The Saturday 7

1. First things first: camping update. It wasn't the best year ever, but it definitely wasn't the worst. The weather was decent - a little too cold for swimming (even though the pool is heated), but not terribly rainy, and not too hot/cold. This year, though, I felt a strange pressure to make sure my kids had fun. Lena was clingy, Lucy was moody, and even Levi was begging to go home by day two. I think all the cousins are getting to a hard age where they're less inclined to play with a broad span of age ranges. The 4 oldest are in the 9-12 range, and Lena's 7. The oldest two have a lot of common interests, so Lucy felt left out. The 9 year old is very active/into sports, so Lucy obviously didn't connect with her super well either. There were times that they all played together nicely, and times that they paired off/excluded each other. One of the cousins has a penchant for creating drama for the sake of drama. (#girls) And Lena felt completely excluded by all of them. Of course, she didn't explain that to me until Sunday night. I just thought she was being her usual clingy self. Levi came down with a cold Saturday night that led to coughing and puking in the camper in the middle of the night. The whole weekend honestly didn't feel that different than being at home. Lucy cut herself off from the rest of us and only showed up at meal time to complain that she didn't like what I made. Lena hung on me and whined. Levi asked me every 10 seconds what he could do and didn't like any of my suggestions. But at least it didn't rain all weekend and we got to stay in a camper instead of a tent! We managed to squeeze some fun in amid the whining, too. Or at least pretend we did long enough for pictures.

I'm pretty sure the highlight of Levi's weekend was catching/~~tormenting~~ playing with this toad. He and Lena made a Lego house for it and all the little blonde cousins came to check it out. (Our side of the family didn't inherit get that gene!)

Hammocks, biking, sandbox, and tie-dye

At the lake. Lucy and Levi actually went tubing behind the speedboat! I couldn't believe it!

Glowstick fun, lots of dogs for Levi to love on, good ole Grandpa swimming with Levi.

Ice cream!

Every year, there's a family soccer game that reminds me how different Justin's extended family is from mine. Lol. So many athletic/fit people who choose to exercise for fun!

2. I've been working on signing up for college classes, but it is such a nightmare. Part of the problem is that the school I chose is in Washington. It has a physical campus, but they're still shut down for Covid, so all students are doing online classes. It's impossible to get ahold of anyone in the office for help with registering or financial aid or transcript evaluation. In fact, they've removed phone numbers from their online directory, and all emails are met with a generic response directing people to a Zoom drop-in meeting. I managed to set up a student email account where I've been getting automated emails telling me that I need to contact the financial aid office and am missing important documents. I tried to do one of the Zoom meetings last week, but didn't have time to wait. This week I remembered that Washington is 3 hours behind us and managed to join the Zoom meeting at 11:35 our time, since it opened at 8:30 their time. It was not as effective as I'd hoped. (Or maybe it was? Maybe I would've waited for two hours if I had gotten on later?)

After an hour and fifteen minutes, I connected with a representative who informed me that they need a copy of my diploma and my ID. I wanted to say, "Seriously?! You couldn't have emailed me that?!"

The other problem is just my fault. I waited too long to start applying/looking seriously into college. Truth be told, I thought I could start an online program anytime. I didn't realize it actually aligns with the school year. So I didn't give myself nearly enough time to apply for financial aid. I registered for two classes, but I was supposed to pay for them on Wednesday. There's a payment plan available, but it only breaks it down into three payments. From my research, I honestly don't think I should have to pay much once the financial aid kicks in, so it kills me to pay $500 up front if I don't have to. But I'm so far down on the list of financial aid recipients thanks to my procrastinating that it looks unlikely I'll be awarded any financial aid before they boot me from the classes for not paying. At this point I've decided that I'm not going to pay, and if I don't get financial aid this semester, I'll just wait 'til next semester to start my new college career.

3. The kids had a good second week of school. Lena was still anxious, and there was some crying, but she went into her class on her own every day and didn't have any epic meltdowns. Levi did have to be peeled off of me on Tuesday, but he told me that he only cried for a couple minutes after I left. I'm loving listening to all the songs he's singing and the sight words he's already spelling and the stories he's telling me about school. It's amazing how their little brains soak stuff up at this age! On Tuesday, I ended up watching just Ruby.

It was so weird! And I don't think Ruby enjoyed it. Haha. She kept asking to go "bye-bye". I'm not as fun as the kids.

4. Thursday was my first truly free day. No kids. No rushing around to get stuff ready for camping. Levi generously shared his cold with me and I've been miserable, so it was glorious to come home after dropping the kids off at school and go right back to bed! I had 100,000 things I should've been doing, but spent most of the day in bed/on the couch watching Gilmore Girls. I'm really going to try not to make that a habit.

5. I've been really disillusioned with social media this week . . . and that's saying a lot coming from me. Y'all know I love me some facebook. But I feel like it's been nothing but bad news lately. There is so much anger and division and posturing and I'm SO SICK OF IT!! It's crazy to me how something that started as a way to connect with people has become this menace that is affecting so many facets of life as we know it. Part of it is the sheer volume of information being thrust in my face every day. I'm not sure society is really that much worse than it used to be or if we're just more aware of it. But this week there was facebook drama over someone who was previously a respected member of our community. Allegations were made publicly, and people immediately started bashing his business, destroying his character, and saying awful things like "he better watch out or he'll be the next one found dead in a ditch off the highway." (Oh yeah - that's a thing that happened recently too. A body was dumped in a ditch in our little rural community.) I'm not defending the guy, but I'm disheartened by how quick people are ready to exact revenge and spew hate before allegations are even confirmed.

Then there was the Cuties controversy. I'm not even going to link it because it's disgusting. I watched the clips, but wished I hadn't. I'm astonished and horrified that people are defending it (and by people, I mean certain media outlets/film critics/celebrities). I'm scared and sad for my kids that are growing up in this culture, and worried about protecting their innocence when perversion is so pervasive.

Even this!

Not the Bee Article

First of all, let it be noted that the infamous satire site The Babylon Bee has taken it upon themselves to create a new website devoted to news that is so strange/awful it seems like it should be satire . . . but ISN'T. This is the world we live in! (Not the Bee) These two comments on the above article perfectly capture my reaction:

6. Also, did you guys know it's an election year?

One of my fb friends posted this article this week about how social media and our current age of "conspiracy theory rhetoric" will influence the presidential election. The article is from Time and definitely leans left, but the facts are so interesting. Here were a couple of my favorite quotes:

The rise in conspiratorial thinking is the product of several interrelated trends: declining trust in institutions; demise of local news; a social-media environment that makes rumor easy to spread and difficult to debunk

. . . experts say, algorithms on platforms like Facebook and YouTube are designed to serve up content that reinforces existing beliefs–learning what users search for and feeding them more and more extreme content in an attempt to keep them on their sites.

So much misinformation is being shared that it's hard to know who to trust. And fact-checking everything is exhausting.

Basically, I feel like the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Everyone's an expert and a critic. As the author of the Burger King article said, "Can we stop the planet now so I can get off?"

Many of my friends have been leaving social media and I sometimes wonder if I should join them. It's a hard balance of being informed/able to develop an opinion about societal issues and removing myself from my anxiety/depression triggers. I never would've known anything about the Cuties controversy if not for facebook. Am I really any better off for knowing? Did it really inspire me to change in any way, or did it just make me mad? Is it right to bury my head in the sand and avoid the world? What about the Biblical admonition to think about "what is lovely, pure, admirable," etc? I don't have answers, and I'm not really looking for any. I'm just processing through writing.

7. That's about enough processing for one day. How about some pictures?