7/22: We registered Nathan for his junior year of high school. He was disappointed to see that they put him in AP Calculus AB instead of AP Calculus BC. He thought he met the requirements to bypass the AB class since he got an A in Pre-Calculus last year and studied during the summer to prepare for the BC class. He found out that they changed the requirements and he no longer met the new requirements. I think they are now requiring that you take honors Calculus first or something like that. I personally don't think that is fair. If they want to change the requirements for incoming freshman that is one thing, but upperclassman should be exempt from those changes since he already had most of his courses planned out for all 4 years. He also doesn't like the AP Calculus AB teacher he has this year. He was hoping to get his same teacher from freshman year for AP Calculus BC. However, he still has a tough course load this year. He is taking AP Calculus AB, AP US History, AP Physics, AP English Lit and Comp, Law & Public Safety and Culinary Arts 1. As of this post, he is already in the final week of the 1st quarter. He was doing fairly well, but he attended some events for culinary that took him out of his other classes for 4 days the last couple of weeks. Missing those days meant that he missed tests and homework and is now trying to catch up all in the final week of the quarter. Some of his grades slipped as a result, too. Right now he has an A in AP Physics, an A in Culinary Arts 1, a B in Law & Public Safety, a C in AP US History and a C in AP Calculus AB. I am hoping that he can get some of these grades back up this week before the quarter grades are finalized. The good part is that it is only his semester grades that are calculated into his GPA. Thus, he has time the rest of the semester to improve as well. However, I am not sure how many more culinary events there may be that will potentially take him out of his classes again. We did not realize that this would be the case when he put Culinary as a choice for his electives this year. This class is part of JTED, which has partnered with his school. Nathan was also elected the treasurer this year. He has another culinary event this Saturday at the school. We don't like this elective class interfering with his other classes, especially his AP classes. However, Nathan seems to really like this class and has an interest in culinary. He is already talking about taking Culinary 2 next year. I think he likes holding an office position and may be wanting to be president next year. I think he may also be considering a career in culinary. He wanted to go into Aeronautical Engineering to design military equipment, but now he says he isn't sure what he wants to do. He thinks that AI will replace many jobs, including Aeronautical Engineering. I have talked to several people who have relatives working at Raytheon and they assured me that they don't think that is the case. I have learned that it is difficult to get a job at Raytheon, but we do have some connections there which could help if he pursues that path. He said that to make money as a chef, you have to get a level of certification that is not easy to get. So I am not sure if that is something he wants to try to achieve or not. He had expressed an interest in going to U of A, but I don't know if there are other schools he is interested in since he isn't even sure now what field he wants to study. It may be better for him to go to Pima Community College first. I am also concerned about the cost of college, particularly U of A which is not cheap. They now require freshman to live on campus, I think even those who currently live in Tucson. Room and Board is not cheap. I also worry about him having enough money in our 529 plan, and getting enough scholarships and/or financial aid to pay for college. He is smart, but he is not a straight A student. He is also not involved in sports or clubs. Right now his only achievement outside of academics is being treasurer this year of his culinary class. I also heard that U of A has raised the admission standards this year so even students who had a GPA of 3.6 were not admitted. So Nathan may not even be able to get in U of A if that is where he decides to go. Luckily, we have more one year after this year for him to figure it out. But I know how quickly time goes by and that time will be here before we know it. I am scared for him. Scared for him to become an adult and have to make it on his own. He still doesn't have a drivers license. He was supposed to study for drivers ed test this summer and possibly get driving lessons, but that didn't happen. It would have been much easier if he took drivers ed last year at school, but he and his dad didn't want him to. I also think Nathan doesn't have a clue about financial management. He doesn't have a job yet. He doesn't have a credit card, checking account or anything like that. He doesn't know how to do laundry or how to keep a clean place and he is VERY messy. He can be lazy. He is a homebody and never likes to go anywhere. He doesn't hang out with friends. So I worry about him making it as an adult on his own in a couple of years. I worry about him staying in church and keeping God first in his life. I worry about maintaining a close relationship with him after he moves out. As his mom, I will always worry about him.
7/28: Nathan and I went to OdySea Aquarium in Scottsdale as a last outing before the first day of school. He was very excited to see that they added an entire tank of pufferfish! I researched camera settings before going to the aquarium, but I was still very disappointed in how the pictures came out. So then I researched again after the fact and would like to go back with my added knowledge and to have more time without being rushed by Nathan. I haven't made it back there yet, though. I continue to research my cameras, settings, lenses, etc.. I did find out that my newest camera, the Nikon D850, is a full sensor camera. My old lenses are compatible with it, however, they are crop sensor lenses. Using those lenses with the camera essentially voids the potential quality of the camera by cutting the full sensor to a cropped sensor. Thus, I need to get new lenses for the camera and lenses are expensive. In the meantime, I also use my Nikon D7500. I had it repaired not long ago so they fixed the shutter speed by cleaning the sensors. I am still having trouble getting sharp pictures with both cameras, though. I get a lot of grain or pictures blur even after researching settings and applying those settings. It is frustrating to say the least, but I don't give up that easily.
8/3: Nathan's first day of school.
8/4: My June Noon bloomed.
8/8: Paul and I went to Apple Annies to pick peaches, apples and veggies. We also ate some yummy roasted corn on the cob. We took a short drive to Bowie to see the "Home of Rambo". It was disappointing with only a wall painted of him on the side of a gas station.
