Garage sale weekend! Finally a chance to get some junk out of the house. I took most of Friday off work to help out (especially since Beth had to go to a follow-up appointment for the infected cyst), and boy were we slow. Steady though, I suppose, which I guess isn't too bad for no advertising. We sold off a lot of Mom's trinkets that she had to have when she moved from Arizona, but didn't remember once she got here. Most of her Day of the Dead decorations, a lot of her objets d'art (not the Indian stuff - Laura has that), clothes, the old viola, etc. I sold our old school TV for $5, which is great because it would have cost me $10 to recycle it, which is what I was going to do. Sold all the old VeggieTales DVDs and Muppet Show VHSs, Missy sold a ton of old toys, Alex sold a few Pokemon cards, we sold games and clothes and junk. By the end of the day we were looking a bit picked over, and we didn't sell a whole lot on Saturday but as we found out later, there was a massive community-wide garage sale going on at the fairgrounds this weekend, so not surprising we got little traffic. We're going to plan on another Saturday garage sale next week to hopefully clear out some more clothes, which was what didn't sell the most. Overall though, we did ok, Beth and I made $131, Missy made $76.25, Alex made $31.95, Natalie made $28.75, and the Harrisons made $18.50.
After church on Sunday we all went to Fort Wayne, mostly to visit Mom. She looked good, was alert and clean and we found her glasses in her room (even though she says she doesn't need them). We got her to go downstairs for a walk and sit on the porch outside for a while, which she seemed to enjoy. But she was getting agitated with all of us there after a while so only I took her back upstairs and got her seated in the TV area again, and she didn't try to follow me back out. So a good visit, she still seems to be doing fine there. After leaving the home we went to Toys R Us, just to see if there was anything left. They're about down to bare bones, but I did find a discounted 4-plug charger. Otherwise, they have crap left, priced about like it would be at Wal-Mart. Then we just headed home.
No softball game this week, it was rained out. Even though the rain stopped an hour before the game, and we could have played.

Well, the week was dominated by medical issues, just not the usual kind. The kids all went to summer PE on Monday as usual, but Natalie rolled her ankle during warm-ups...badly. Then the teacher rolled her eyes, said "there's always something wrong with you," and wouldn't send her to the nurse. Made her run on it. Told her to just stretch it out and she'd be fine. Well, after all day at PE when Beth picked the kids up, she took Nat straight to the ER where they found out she has a broken 5th metatarsal. And in serious pain. Ooooooo are Beth and I pissed. So she's going to have a walking boot for about a month, after which she'll be re-evaluated to see how it's healing, and the doctor gave 50-50 odds that he'd have to put a screw in her foot at that time. Sheesh. I was at the school the next day demanding of the teacher's boss to know why this happened. So yeah, the teacher never should have made a diagnosis herself, should have informed the nurse, etc etc and they're very sorry. (It even got back to Nat the next day that the teacher was overheard in the hall saying Natalie should have just sucked it up). So she's hobbled, and summer gym is over for her. However, turns out that there is such a thing as an online PE course, believe it or not, and she can finish her summer gym requirement that way. She has to enroll online and will read a bunch of information and take a bunch of quizzes on it, and since she had a week in the class she doesn't have to keep logs or actually do any exercise. They'll give her credit for time served, it seems. So we'll just have to keep her at that, and it'll finish her PE requirement without ever having to take gym at school.
Tuesday the softball team lost again, after giving the other team a good run. We led for a while but couldn't hold it and lost 11-10. Nat walked to the ball diamond but was in too much pain to walk back so she got a piggyback ride from me.
This was Father's Day weekend, but it didn't exactly work out that way. Friday was Missy's birthday, and she had a pool party (finally it got warm enough). I picked up the pizza on the way home and then picked up Missy and a bunch of other girls at the movies where they had gone to see "Incredibles 2" which everyone said was awesome, just as good as the original. Then party duties in the evening (cutting cake and all). Saturday, we took the cats to the vet (again) to get them some of those flea pills, since the FrontLine again doesn't seem to be working and we're getting  a lot of fleas off them. Just like last year, not what we want. Later, Natalie's half-sister was having a birthday party for her son up near Milford and wanted Natalie to come, so I brought her over. I was going to stay there just in case things got panicky for her but she said she was fine and didn't want me to stay. So I left her, and as soon as I got home I had to run back there to bring her her bathing suit which she had forgotten. A bit later on she called and asked if she could stay overnight at Cara's, and we decided to let her but we did run her meds and other things over to her. I took Alex out driving later on in the day, we drove around for around half an hour..his first time on the roads! Sunday was the real day. Natalie called in the morning and asked if she could go to Deep River Waterpark with Cara (her boyfriend's parents had surprised them with tickets to the park and were paying for her too). Despite better instincts, we let her go. We really want her to have some positive relationships with her family and we thought this would be nice for her. Anyway, meanwhile Beth's had a cyst on her chest that apparently got infected, it's been hard and red and sore and Dr. Dick told her to go to the ER if it got worse over the weekend, which it did. So we were in the ER on Sunday afternoon, with her getting the abscess drained (gross) and getting a scrip for some heavy duty antibiotics. That took a few hours, and almost immediately after we got home Natalie called and asked us to come get her. And hurry. She was very panicky and hurting. So I made the 3 hour round trip to get her. She slept in the car a good part of the way back home. We grilled steaks for dinner (all me) to celebrate Father's Day.

