We have struggled through another week. I took most of Monday off so Beth and I could have our meetings at the school regarding taking Natalie out. She’s over 16 so she can legally drop out, so I don’t think there’ll be too much problem with her not being in school until we can get her enrolled somewhere, but as of Monday she is no longer officially enrolled at Warsaw High School….. I took the van in Discount Tire Monday to check out one of the rear tires that hasn’t been holding air lately. They found a piece of metal in it and fixed it, so that’s better, and it was free…..Beth worked all week as she was able to get soups done for a show in Columbia City on Saturday. Tuesday the kids were off school because the teachers’ union had a rally or something in Indy. Protesting their wages, I guess. Warsaw does have to lowest teachers’ pay in the state, from what I hear. So over 20% of the teachers had requested the day off so they cancelled school altogether with no e-learning! Missy hung out at a friend’s house pretty much all day; Nat walked as far as the health food store in town and then had an episode so I had to go get her and bring her home……Beth was in Shipshewana on Tuesday visiting with Stephanie. She came back feeling refreshed; Stephanie gets her and gets what she’s going through…..Our nice new van was back in the shop on Thursday because the engine has been rattling and roaring at low rpm, and one of the things they found was the same suspension problem that Best Deal was supposed to have fixed. If they did fix it in the couple days they had the van when we bought it, it apparently didn’t show. Plus a bad axle in front. The fixes were around $1100. It’s better now, but the engine still is pretty noisy at low rpm especially when it’s cold. Sigh…..The Yuletide Treasures craft show in Columbia City was this weekend, and Beth did well. We made around $840 in sales, selling out of 4 different kinds. But not the curried lentil, such a big seller at the show a few weeks ago. We only sold 4 all day, and many people tried it and made a frowny face. They loved it at the last show. But we also sold out of chicken noodle, which has never happened before……Today we got a pop-up text from Marve asking if he and Beth could come visit for the day. Out of the blue. So they did, and were at the house around 4:30. They stayed to visit for a while and have dinner with us before heading back home. Long drive, short visit, but it was nice because nobody ever comes down our way…..

This week has been a disaster. Natalie blew up again. Big time. She’s still been struggling to get through an entire school day without spending a lot of time at the nurse’s station, probably going down there about every day. On Monday something snapped. Something the nurse said or Beth said was interpreted by her as we were planning to send her away and a full on Fukushima meltdown/explosion happened, including her screaming and hitting and swearing. Beth ran to the school and got caught up in the throes of it, and got called a lot of ugly names during it. Natalie wanted to go home with Kara who arrived on the scene as well, but I don’t think Kara has the resources for that. Anyway, I got called in as well and talked Nat down from the edge as best I could, but there is a lot of damage done. Beth is basically having another nervous breakdown and I think the relationship between them is going to be permanently damaged. But there is basically no way to change things, especially now. There was no school due to a snow day (early in the year for that, huh) on Tuesday, and Wednesday seemed to go all right, but in the aftermath of Monday, Nat, Nat’s counselor, and Beth and I have all agreed that she isn’t healthy enough to stay in school any longer, so we are going to withdraw her from school until she is. She was failing everything important anyway; it’s hard to get an education when you’re away from class so much. The reduced class load hasn’t seemed to help enough so this is the next step. We are going to have to enroll her in an online K12 school or homeschool her (which can’t happen). We’re now trying to arrive back at a new normal, but Beth is pretty much wrecked again….. Beth went away for a getaway weekend by herself again, in a local hotel like she did a few months back. It didn’t work very well this time. She was very anxious and never felt secure in the hotel this time, except when I came to spend the evening with her Saturday evening. I brought a pizza and we just hung out in the room for a few hours and watched TV, which she said was the only time she felt good all weekend. I just tried to get things cleaned up around the house during the weekend, not very successfully because the house is a cluttered mess, which adds to Beth’s stress more than it should….While she was away, the girls got haircuts on Saturday. Missy got a trim, and Natalie did a radical change and a lot of hair was left on the floor. In the end, with the bangs and shorter hair she looked kind of like Taylor Swift…..On Friday Beth and I took Missy downtown to apply for her passport book (we were there on time to do it this time).

We all headed to Fort Wayne on Saturday, mostly because Missy needs a tuner for her guitar and wanted to get some cool picks. We went to Sweetwater to get her stuff, then everyone else went to the mall while I went to visit Mom. She’s about the same, still losing weight though not as fast, still no real recognition (yeah that’s never coming back). Looks like she’s holding steady even though by last summer I didn’t think she’d still be around by year’s end. They had her up in her chair, I wheeled her over by one of the other chairs and talked to her for a while. At one point she reached over and grasped a fold of my sweatshirt between her thumb and forefinger and tugged on it, but she recoiled when I tried to put my hand on hers. We didn’t hang around much more in FW after the visit….I got some staples for my staple gun today so I can get Missy’s chair finished once and for all. I didn’t get it done, but I did get the fabric over the seat. We bought some fabric a long time ago, and I got some padding and a piece of plywood to be the seat several weeks ago, Missy painted it all last summer sometime, so she should have it done. All I need to finish it now is some screws to get the seat attached. I also got some ceiling tiles and a new vent fan for the downstairs bathroom. The fan has been screeching and banging every time we turn the dryer on unless we turn the fan on, something about the louvers in the exhaust side, I guess. The ceiling tiles in the drop ceiling in the bathroom downstairs are really ugly, and have been water stained ever since the upstairs bathroom had all the water issues like 5 years ago. I’ve wanted to replace them for a long time, finally getting that done….

Yesterday was Beth’s first craft show of the soup season. She was at the Brethren Church of Warsaw, 2nd or 3rd time for that one I think, and she did really well. She made some $750 in sales, most notably from the NEW! curried lentil soup, which seemed to be a big hit. Nat was there to help her out most all day and earned a few bucks too…..Halloween was this past week, and the girls are back into it. Missy has been working on her costume for a while, with my help of course. She tried painting the cape we got a little while ago, but that obviously was not working, so we tried to dye it in the kitchen instead, and that did not work either. So we punted, and she just wore the cape black instead of the green she wanted, oh well. We finished her helmet and painted it the other day, and I also rigged up a scabbard thing out of hangar wire for a foam sword, so she was a dragon warrior or something. Trick or treating was originally scheduled for Thursday (the 31st), but since the weather was so crappy and wet it was delayed until Friday night. Missy was going around with Kathryn along Main and Fort Wayne Streets. Natalie dressed as a fashionable demon and went around with Holly. And I missed seeing all the girls dressed up because I was setting things up at the church for the craft show, and Beth didn’t think to get a picture either, dang…..