Jordan received his school track in the mail yesterday (Fall/ Winter--the one we wanted!) and passed his local Board of Review last night with a few suggested revisions and additions, but because he had it before his birthday, he can still make the alterations before he sends in his papers for his "National Board of Review". We're still not out of the woods, but I told him he got one day off for his birthday and then there would be "no rest for the wicked!". Our stress levels were pretty high last night, but I am so proud of how hard he has worked these last three months and all that he has learned. This process has been invaluable for prepping him for the reality of adult life. He is 18 today and has chosen to spend the first 8 hours of his birthday building fence with a friend to earn money for all of the "realities" that are coming up quickly in his life. Not the choice I would have made on my birthday, but responsible and appropriate for the first day of "adulthood". We'll make sure we party BIG this evening. We're fudging on "unplugged" during Spring Break and are going to watch a few movies together. We've missed that.
Olive Update ("Because this drama is an impactful part of life in the Bloomquist Family)--
The more permanent fence piece that Fred built a few weeks ago, has not stopped Olive; she learned to climb the chain link, so during my morning scripture reading of the "war chapters" I got the brilliant idea to raise "works of timber" against the trouble spot of fence. After I went on my morning ritual of looking for my escaped dog and bringing her back to the yard, I leaned every post and 2x4 that Fred had left over from projects against the low fence wall. It looked pretty deterring to me, though I'm sure the neighbors were just shaking their heads at the "mess". The next morning, Olive got behind them and knocked them forward, which is impressive since some of them were 12 ' long and leaning on the fence at quite an angle, and escaped before I could get out to walk her in the morning (I have to get kids ready for school until 8:00). A couple weeks ago, Fred picked up some garden trellis netting to string between posts at the top of the 42" gap, in hopes that Olive would be deterred for a week before he could get to building an actual fence. The following Sunday, we came home and Olive was still in the yard, but there was a large hole in one spot of the rope trellis. She must have either jumped and got caught in it and struggled free, making a huge hole, and didn't try again because she got hurt. Fred went out and fixed the hole, by tying together string pieces, but the next day she tried again and was successful. Every day I fix the new hole, and every day she makes a new one. My mom said, "always look for solutions", so even though I feel foolish and incompetent, every day I try something new, and every day it fails. Since the beginning of spring break, Mikayla and Eden and I get up at 8:00 and do our 15 minute workout and then run the 2-1/2 mile neighborhood "scouting route" looking for our dog. Yesterday morning, before we even started our workout, I got a phone call from the little barbershop downtown, telling me that they were holding Olive inside, if I wanted to come get her. Luckily it was early enough that they didn't have customers yet, but as usual they were just concerned about her welfare and pleased to be the protectors of "this sweet dog".
Fred has taken the day off for Jordan's birthday, but now Jordan is gone all morning, so maybe he will be building fence today. I still love my dog; she is very sweet, she just has this minor little thing that continually forces me out of my comfort zone and forces me to interact with "strangers".....Maybe it's all a blessing in disguise. Olive certainly seems to have guardian angels watching over her.
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