because I think I have the time for it. It means letting go of what I could be doing because I can and doing what I already have in my schedule well and leaving the rests. That's my focus for rest right now. It's not really a "goal" in my brain, but mostly because I am content with my current busy life. When the next exciting thing comes up, I may feel like it is doing work on myself.

I don't know. Maybe I really did just talk myself out of contentment. Still, not resting enough is definitely something that I am often told I should work on.

I really hope that my huge vacation plans for the uear end up going along with the the word "rest."