Codeine Haze and the Flu
For two weeks or more, Grandma has been struggling to eat and losing weight which had forced us to put her on Ensure and require her to eat at three hour intervals... until Friday.

On Friday, I spent some time researching the effects of pain killlers on people and found that codeine can actually supress appetite when taken over time. I stopped giving her the Codeine on Friday afternoon. She is eating on her own, willingly requesting food and her disposition is a bit better. Hopefully, the solution was that simple!

We have been fighting a serious head cold/flu around here since Saturday morning and I am hoping to get rid of it today. The boys are still sleeping, which is quite the luxury around here. I usually force them out of bed around 7:30, but decided that rest was more important than schoolwork today. Hopefully it will help both of them kick this thing!

Josh wants to join Civil Air Patrol. My niece, Angel, has been involved for 5 or 6 months and took Josh to the Holiday Party. He met some cool kids and has decided that it would be something he would like to try. I don't really know how I feel about him in the military in the long run, but I guess it is my job as his parent to allow him to test out different things in his quest to find himself. He will go and try it out a few times before he can join, their rules not mine. I think Thursday is the first day he will try and visit the meetings. I told him as long as he can keep up with his other commitments; soccer, refereeing, schoolwork, odyssey of the mind, that he could join.

Holiday stuff is slowly gettin accomplished. I managed to get Grandma to do about half of her Christmas cards yesterday. I haven't started ours yet, but at least hers are getting done. We finished Hanukkah shopping and have done all the nieces and nephews Christmas gifts. The only thing left to do is finish the boys' gifts for Christmas and do the adults in my family. I am hoping to get that done this weekend.

Schoolwork is moving along nicely. Max started Spelling Workout yesterday. After several failed spelling attempts with Spelling Power and Sequential Spelling, we just went with the standard workbook approach. He is a natural speller, so I don't worry too much about it, but his handwriting sucks and the workbook approach provides another way to get some practice. He also started using Zaner Bloser G.U.M for grammar and writing. I had an old set of these from Josh's first year at home and thought I would give it a try. Simple explanations, a few exercises and on to the next thing is just Max's speed.

Josh is moving through History of US pretty rapidly and since the kid has an amazing memory, I shouldn't need to do much more in the way of History this year. He is still fussing about having to show his work in Algebra, but I am holding my ground and hopefully he will soon cave in!!

Another day at home, no errands to run! Hopefully I will get productive and at least start Christmas cards!