I'm grateful for: a quiet day; fans and an air conditioner; the theoretical end of summer.

Well, what's been going on? It's been so long, at least in terms of events. And now S3 is in here chattering at me, so I don't know how much, if anything, I will manage to write.

The biggest news, I hope, is that we've been told that my grandchildren will return home to their mother, D1, today. It isn't guaranteed, and given too much previous experience with the social services, I won't believe it until (if) I get a phone call saying the kids are, in fact, home.

Now S3 is working on math. He's a real math whiz, but wants me to not my head as he does every step. Not that he needs me to tell him it's right, he just wants attention at every step at this point. He could never do this in a normal school environment, so I'm glad we are able to work together like this.

The way he waves his head about while explaining to me what he's doing reminds me a bit of the animated characters - I can't remember their names now. Rats! Someone and Koko and Joe.

A couple of days ago we had a very special day - one I was sorry I couldn't write about at the time, just because it was, well, special. One of those days. I can't remember the first phone-call or crisis. D1 called hysterical because her family is breaking up (just as the kids are coming home) and she's looking at the possibility of being left all alone - except for the two kids. Our next door neighbour's horse went down (for non-country/animal people, this is VERY bad). Another hysterical call from the states in the evening, and I really can't remember the rest of it. It was stressful, exciting, difficult, somehow we got through it all. D3 and S1 and S2 were all sick. The heat, mercifully, gave us a bit of a break, cooling off to the lower 30s (90sF) from closer to 40 (well over 100F).

It would have been so much better if I could have written it down then. *sigh*

Yesterday was another full day - TH and I went to the bank to open a new account, so we could begin the process (which used to take up to a couple of years) of transferring all of our money, bills, &tc. to the new, local account. Apparently, however, things have changed since just a few months ago - and the bank was able to transfer everything down from the Karmiel branch in one step. Of course they charge us for the service, but compared to time, effort and energy spent contacting all of the utilities and the health plan and my disability to get them to change accounts. We still have a credit card to get moved over from the bank account we opened up when we lived in Karnei Shomron, but that is only one thing. We'll be closing that account as soon as a series of checks we wrote is paid off - sometime in the next 12 months, thank goodness. It will be good to have all of our banking and such locally.

We are also in the process of getting entirely out of debt, at least in Israel. We have assorted unpaid debts floating around the U.S. Some of them actually belong to us (i.e. we spent the money or incurred the debt), and a couple of them are not ours, but ended up in our name (cell phone companies, anyone?). The U.S. debts that we actually owe I would like to repay someday - but at this point they are so inflated I don't know that it will actually happen. At least, when we are out of debt here (except for a mortgage - I don't really count that as a debt), I can begin to look at what I can do on the U.S. front.

Of course by that time (2-3 years) who knows how many of the debts will have been charged off? I hate all of this. *sigh*

Lessee, other news is that D2's boyfriend asked her if there is a 'non-zero' chance that she might want to marry him someday. There was more, he apparently said it all as a calculus metaphor, but the important point (to us) is that he has made it clear that HE has a 'non-zero' desire to marry D2 someday.

We have taken the step, as a family, to report someone to the social services - today. This is major, I won't do that if I don't think that anything that can happen in the social services would be less bad than the situation the child is in now. At present, he is alone 10+ hours a day, with no food in the house, and getting punishments for (for instance) failing to call his mother at a specified time when there is no working clock in the apartment either. The house is a health hazard, with cat litter that is not cleaned or changed, the cat had (probably still has) worms, and so forth and so on. It is *bad* I HATE having to take this step, and I would never do it if I felt there was any alternative - that is, any alternative that would get him taken care of appropriately.

I'm worried sick. I'm worried about the boy - Please Hashem that he should get someone taking care of him; I'm worried that we will lost touch with him - if the social workers take him away, will we ever see him again?; and I'm worried about him thinking we abandoned him - because we haven't had any direct contact for a while - and if they take him, then he won't know that we are paying attention and we still care. *sigh* It has to be for the best. It HAS to be. Because he couldn't be left in that situation. If anything had happened to him I would never have been able to live with myself.

It's a quiet day here today. I started to write about how full yesterday was but got derailed. Post office, dentist, shoe store (after S3's sandals broke), doctor, shuk, 2-shekel store, home again and then to a wedding. :-) My first wedding on the moshav. Meaning, it was a moshav wedding. It was a LOT of fun, the couple looked incredibly beautiful (the bride - I've never seen such a beautiful wedding gown, and her hair was amazing).

I had to leave before it was over (I got home before midnight). D3 was babysitting for another moshav family so they could go to the wedding. I am really, really glad I got to go.

I've taken a lot of photos lately, most of them having to do with horses and riding. Someday maybe I'll get some up here. For the moment, that I'm stealing time for this, And I must eat some breakfast and maybe even get some housework done. Or, get dressed. So much to do, so little time. And so little energy.

***

And now it's later, I've eaten breakfast, and I really have to send this already.

I'm listening to Fun Lovin' Criminals: Shining Star

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06