California McMillans

My biggest struggle with homeschooling is dealing with Parker and Hanna while I homeschool.  They have little or no interest in doing school and want me to entertain them by jumping on the trampoline, going on a bike ride, etc.  I am sure it is my doing. Now that Danny is home, we can get so much done because they are also entertained.  It is amazing how much you can get done when you don't have a 2 and 5 year old being really needy. I found some amazing curriculum and am excited to finish up this school year with the kids.  I am in awe of how many amazing curriculums there are in the world.  We started a human body unit today that I am excited about. We did an ELA lesson that all the kids learned from.  We are reading story of the world which I love.  They do math independently.  We start our day with listening to a conference talk and journaling. Love it!  Grateful for this time to learn and grow with the kids.  For us to learn to work together (which we need a lot of help wi

This morning, I got up to run.  I am trying to run 3 miles a day this week.  While I run I listen to a conference talk and podcast.  I think it fills some of my conversational needs as an extrovert.  Someone to listen to....LOL! The conference talk was about the positives and negatives of social media.  Something that is becoming an increasing problem in our society and in my familys life.  It is amazing how we can sit on electronics and get nothing done.  Yesterday, we did no electronics, which is a rule for Sunday and our day was filled with great things.  Instead of being on electronics, my kids were out making up games and jumping on the trampoline.  During shelter in place we haven't allowed any electronics until 4:30 but I even think that is too early in the day.  I think I want to change it to 6ish.  After dinner and after getting all our stuff done.  The kids are of course hesitant, but I know we will have better days. We'll see if I change it.  I don't think ther

I was at the dollar store yesterday getting paint for my kids since I have no idea which box my paint is in.  There was a lady in front of me with a 2nd grader.  He was sweet and asked what the plastic eggs were for.  It was kind, respectful, not how my kids would probably ask.  She was beyond frazzled.  Expired. Done. Mumbling to herself. Frazzled. I get it. I have been there.  6 McMillans in the dollar store can easily get me to state of mom frazzle.  She continued to kindly, in her mom frazzled state explain to her son that she was done.  She had just finished doing his school with him.  It did her in.  She couldn't answer one more question he had for her. He just needed to stop asking any questions. Stop talking. Just leave her in peace.  He looked bewildered and confused.  I wish I could have helped.  I wish I could have talked to her and told her it was going to be alright or tomorrow instead of doing whatever was creating this state, to just play some games with her son,

Danny wrote a little about our moving situation.  We were all cleared with our mortgage, supposed to sign loan docs on Saturday and found out Friday that our loan got pulled.  It was stressful.  After gathering information, I had hope that the mortgage company really closed its doors to the majority of small business owners.  Our broker said that with our reserves, they should have closed the deal so he restructured the loan, which he felt would do nothing and moved onto applying for a loan with quicken which still seems to be giving loans to small business owners.  They called Danny's work and found out that he wasn't working at full capacity.  It really stressed Danny out but I was surprisingly at peace about the whole thing. The thing I was most stressed about was knowing what to do with our tenants, so I called them up and they were stressed but have a little more time for this loan to go through.  Not ideal since they have to be out of the 1st but still seem interested. 

We have completed 3 weeks of shelter in place.  Maybe 4.  I can't even remember at this point. It is all a big blur.  The first week or two was stressful with Danny being out of work and the implications of that but now that has just become a reality and I am at peace.  I think we are both at peace financially because it won't have a lasting effect on us and we own our businesses.  Even though we have more expenses like paying rent, etc. we have job security. There are so many pros and cons of being small business owners and this is one of the pros.  I don't know how many dentists will be able to keep their associates after this. I would hope most but there is security in knowing you have a business to go back to once things open up again.  I am grateful that we live the way we do so that we will be able to pay our bills and we are prepared. I know a lot of people aren't as fortunate and that makes me sad.  Really sad and concerned. I find myself praying often and have

Hey.  The loan went from "clear to close" to "maybe," at best.  It's been real stressful for me.  But here are some fun pictures of the kids while we've been living in bunker hunker-down mode. Mister doing his favorite thing:  sitting in front of the TV. Food storage for the win!  Strangely, the flour and oats smelled like apples.  The rice was pretty good.  Hanna's into getting her picture taken.  This is with bounce flash and 24-105L lens. Tyler working on a Metal Earth stainless steel star wars jet during conference.  These kept the kids busy even though I had to help everyone, Blake the most.  Kira with Buster, our feral cat, who's since been domesticated and is the most docile animal we know.  Scott's completed x-wing fighter Blake and I made cinnamon rolls.  They didn't turn out how we'd hoped.  I blame the flour from our food storage, but the kids gobbled them up anyway.  I added cream che