Divide and Conquer

It was a bit of a weird weekend around our house.  We were officially a house divided: Carter went on Craig's roadtrip, and Jacob and I were home together.  That was a rare setup, for sure!  But before I get into that...

Last week the weather really seemed to perk up.  We had a few really pleasant days--sun and 60s felt SOOO good after a long winter.  It felt great to get back to my walks and get some fresh air.  Signs of spring have slowly been popping up, from these snow drops...  

...to these crocuses.

The crocuses actually confused me a bit, because the same day I saw those, I had a memory pop up with crocuses.  It felt like they were so early last year because of the warm winter.  I already had forsythias trying to bloom, tiny leaves on my hydrangea, and bulbs were popping up everywhere.  But this year it's been so cold that I haven't noticed much happening--I hadn't seen a peek of my hyacinth bulbs and while there are buds on some trees and plants, I hadn't noticed much greening at all.  So it surprised me that the crocuses had the same timing.  But these were in a different spot and I didn't see any where I took that picture last year, so who knows.

Thursday was Carter's String Festival concert.  It's probably my favorite of the year because seeing all of the district elementary and middle school students together is really neat.  It's such a massive group, and the contrast between the skill of the elementary students vs. the middle school students is fascinating.  We got there a little later than would be ideal because I had to drop Carter off early and then go back to get Craig, who had just gotten home from an appointment for Jacob.  As a result, we didn't get the best seats, but we could see Carter periodically around other kids.

It's such a huge group--this picture doesn't even capture it all.  Elementary is on the left and middle is on the right.  Carter was in the middle of the right group.  I sort of like orchestras because you know where all of the instruments usually sit, so finding him in a sea of kids like that is way easier than it would be otherwise.

This was a middle school song with an Asian influence.  It's definitely one of the most character-filled pieces I've heard them do.  

I had my real camera going in addition to my phone.  It was nice to zoom in and see him closer.

This was the grand finale with the entire orchestra.  It wasn't quite as grand as last year's Seven Nation Army finale, but it's still cool to see such a big group perform.

I really do love seeing him perform (since I pretty much never see him practice at home--he insists he does it when no one is here), and it still blows my mind that he seems to be pretty decent at it.  One more concert to wrap up the year in a couple months.

The only other interesting thing from last week was that we finally got the results from Jacob's endoscopy biopsy.  Oddly, the only notable thing was that his stomach had deposits of excess iron, called gastric siderosis.  That was likely what was causing the redness they saw.  I'm still waiting to hear back from both the doctor who did it and his GI nurse practitioner about what that means.  In theory it would probably mean that he has excess iron in his system, but that seems odd because two years ago his ferritin level was low (like mine, my mom's, and Carter's have all been), so he'd been supplementing since.  His hemoglobin level is really good, but the ferritin hasn't been retested since.  But I'm not sure why it would have recovered, especially to the point of leaving excess iron in his stomach.  I did see that there could be a link to reflux meds, so maybe that accelerated the inflammation?  I'm curious to see what they say, but I hope this discovery helps him in some way.

On Friday afternoon, Craig and Carter left for Ottawa.  A couple months ago I had noticed that was one of Craig's roadtrips, and I realized it might be a fun one for us to join him on.  I really wanted to go, especially since we had considered going there years ago, but an expired passport got in the way.  Well...then Jacob didn't want to go, and then we realized he'd have practice for his travel basketball team, so someone had to stay behind, which was, of course, me.  I could have tried to ask my parents, but I didn't want them to feel like they had to do it, as it would involve staying for a couple days, and in the end I was happy I didn't because things got a little crazier than I would have wanted to put them through.

Carter had a blast, though.  He sent this picture from the drive.

He made a friend.

He got some A&W!

He had fun at the arena with Craig, hanging on the bench and being in the press box.  He even got asked on-air to pick the player of the game!

He also got Pizza Pizza, had an amazing burger and a giant breakfast sandwich, plus some Tim Horton's.  It was really all about the food!  They were staying at a fancy resort, too, so they had a big suite and liked exploring the property.  They also saw this cuddly stuffed dog, but when they found out it was over $100 (Cdn), it promptly went back on the shelf!

