1. Melissa always does the posting, and Melissa barely gets time to check her own personal email these days. To say that I'm behind in my schoolwork is the understatement of the year. The doctoral program is entirely challenging (which is expected)...and the classwork on top of the beginnings of my dissertation research is really a lot. It's been an interesting few weeks as I'm truly learning to embrace the "this is the best I can do" philosophy. Thankfully, I'm not stressed, just sometimes very, very tired. (It's hard to be stressed when you consider WHAT would be the cause of the stress...most women in the world don't have an opportunity to graduate high school, let alone get a doctorate, so that keeps my world in perspective, it really does. So does transplant, and our friend Eddie...reminding me that doctoral program is not life-or-death, it's a GIFT).
2. The boys are enjoying their lives too much to think about reporting on them. Yesterday was parent-teacher conferences, and they are having a FABULOUS year. So proud of them. We're also keeping them "off the streets" with after school drama club, Saturday swimming, and fall soccer.
3. We're doing more organized activities and less unorganized hang-around stuff. This is the antithesis of our usual parenting philosophy. The reason? Besides the growing homicide rate here in Lynn, a few weeks ago there was a shooting at 4 in the afternoon one block from our home. Gang-related, of course. But the incidents of afternoon gang shootings are growing, and we have moved closer to the heart of those sort of issues with the purchase of this house this summer. So we are literally trying to keep our kids off the streets more of the time. Pray for us!
4. Our friend, Jodie, moved in downstairs. As of a week and a half ago, we are now officially a "community house!"
5. We're working on closing on the condo-creating of our home; we hope to close at the end of this month, selling Jodie her condo downstairs, refinancing so that we own one condo and not the entire house, and creating a condo association to manage "common spaces" and a condo budget. Whew!
6. Jason has been involved in taking classes, too. They're during the school day, and when he agreed last year to be part of this commitment, he didn't realize that the two classes per month (for the next two years) are a LOT of credits toward a doctorate...so we may both be in doctoral programs very soon. Well, I guess we kind of both are, though Jason hasn't actually signed up for the credits, or chosen through which institution (there are two) he could/would do his EdD. Can you imagine?!?
It's definitely a busy season, but we are well. In case there are people who are still checking our very-quiet blog after so long, I just wanted you to know that. :)
Happy Friday from a contented Team Winchell!
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