More Life...

I was flipping through previous posts, it's one of the reasons I like doing this. In previous Posts I get a snapshot of life and get to read about what is happening on a day or two in the life of the four of us, it's nice.
      Well in a post from October 4, 201- I read about how life for the four, five if you count Amanda is going. Life now is a little different. Now I get up as soon as Teri's alarm goes off. I go in and get the girls up. I started that to get the girls out of bed a little earlier. Well now they get woken up earlier, but instead of getting up earlier, they lie in bed awake or almost awake until they decide to get out of bed at around the same time they would have if I had woken them up a little later.
      Toaster Waffles are out of fashion now. The in breakfast is Belvita breakfast sandwiches. Nastia eats chocolate ones. Elena today had pancake bread. It's a bread that tastes like pancakes. When that is gone she will switch back to you guessed it, toaster waffles.
       Both of the Girls leave sometime before seven AM. Elena doesn't pick Arianna up any longer. They had a fight when Arianna told someone they should kill themself. They talk in school, I'm told, but don't seem as close as before. Elena's big friend is Jasmine. I have met her and she seems nice, it's just that there is something about her I don't like. Elena started having problems in school around the time they became friends. Maybe no connection, I don't know.
      One Day I told Elena she should ask Jasmine if she would like to go to the movies with her and Elena said Jasmine doesn't like movies. My first reaction to that was who doesn't like movies? The  second is who doesn't like movies? I have a friend who dated a girl in the 80's  who didn't like the Beatles. Back then everybody liked them. This Girl said it to stand alone and as a way to get attention, I felt. I think Jasmine is the same or maybe she doesn't like crowds or paying $14.00 for a ticket. I don't know, it just makes her seem weird.
      Nastia just about 7AM leaves for school. She goes to pick up her friend Vanessa. Vanessa is a nice girl and has invited Nastia to several of her church related functions. I was suspicious when it started because I thought they were trying to recruit her like the Jehovah witnesses. I find it distasteful when people come around trying to get you to join their religion. It shows disrespect for their religion. Anyway, Vanessa invited her to an activity night at the church, then a weekend at a camp upstate about two hours away. She went this past weekend and they didn't make her drink the Kool Aid (Look it up under Jim Jones, a very low point of the 70's for America) she had fun, she got hit in the glasses playing dodgeball. Maybe someone should point out to her the name of the game is dodgeball. Maybe She will then get out of the way of the balls. She came home Sunday afternoon well in time to watch the final few episodes of the seventh season of 'Game Of Thrones' before the long wait of almost two years ended and season eight started.
     Nastia became a big fan of the show in season five or six. Before She did I was able to sit down stairs alone and watch the show without any questions or comments or interruptions from anyone. Teri doesn't like the show and would go up stairs. I'd be all alone and I could watch the show without a pause. Ah, the good old days.
      Elena is heading into the last couple of months of high school, hopefully. She started the year in fine style getting grades in the 80's pretty much all around. Then sometime mid-school year something happened and her grades went south and her attitude returned. Things are better, but it will be a race to see if she can bring her English average back above the Mendoza line. (The Mendoza line is a baseball expression. I won't bore you with the history of it. If Your interested look it up) The Mendoza line in baseball is 200. In High School, I'm told it is 65, not 70. Elena let her average slide into the fifties. She has since bought it back up to about 61. She is within striking distance of passing.
     There are vague plans for a party this summer when (if) she graduates. I have started cleaning up the yard. I've gotten very slow these days doing yard work. It has taken me three weekend to get the leaves that fell in December from our neighbors tree into our yard and then it rained and snowed before I could finish cleaning them up, up. Let me translate that last mishmosh. The Leaves fell in December. I started raking the lawn again. About halfway through, it rained. Before it dried, it snowed, got cold and rained some more. It didn't stop before I said, "Oh I'll just get them next Spring" It gave me months before I had to pay the piper. Well, he's here now.
      When asked how things are these days, I usually reply, "Well, they could be worse, so they're not bad" and I sincerely believe that. Life is tough here on the Ponderosa (look it up), but it could be worse. The Indians or Rustlers could come and steal our cows. But until then life is good. I love my daughters to death and if I die poor because of going to Russia and raising them up to Adults and on until they retire, I will die a rich man. I know it's a bit of a cliche (Cliche: phrase or opinion, that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought) but it still will be true.











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