They would have liked to stay and do some fun stuff in Ottawa, but the weather was going to be sketchy and they were content to just come back.  They hit a really bad thunderstorm near the end on top of a lot of wind.  It was a bit unnerving at home, too, although it was nothing compared to what the midwest and south dealt with all weekend--over 40 deaths and dozens of tornadoes, plus wildfires in Oklahoma.  It hit home a bit more this time because some of them hit in areas Jacob and I traveled in two years ago.  One went through Chesterfield, MO, which was where the St. Louis tournament was.  Rolla, MO had another, and we drove through there coming back from Springfield.  Parts of Oklahoma--including near the University of Oklahoma and in Stillwater, where Oklahoma State is--had wildfires.  A bunch of houses were destroyed in Stillwater, and it boggles my mind because who lives in Oklahoma and expects to lose your house that way?  But the tornado damage was immense and it's so sad that these things seem to be getting more explosive and frequent, even in areas that don't typically have them.  New York had a record number of tornadoes last year, and there were a few warnings across the state this weekend from the same system.  Other states like Indiana and Ohio had them too.  It was a historical outbreak (much like another of our destinations, Joplin, had many years ago, which I did a deep dive into when we were there), and having been in so many of those areas, it broke my heart.

Speaking of those trips, this weekend marked a return to Jacob and me being alone together like we were on our spring travels that year.  It actually started out pretty great.  We went out to dinner at Outback and had an enjoyable meal, where he finally got his Thunder from Down Under sundae that he has wanted to get forever.  He ended up filling up sooner than he wanted but he enjoyed what he could and brought the rest home.  We had good conversation and a really pleasant night.  We watched a lot of Disney videos over the weekend because he's back on the Disney quest again.  Overall, he seemed to be in good spirits and I was really enjoying his company.

Saturday morning he had to go to his travel team training camp.  It was three hours, and I was admittedly nervous how his body would hold up.  He's playing on a really elite team, and given that he's still coming back from his surgery and is a bit rusty, I wasn't sure how this would go.  Because the practice location was more than 20 minutes from our house, I decided to kill some time only 10 minutes away in the nearest town.  I was on a hunt for something at Aldi--I didn't find it but got a good deal on a water bottle carrying bag for my summer walks.  I had a few things on my list for the Dollar Tree next door, and then there was a Five Below in the plaza so I went there and did some unsuccessful Easter basket scouting.  Then I went to the Target across the street and finally had some Easter basket shopping success.  I also spent $3 on little pastel glass egg cups that I could not stop looking at.  They're so dainty and cute, they sort of match a cut glass candle holder I bought at Aldi last week (more than I wanted to spend but I just couldn't leave it!), and I like egg cups for displaying my Polish eggs individually.  I think they might also coordinate well with the tulip egg cups I got at Target last spring, but we'll see when I pull them out this weekend.

After the Target run, I had to get gas and wanted to get a Slurpee to enjoy the nice day, but alas, that station only had cherry and blue raspberry, which didn't excite me.  Boo.  After that, I drove about 25 minutes south (but only 15 minutes from the practice) to Livingston County Pizza to pick up an order of yeast donuts I got for Jacob.  He almost never gets yeast ones (the fall donuts are always cake ones), so I thought that would be nice and would kill some time.  On the way back I realized I wouldn't have time to grab lunch before pickup, so I regretted not getting the Slurpee to hold me over.  But then I realized there was a 7-Eleven not far off my route so I took a detour there and finally got one (Mountain Dew and Cherry).  I grabbed Jacob and had to drive him a half hour back to his school (grabbing some food for him en route), dropped him there to work a senior all-star game, and then had to kill time again.  I opted to drive to another Aldi in the next town over that seemed to have the thing I was looking for earlier (based on Instacart), but I realized after I went there and looked that it was actually the other location in the town, so I headed there.  And at long last, after checking all three of my usual locations, plus another a couple days earlier, and three more that day, I found the denim jeggings I wanted.  I love the pairs I have and these were a different color, and Aldi's sizing is sometimes weird but someone with my exact measurements wore the small size perfectly, so I had to jump on them this time when I knew they'd fit.  Such a victory to finally find them in the bottom of the box in the last convenient store!  As I pondered lunch options in the car, Jacob texted me to come get him a half hour early, so I headed back and we finally went home for a bit to rest up.  He was pretty down about his performance and really tired, but he wasn't done because he had actual team practice later in the day.  He was dreading it. 

