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Like a Louse

That is how I feel sometimes: like a louse.

 Louse: a small usually sluggish arthropod that lives on other animals or plants and sucks their blood or juices
I’ve been feeling very sluggish, and that I’ve been living off of Julie’s efforts and work.  I feel like I’m sucking the life out of her.

Yesterday it wasn’t because of the mental issues, but the physical ones.  We’ve gotten to the point of putting down flooring in the house and bought 50 sheets of tile backer board to put down.

Those sheets are 3’x5′ and weight approximately 42lbs each.   We bought an entire pallet of them (50 sheets).  That is a weight of just over 2100lbs.  It had the trailer tires looking over taxed on the drive home.  We need 75-80 sheets, but were worried about the weight.

Being the broken louse that I am, I carried exactly ZERO of those sheets up to our work area.  My Wonder Woman wife carried all 50 of them, alone, from the trailer, across the lawn, up a flight of stairs and into the remodeled space of the house.   That is over 1 ton of material moved by her 5 foot tall, 135 lbs frame.

And not content to stop there, she proceeded to then start laying them out on the floor.

Lousy, Yes?

Gentlemen, you would feel pretty lousy too if you couldn’t help you out in such a situation, right?  I’m a big guy, broad shouldered with a fair amount of muscle on me.  I get asked if I’m a bouncer (often), a bodyguard (a few times), or played professional football (really?).  Yet I might was well be a 110lbs weakling for all the help I have to offer around here.   And knowing that I used to be able to do that precise type of thing without feeling taxed at all… well then the mental pains really begin to set in.  Watching my wife do it all in my place … well, makes me feel like a louse!

 

 

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Running Log: Cross Country 9/7/2017

9/7/2017

Location: Bluffdale City Park

Participants: NorthStar Academy, Summit Academy, Ascent Academy, Eagles

Course: 2 laps around the mostly flat city park.

Results

Both Joshua and Kristie participated in another Cross Country meet.  Josh continues to suffer from Osgood-Schlatter disease in his knee.  Because this course was 2 laps of a city park I was able to position myself near the 1 mile point and give them their times as they came by.

My perception was that Josh was far worse in positioning than last week due to the knee pain.

Kristie appeared to fair much better on the flat ground than she did in the rocky hills at Providence Hall.

This post is late in coming because the school never sent out official results.  I was waiting for them to come before I posted, but am now posting it without them.  If I can round them up later I will update.

UPDATE

Joshua finished 17th with a time of 14:37

Kristie finished 10th with a time of 16:26

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Throwing Things At My Kids

Really Jax? Again?

Well, Yes!

Don’t you ever want to throw things at your kids?  They’ve just been so… so… you know… that you just need to throw something at them with the intent to hit them?

Well I do, often!  As often as I can actually.

In fact, it is one of our favorite games!

Frisbee, the Jensen Way

There aren’t a lot of physical things I can do with my kids.  But I can throw a Frisbee still!  This has been one of favorite games for years… since Caitlin and Joshua were the ages of Andrew and Steven.  If you want to have just a wonderful time with your kids, here is how we play:

I find a good spot to sit that won’t hurt my back too much.  The kids gather a few Frisbees, but never more than the number of kids playing.

Randomly pick which kids get to go first.  Those kids will, one at a time, hand me their Frisbee.  I count to three while they run away.  At “THREE” I throw the Frisbee at them, trying to touch any portion of them with it.

The other kids kind of scatter out on the lawn and wait their turn.  Anytime I miss a kid with a Frisbee, that Frisbee becomes fair game and the first person to get to it, picks it up and bring it to me.  As soon as they hand it to me, I start counting and they run.

If I hit a kid, they are NOT allowed to pick up THAT Frisbee, but are free to pick up any other Frisbee nearby.   And so it is a continual round of running and laughter and fun for everybody.  Even Caitlin (15) and Steven (3) have a great time trying to elude my throws and beat their siblings to errant throws so that they get a turn again.

Great Fun For All

For me it is nice to be able to play some sort of sport with the kids.  For them, I hope they enjoy the time spent playing with me.  It is one we’ve done for hours at a time, making subtle changes as circumstances allow.   (Before I became injured I used to do it standing as well and we’d keep track of points.  1 point for me if I hit them, a point for them if I missed.  Use your imagination!)

Julie isn’t a great thrower, but she joins in occasionally.  We’ve been playing every night this week and the last two nights she joined in.  I think she was feeling slightly left out of all the laughter and fun – there is a lot of it!

The kids are all very good about making sure everyone gets a turn.  If they see someone starting to sulk because they haven’t been able to get a Frisbee lately they will gladly hand one over.  It’s been fantastic to watch them do it, without parental suggestion, and watch the love bonding the kids together as younger sibling looks up at the older ones with love and appreciation for the Frisbee.   It is great!

If you are afraid that I might hurt the young kids with a hard plastic Frisbee, don’t fret!  We have 2 soft rubber ones that we use and that the littlest kids get most often.  We have a normal Frisbee for the older kids too (it is more accurate for the distances they can travel in just 3 seconds!).  And if a little kid comes with the hard Frisbee it isn’t hard to just adjust the power of the throw so that nobody gets hurt.

I might be throwing things at my kids, but I don’t intend to hurt them at all.  Just hit them repeatedly!

So if you ever drive by and see me throwing stuff at my kids as they run away screaming… all is well.  No need to call protective services… we’re having the time of our lives!

 

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Going Slowly

I wish I could say that you haven’t seen any new posts because we’ve just been so darn busy that I haven’t had time.  That isn’t the case though.  Mostly it is because I’ve been feeling so poorly that we’ve barely accomplished anything.

What we HAVE done

As per her norm, Julie (aka Superwoman) has kept going though.  She wired up all the outlets and light switches (with a little occasional guidance) and is ready to install ceiling fans and such.

When that is done we’ll move onto getting the backer board down on the floor.  As soon as we can get that down we’ll be able to move the boys into that space.  The backer board needs to be down first though to keep the kids (and their clothes/toys/bedding/etc) up and out of the sheetrock dust on the floor.

Also, as a HUGE plus, the motorhome was moved out of the driveway and we finally have full use of that space now.