Alex is making some attempts to enter the workforce! He's filled out some applications, and this week Wednesday he had an interview at Culver's. Unfortunately I think he was a bit too restrictive on the times he can work. They were supposed to call him back in a few days but so far they haven't. I know they've been hiring 15-year-old kids, but they didn't hire him on the spot like I thought they might. Well, here's hoping. Softball lost again this week, we played another one-win team in the league in a battle for the cellar...and came up short. We held with them for a while but eventually they pulled away. But another team lost too so we're not in sole possession of last place, at least. This has been the week of the global research summit at work, every couple years ZB research people from all over the globe come to Warsaw and we all meet and find out what's been going on. It was a good meeting, though a bit longish especially the first day when we were there until 8:00, but there was the mandatory fun thing (a gathering at 110 Meatery in town, which I've never been to. It was nice, but I find those sort of things to be extremely uncomfortable). Finally this week, we bought a new couch. Well, new to us. Nancy across the street told Beth about Home Sweet Home in town, which is an antiques-used-furniture-and-junk store that we've known about for years but never gone to. Turns out, it's really pretty nice and they have some good used furniture. We found a matching couch and loveseat, being sold separately, that we had to move on quickly because people both in front of and behind us were also looking at (and we beat one couple with the sale). We just wanted the loveseat, which was in really good shape for being used. It reclines on both sides, and has a storage space in the center for remotes (I guess) and cupholders. So we're going to try to get rid of the couch that we all hate.

The kids' free week is just about over. Summer school starts tomorrow (ah...it's only gym). Tuesday, softball lost again 8-4. We are just not hitting. Or fielding. Oh well, we're just practicing for the tournament. Friday we helped the Bells move to their new house, as did most of the people at church. We went to their old house with the van and truck and started helping carry things out and loading them into all the other trucks and trailers. When everything was full, everyone took them to the new house and unloaded. It's amazing how fast a church family can get things moved, I wonder how non-churchgoers do it. We all only had to do 2 trips and pretty much the entire household was emptied and moved in to the new one. They had lots of pizza and pop for everyone too. Saturday was a vet trip for both cats, all their shots were due. The vet like Ruby's ear hair so much she took a picture and asked if she could put it on the vet clinic's Facebook page (we had to sign a waiver). The girls still needed some shorts and a few other things, and I wanted to visit Mom since I hadn't in a few weeks, so we went to Fort Wayne for the afternoon. The girls dropped Alex and me off at the home, and we visited Mom for a couple hours while the girls shopped. There was another ice cream social today, and we just happened to wander downstairs (to look at the birds) as it was ending, so Mom and Alex and I got some ice cream, and since it was a nice day we took it outside to the porch. Walked around a little bit too. It was the first time Mom has been outside the building since she moved in. Overall she didn't seem worse than the last time I was there, but there's not much of her left. I'm pretty sure she doesn't know who I am, but she knows that she knows me somehow. She doesn't know who Alex is but she likes him. She smiles at him a lot. She doesn't talk much, though. And she doesn't seem to remember Laura at all. Today, we all went to the Winona Lake art fair for a while (not as much there that I was interested in this time...) then up to Michigan for Sam's birthday party (he's 17). There was a cookout at the Wiessner's house. Pretty much everyone in the whole family was there.