We had almost two relaxing hours to eat lunch and chill, but then he got a call from his high school coach (who's not his travel coach but is coaching another team) asking where he was.  Apparently they changed the practice time to an hour earlier at the parent meeting earlier in the day--the one we were told not to go to because Jacob had to go to that all-star game and most of it was the same as previous years anyway.  So we got there about a half hour late (clearly not his fault) and he had an hour of practice time, which was probably a fortunate turn of events since he was already tired.  Of course, we weren't sure when it ended and I didn't want to go do the grocery shopping I had planned to do and then maroon him there if it ended quickly, so I basically sat there the whole hour on my phone, listening to Craig's broadcast.  Could have been worse, but it had been a long day and we were very relieved to get home after that.  Practice didn't go particularly well either, so I knew it would be a tough night.  I made us pizza with Trader Joe's gluten-free dough and hoped for an uneventful, restful evening even though I knew he was dreading going back on Sunday morning.

Well...that's not how it went.  At one point Jacob sat on the couch ready to use the Normatec, which is a compression treatment he uses on his legs.  He hadn't done it much since the surgery but his legs were tired enough that he pulled it out.  As he tried to position himself something happened to his hip and it really started to hurt.  He was convinced he tore the labrum or something, based on where the pain was, so he was freaking out.  He couldn't start over rehab again, he couldn't miss time, maybe he should just quit basketball because he couldn't even stay healthy for one day....etc.  It was rough.  Again.  We're working on the anxiety med situation--but clearly I wished we would have gotten to it sooner.  He couldn't sleep after that, then when he wanted help with sleep, it was too late to give him anything since he had to be up around 6:30.  He woke up exhausted and nauseous.  He was gaggy and had to settle for a piece of toast en route.  We had to pick up his teammate in the city (off an exit I generally purposefully avoid as a petite white woman) and tried to get them there as early as possible despite originally questioning whether Jacob should even go.  But he refused to bow out.  I guess his effort that day ended up being pretty good, but his shot is still off and he's just not at the level he needs to be, so he may be downgrading a bit.  That's not a bad thing--it's still a high level of basketball, and he's still young so recruitment isn't really an issue.  It will give him more playing time (which is really what he needs) and more leeway to make mistakes until he's back to where he needs to be.  I think it seems like the coach might be a better fit, too.  So, we'll see.  Maybe it was all meant to be.  But basketball-wise, it was a bit of a tough weekend.  Jacob got reassurance from his trainer on Monday that it's just a hip flexor, so that was good news because it's very treatable.  

I spent Sunday's practice shopping at Wegmans and having coffee and a pretzel bagel at Tim Horton's, but otherwise I pretty much made the rest of my weekend as productive as it could be with a limited amount of free time.  I took care of some pesky things like laundry and gathering up our tax documents.  I brought up a couple warm weather shirts, wrote a blog post, and transferred over the concert pictures and videos.  I made a new batch of meatballs and made Chex Mix with Jacob.  I had a bunch of things on my to-do list and worked through most of them--and really all of the ones I had originally intended on doing, maybe with the exception of more fun free time stuff I'm trying to remind myself to take time to do.  I keep thinking that I want to play some Super Mario and start the diamond painting that's been sitting in my room since late 2020, but I keep running out of time.  I'm always happy to watch TV and make earrings, too, but I didn't get to that either.  But productivity was good in this case, so I'll do fun things another time.

This weekend was Craig's last roadtrip with the exception of the playoffs, so we just have a few more home games to go.  One of those weekends will be the first travel trip to Boston, which will be all me.  Craig is off this weekend, at least, so we're hoping to maybe go spend some time in Buffalo, pending Jacob's practice schedule, to see Craig's parents and my parents and do some shopping (sneaker shopping at the outlets and maybe a Platters Chocolate stop for Easter baskets).  We'll see if we can make it work, but some family time would be nice since sports have prevented us from doing much of that on weekends in recent years.  Easter is coming, but it would be nice to have some quiet hang-out time ahead of that since the day is usually really busy.

But for now, I'm off to enjoy some nice weather while I still can!