We just keep trucking right along, don’t we?

I knew September was going to be a bit hectic, but it’s been nice being somewhat occupied for most of this month.

The first was a hard day. I knew it would be. Audie would have been 9. I still find myself struggling and will shed a tear almost daily for a minute or two because I miss him so much. He really was like my first kid, since the cats are notoriously independent. We are often saying we’ll never find another like him and he was one of a kind. Now, 8 months on, we know just how true that is.

The rocky start to the month continued with a trip to the ER for Little Man. He’d been fighting what we thought was allergies/a cold for a couple days when he developed a croup-y cough and could barely keep his eyes open.

Because we use military healthcare/insurance, we’re not allowed to use civilian urgent care since we live within a set number miles from a military ER. We also knew if we took him to his usual clinic, there wouldn’t be an opening for weeks.

So, long story short, he was checked for COVID, influenza, and RSV. He was positive for RSV and had a slight double ear infection. No wonder the poor kid was miserable! We did 10 days of amoxicilin and he got better fairly quickly. Unfortunately, that meant no Home Depot kids workshop (we are definitely planning to attend in October).

Lucky for us, his speech therapist was gone that week so he didn’t miss any time with her. Now, however, since his routine was disrupted, he tends to cry and cling to us before she takes him into her office. Separation anxiety is in full force.

Not much news on the speech front either unfortunately. He was approved for additional sessions through our insurance based on his progress report. We all think he just doesn’t want to try to use words since he knows we want him to. But, we’re trying the best we can. He’ll talk when he is ready.

His therapist did say on the last visit of the month that he was *this* close to saying what she was asking him to say, so he does try, it’s just on his terms.

After RSV went through the whole family, I finally got to go in for a Holter monitor on my heart. Still currently waiting on results from that and my ECHO. Gotta love universal healthcare!

After all the health issues, we did manage to squeeze in some different kinds of fun excursions.

One weekend, we attended the Middle Tennessee Highland Games. We had an absolute blast! We sampled yummy traditional Scottish foods, watched athletic events and dancing, did a Scotch tasting, and enjoyed the bands/pipes.

We also learned about the Waid name’s clan (Farquharson) and found which tartan was appropriate to wear. We weren’t able to find the right tartan print for a kilt for Little Man, but we are planning ahead for next year.

We also decided to check out the Trail of Tears pow wow again in Hopkinsville, KY, as we have done the last couple of years.

Normally, we go on the first day, but we changed it up and went on the last day instead. We didn’t get to see nearly as many of the competition dances we usually see, but we saw a few and I think I managed to get some of the closest photos I’ve taken there.

I even convinced the Mister to go out and “dance” for the Veteran Dance. He usually doesn’t like to draw attention to his military career, so I was surprised he did it.

We did see a rather scary emergency in the arena after the Golden Age grass dance. One of the gentlemen competing had a heart attack and had to be flown to Vanderbilt. It was really hot out and the regalia worn can be heavy, so we thought he’d just passed out from the heat at first. Naturally, it was hard to go back to competition after that, so the MC decided to let everyone head out early. Thankfully, he survived and got the help he needed.

Since we had to miss the Home Depot workshop, we made sure to go to the Lowes workshop.

The following week, we got some exciting news. The Mister finally got picked up for SFC! He is pretty excited about it, even though it means adding on an extra year and a half to his contract. We will be having a promotion ceremony next month.

In addition to all of the excitement, we also did some work on the house. We got a new roof and gutters. It was a loud couple of days, but we are pleased to have it done before the colder weather comes. With our financing, it will end up costing us about the same monthly as my student loan payments, so our budget hasn’t changed much bill-wise.

On the student loan front, I ended up requesting a refund for all the payments I made during the payment pause. It’ll take 90+ days to receive the refund so I’m glad I called now instead of later.

Granted, I only owed about $560 when the $10k cancelation was announced, so that’ll be a nice chunk coming back that we’ll use to pay down some other bills. Subsequently, it’ll land about the same time as tax season starts so that’ll be extra nice. Inflation and gas prices had us struggling for a couple months so, feeling like there’s a little wiggle room will be a good change.

Next month will bring a whole new slew of excitement. Halloween of course will be an interesting challenge as Little Man has started being unsure about the spooky decorations in stores. We think we might try to trick or treat a couple houses just to see how he does.

We also got tickets for Oktoberfest at a local winery. One of our favorite breweries is hosting, so we’re excited for it. Hopefully it’ll be as good as the Highland Games was.

No other major plans yet but we have enough to fill a few weekends.

Until then,

Cheers!

–A. xoxo