Crazy last days

It's almost over. One more day of regular classes, then two days of finals, then no more class, just graduation rehearsal and graduation itself and then it's all over. By this time next week, my kids will no longer be enrolled in the Boulder Valley School District.

OMG.

Today, of course, is Mothers Day, but I'm not making a big deal out of that. Rocket Boy got me a card and he and the twins signed it, and we MIGHT go out to dinner, but we'll see. We went out last night, to horrible Cracker Barrel. I actually found something good on the menu, an egg sandwich, that reminded me a little of my mother's old Denver sandwiches. Except I didn't get mine with bacon, just a slice of cheese and sliced tomatoes, and I had my eggs over easy instead of scrambled. It was delicious, unlike almost everything else at Cracker Barrel. Also I had watermelon lemonade to drink, which was also delicious.

It reminded me of when the boys were little and they sold watermelon lemonade from our driveway for a quarter. I think that was in 2014, when they were six. I found a picture of them selling limeade that summer, but I think that was also watermelon lemonade summer. Or it could have been 2015.

Memories.

The thing about Mothers Day... all over Reddit, mothers are terribly upset because their kids have gone "radio silent," aren't doing anything for Mothers Day. Maybe in 10 years I'll be all upset like that. But it's hard to imagine. For me, a good Mothers Day would be one in which I don't have to do a lot of work. I don't need someone to buy me flowers.

This Mothers Day I actually AM having to do a lot of work, specifically laundry. For quite a while now we've been smelling a bad smell in our bed, and this morning we finally figured out that our problem cat, Sillers, had peed all over the bed at various times. There were big yellow stains on the mattress pad. So we took the whole bed apart, including the mattress pad, including the cover on the mattress pad, and washed everything. Four separate loads to get all the blankets and everything washed (Rocket Boy has three extra blankets on his side because he has no body fat and gets cold). Let's see, I washed the mattress pad cover, the bottom sheet, the top sheet, the pillowcases, the blanket, RB's three extra blankets, the comforter, and the cat blanket that goes on top of the comforter. Plus an old sheet that I used to cover some of the flowers during our snow this past week. Somehow that added up to four loads. Fortunately it's a beautiful day and things dried quickly. We also put the mattress pad on the line for an hour or so. We also treated the mattress pad cover with Nature's Miracle. But now we have to figure out how to keep the cat off the clean bed. I'm going to call the vet tomorrow. Maybe she has a bladder infection or something else fixable.

I also spent a couple of hours helping Teen B with his stats project, and we still have Personal Finance ahead of us. We finished the language arts project last night. 

This was a very busy week. Monday I saw my doctor because of the knee pain I've been having. She did a very thorough exam, plus an x-ray, and decided that, as I suspected, I have a Baker's cyst, even though she couldn't feel it. She said they don't typically drain them, because they just recur, so I have to live with it until it resolves on its own.

It's getting worse and worse, though. She said I could use heat, painkillers, massage. When it gets really bad I take ibuprofen, but I don't want to dose myself constantly. It's getting hard to walk, so I haven't gone for many walks for the past few weeks. I'll reevaluate the situation when we get past all the end of school stuff.

The x-ray results said I have "mild tricompartment osteophytosis." That means I'm developing little bone spurs on all three parts of the knee. This is bad, but I'm going to focus on the "mild" part of it. I'm nowhere near needing a knee replacement. The arthritis is probably what caused the Baker's cyst.

Tuesday night was the last choir concert, which we attended even though it was already snowing. The choir director (who greeted us with "Welcome to our winter concert, lol")  had a slideshow with bios of all the graduating seniors projected onto the wall of the auditorium. I would have preferred a program, but she doesn't do programs for some reason. Anyway, it was VASTLY better than what the stupid band director did.

Wednesday was an actual snow day, no school at all, all activities canceled including the theater banquet (which Teen B wasn't going to anyway). We got ELEVEN inches of heavy, wet snow (about 1.71 inches of water, so good for our snowpack), and so so many branches broke off the trees. In our backyard there is an enormous branch that (thank heaven) fell on top of a juniper, not the roof. However, there's also a branch on the roof, that may have done a little damage. Rocket Boy thinks not. We will see.

I was a little skeptical about the whole snow day thing, like, come on, we can handle this much snow. But the tree branches coming down was a real issue. It would have been dangerous for kids walking to and from school. I was afraid to go out in the backyard. Also, our power went out a couple of times, although it didn't stay out.

Thursday it warmed up and everything melted. By the end of the day there was no snow left. None. All eleven inches melted into the grateful ground.

Friday, I took Baby Kitty to the vet because his cat asthma, or whatever it is, has been getting worse. The vet decided it was time to move on to the pill form of prednisone, instead of injections. I was worried about that until he told me that I could grind the pills up and mix them with his food. So I'm doing that. It's very easy. I grind a pill up using a mortar and pestle, stir it into his wet food, and he eats it all up.

However, I'm not sure it's actually helping. The vet said we would see an immediate improvement and BK is still having attacks. Maybe not as many. The next step, if this doesn't work, is a pediatric inhaler, which sounds impossible. We'll keep trying the pills for a while.

Cats. Why do we have them, exactly?

Also on Friday, Teen B, Rocket Boy, and I attended the 150th anniversary celebration of the kids' high school, which graduated its first class in 1876. It was the first public high school in Colorado, or maybe the oldest that's still operating, something like that. (Its motto is "Still the First!" which I think is silly -- how could it stop being the first?) The actual building is not that old, only 90 years old, completed in 1936, but it seems ancient. Since 1936 they've remodeled it over and over, added on, not thought through what they were doing when they added on to it, etc. It's an absolute maze. I love it so much.

There's a staircase in the library that students are not allowed to go up. It has little signs all over the stairs, strictly forbidding students. During the celebration you were allowed to wander all over the school, so we went up the forbidden staircase. At the top were THREE locked doors. We don't know what they lead to. Why are there three? We will never know.

Teen B commented that after this coming week, he probably will never go in the school again. I pointed out that he could attend the 200th anniversary celebration, when he's 68. Or maybe they'll celebrate the 100th anniversary of the actual building, which would be in only 10 years. 

I got so sad about not being able to go in the building anymore that I started thinking about becoming a substitute teacher again.

On Saturday we did a lot of homework, and we've done a lot more today (plus we'll do more as soon as I finish this). Today, in addition to all that laundry, Rocket Boy and I did manage to go to the nursery and get more plants: more marigolds, more impatiens, basil & parsley & a tomato plant -- and a fuchsia! I love getting a fuchsia for Mothers Day. Rocket Boy said that this year he will hang it up for me, so I'll look forward to that. Hummingbirds came to my feeder all through the winter storm, so I was very glad I had that up. And the mama finch is still sitting on her eggs, very bravely. 

We ended up having dinner tonight at Boulder Social, so I didn't have to cook on Mothers Day after all. I had the heavenly golden beet salad (with goat cheese, golden raisins, pecans, salad greens, and a balsamic dressing, plus I added grilled salmon). It was so good. Tomorrow I'll cook. The kids both ordered tacos, and Teen A didn't eat his sides. When Rocket Boy admonished him, he said "I'm not going to eat no rice and beans." I said, "I'm not going to eat ANY rice and beans," but I started to laugh in the middle of it and couldn't finish. I love my boys.

There's so much coming up this week ahead. The last three days of school. My book group comes Wednesday night. My sister and her husband and bulldog arrive Thursday. The kids have a whole bunch of activities on Friday. Sunday is graduation. Oh, and it's going to be REALLY hot. Wish us luck getting through everything.