Stuff I'm thinking about

Stream of consciousness. Or in my case, sludgy semi-consciousness. I tired.

Knee hurts.

I see the surgeon today. When I saw him a month ago, he said I should get a month of PT, that he saw 'no reason to do surgery at this time' and to come back in a month.

In that month, I have attended eight? sessions of PT, religiously done my exercises at home (religiously=saying OH MY GOD THAT HURTS every time I do them) and tried to spend as much time off the crutches as I can. I do my mornings at work without them, but by the time my afternoon shift rolls around, I have a really sore knee. Moving it makes me say 'ow' and so does walking around. So I crutch.

There has been improvement. I am not driving the old lady cart at the grocery store anymore, but I can't do the shopping trip without my crutches. NO friggin' way.

And I am taking pain medication so I can work. And so I can sleep. If you're paying attention, that means I am basically taking pain medication three times a day.

I tried doing without it on Thursday. Took Excedrin all day instead. It helped, but didn't do much, really. Took the edge off for about an hour?

Finally got up during the night on Thursday and got one, I could not sleep because every time I moved the knee woke me up. So I'm stuck with the meds for now.

Although going without it didn't upset my system or make me have a deep craving or anything like that, so that's on the good side.

I know people have all kinds of shit going on. And that a little knee pain, in the general scheme of things isn't all that big. And really, I don't want to whine all the time. But I am so very tired of having something hurt constantly. It's really been two years of it, and it's getting old.

No wonder I'm tired.
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Got a phone call on Monday from the mother of one of my drop in kids. Our company does care on a drop in basis from time to time, but it's really not a money saver for the struggling family.. it's twenty bucks every time it happens. Paris* will be with us Wednesday, Thursday and Friday this week, and Monday of next week. She's an adorable child, but has a hard time with our routine. She always draws me at least one picture while she's there, and never fails to say hello to me if I encounter her in the hallway on my way in or out.

Mom was very complimentary about my program, and said that Paris would like to attend more often, so wanted to know what the weekly rate was. I provided her with the information, so who knows? Maybe I'll have another full time student. She also mentioned that she's been recommending my program to other people. Which I thanked her for. The more the merrier and all that.
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I bought communion cups from Amazon to make a craft project with my kids. (miniature ice cream sundae magnets for the fridge)

100 of those little cups in the package. So now I'm pondering other things we could make. There are 27 kids in my program on the busiest day, so we could make at least three different things from them.

Any ideas?
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We played Switchball in the gym on Monday. I think it has to be my favorite game that we've invented. I divide the kids into two teams. We put six soft balls on the center line in the gym, and each team lines up against opposite walls.

When I say go, they run to the middle and grab a ball and try to hit someone on the opposing team.

When you're hit with the ball, you sit down where you are and count to 15. Slowly-ish. It's funny to see them try to go slow when what they want is to just get up and go. Once they've sat down for that 15 seconds, they switch teams. So no one is permanently out, and no one loses. If the teams are unbalanced, it doesn't matter. Everyone ends up switching teams at least three times during the course of the game.

The kids love it. I love it. Very rare to have arguments in the game, except of course, for Reese. To hear him tell it, he's never out, the ball never hit him, even though it bounced off his leg and flew in the opposite direction after it hit him. He also spends a lot of time trying to call other people out. I remind him many times that he is not the referee.
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I had 25 kids on Monday. Will have 27 on Wednesday if everyone shows. I already know two of my regulars will be gone all week, so Wednesday would have been 29. One away from capacity. I really, really want my program to grow. But I'm glad that 30 is our cutoff, I don't think there's enough space for more. They'd all be in each other's space. Not helpful or harmonious.

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I have started putting my name in all the books I buy at Goodwill for the kids. I am not planning to go anywhere, but if I ever do, I want to make sure to take my things with me. It would take care of the space problem in the back room immediately... I have brought a lot of stuff in. I really could open my own before/after school care if I had the right sort of space to do it. And didn't mind the headaches of collection, insurance crap, staffing...

Hm. Don't see it happening any time soon.

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The only thing I actually see happening soon is bedtime. I woke up every hour Sunday night. Ugh. Don't know why. Hope I don't do it tonight.
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One last teeny, itty-bitty little thing.
WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH ALL THESE GODDAMNED WHISKERS?????