On my display, it's only 28 pages. Of course, when you put 397 posts per page.... j/k!

I'm so glad you found reading it helpful.

Our family is doing well, with semi-normal things to worry about. One of our biggest worries right now is Mr. C, who has been failing his way through high school, passing just enough classes to go on to the next grade, but not enough to actually be able to graduate. He's just finishing up 10th grade.

AJ and I sat him down last night and had a chat with him. He is currently failing 4 core subjects. If he somehow managed to pass all of them (sorry, not happenin'), he would have a full load the next two years, needing 15 units passed and none failed in order to graduate. And he's so bright! It's very frustrating......

So we basically told him, you have to be going to school as long as your under 18 and living at home. At whatever point you pass your GED, that can become college instead of high school.

Of course, he'll only be able to take college part-time, because he'll also have to work part-time for AJ in order to be able to pay for his own classes.

The Princess made it to our State Music Festival with her vocal solo, flute solo, and the ladies' group she also sang with. We'll be leaving Thursday, since I'm the accompanist. She is doing well in school, taller than me now, and is a highly motivated young lady.

The Dervish is still his hilarious, irrepressible self. He takes nearly all of his classes in the special ed dept, but it's almost all because of his attitude in the classroom. He refuses to do his work, and totally spaces out. The battery of testing they gave him shows there is NOTHING wrong with him, which was no surprise to any of us in the family. We may well have another early-GED college genius on our hands if he keeps up.

AJ and I gave the hardware store back, and were both relieved to do so, for reasons that had little to do with why we actually gave it back. It took up more of our time than we could afford to spare, but the main reason we finally gave it back was some difficulties with the owner.

The main one was, we keep the Saturday Sabbath, and the owner comes from a devout Lutheran background. Well that alone isn't a problem - basically everyone here is Lutheran. I play at their church every week, and we're all happy as clams together. But the elderly owner, for around 80 decades accustomed to being open on Saturdays, refused to stay out of the store on Saturdays, and sold to all his loyal customers who dropped by.

AJ tried over and over again, and the owner only saw it as, "you believe one way, and I believe another," instead of "I NO LONGER OWN THE STORE AND I NEED TO DO WHAT THE BOSS TELLS ME TO!!!!!!"

There was also a little matter of him selling us his carpet and flooring business, which he was supposed to manage, and instead he started his own flooring business, conducting it right out of our store.

We could have changed the locks, and forced the issue with the flooring, but that didn't seem like the best choice for us and for the family. So we pulled out of there, and are setting up our own stuff in the little storefront we were already using. It's a fraction of the space, but when we close it on Friday, it stays closed till we open it back up again.

I'll be managing it (with a LOT of help from Neaksis, who is also leading the remodeling project - I'll have to post some photos when we're done), and only open 8-12 M-TH. That way I can do all the hours myself when AJ is working, and still have time to clean the house and cook delicious, wholesome meals. And drive bus, of course. Oh, and post on MB periodically.

In a very big nutshell, that's how we're doing.