8/11: I had my annual ob/gyn and mammogram appointments. Everything checked out ok. Nathan also had a dermatologist appointment. We are doing 4 additional intermittent months of Accutane, where he takes it only for the first week of each month to hopefully maintain his cleared up acne. I also went to Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens that day.
8/14: I made apple crisp with the apples we picked at Apple Annies, peach salsa with the peaches we picked and sauteed some of the purple green beans I picked. The salsa and beans were good. The apple crisp we kept putting back in the oven because the apples were still hard, but then it ended up being mushy.
8/20: My June Noon bloomed again.
8/25: I met with Pastor King to get counseling about my marriage.
8/26: I met Tessa from church at Sauce for lunch.
8/27: Mountain View High School had their open house where we got to meet Nathan's teachers. Nathan didn't go with us this time because he said he had too much homework to do.
9/1: I went to Pima County Cooperative Extension Gardens and Mesquite Valley Growers.
9/3: I went to Reid Park Zoo.
9/6: my Fusion 2014 went over 150k miles!
9/8: Nathan had his dentist appointment at Aeris Dental. This was his first time there, but he had Kim as his hygienist since she used to clean his teeth at Cortaro Dental. The bad news we got is that he needs to have all 4 of his wisdom teeth removed because they are not coming in straight. We are still trying to find a place that is in network and figuring out how much out of pocket expense it is going to cost us. My First Light had a bloom this day and an Apricot Glow flower tried to open, but never fully bloomed.
9/14: I went back to the ob/gyn because I started to have bleeding/discharge starting a couple of days prior, however I am now post menopause. Dr Walker wasn't in the office so one of the Assistants examined me. They tested to see if I had an infection and it came back that I did not. So then they scheduled an ultrasound for me on 9/16. The ultrasound indicated that I had a thickened endometrial lining so now they want to do a biopsy. The biopsy is not scheduled until 10/5. The waiting is brutal because I am so scared that it is cancer. Dr. Walker said there is only a slim chance that is the case and that this usually happens when HRT needs to be adjusted. We had increased my estrogen back in March because I was still getting night sweats and hot flashes. We increased it from 1 mg to 1.5 mg. I still continued to get the hot flashes and night sweats, though. However, I finally reached menopause on 8/14. I hadn't been in menopause long when I started to have the discharge/bleeding again, but it is mostly only when going to the bathroom and it isn't that much. Still, they say it isn't normal. With Dr. Walker's permission, I decreased the estrogen back down to 1 mg. I am considering going off HRT altogether now that I am in menopause and having this scare with the bleeding. If the biopsy doesn't show anything wrong I may consider stopping the HRT then. There are advantages to taking HRT during menopause, but there are risks, too. But first I have to get the biopsy and make sure that it isn't cancer.
9/18: Nathan had a culinary field trip at the JTED building downtown for officer training since he was elected treasurer. I dropped him off at Mountain View and they all rode there together.
9/19: We went to Vivace for dinner to celebrate Paul's 56th birthday (on 9/20).
9/23-9/25: Nathan went up to Williams for a culinary conference with JTED. It was actually for all of FCCLA, which includes culinary and early childhood education. His teacher gave Nathan some kind of award of best student in his group. Nathan enjoyed the conference, but he had to miss 3 days of his other classes in addition to the day he missed the prior week for the culinary officer training. This week is the last week of the quarter so he has a lot to catch up on. He also just found out that he has another culinary event on Saturday at his school. He will officially on Fall Break then, though. He has half days this Thursday and Friday and then he is on Fall Break until 10/13. We aren't going on any family trips during his break much to my dismay since Fall is my favorite season and I love to see Fall colors. However, I have my biopsy on 10/5. I am hoping to do some Fall activities on my own this Fall, but we I have to see how my biopsy goes. Plus, I have been struggling with severe fatigue and sometimes pain to go with the fatigue. But I hope to go to places like Mt. Lemmon, Apple Annies, Boyce Thompson Arboretum, possibly Madera Canyon and maybe even Flagstaff or somewhere up north. I also want to see the Butterfly Magic open at the gardens on 10/1 and see the new opening of the Yume Japanese Gardens on 10/11. 11/12 starts the raptor free flight at the Desert Museum and I still need to get over there to see the lion cubs. I want to be more active if the weather ever cools around and I want to enjoy this Fall and Winter. A lot depends on my health. But it also depends on how busy I get with other things, like making our Christmas card, doing donations, buying Christmas gifts, etc.. I pretty much already decided not to make a photo calendar this year. There hasn't been much interest in prior years anyway. We never took our Christmas tree down last year so I don't have to worry about putting it up this year! I said I wasn't going to spend a lot of time this year on making a Christmas card, buying Christmas gifts and doing a lot of donations, but guilt always gets the best of me. I enjoy doing these things, but they also make the holidays stressful for me. So I wanted to relax more this Fall/Christmas. I wanted to get out and enjoy the time instead of working myself stilly. I wanted to work on my health, hiking and just getting out more. But we will see if this happens or if it will be business as usual. And again, a lot depends on my biopsy results.
9/24: While Nathan was out of town for culinary, Paul and I decided to go to dinner at Guadalajara Grill. Nathan doesn't like Mexican food so we don't get to go there often. It was good, but service was slow. They actually got very busy. When we left there were a lot of people waiting for tables, many of them even outside waiting. It was a Thursday night so I was shocked that they were that busy.
