At Ben’s last appointment with his diabetes doc, they recommended using the front/side of his thigh for his insulin pump infusion site. This made Ben very nervous because we have had some bad experiences using leg sites. He complains that when the site is inserted, it stings really bad. He has no such problems with the butt cheek sites, so he prefers them. I raised this concern with the nurse, and she suggested using ice to numb the area. We’ve modified this slightly and we now use a piece of vacuum packed, frozen meat that we’ve had in the freezer for about 6 years. It thaws slightly while Ben holds it on his leg, but we toss it right back in the freezer for the next site change. It seems to work pretty well, and we’ve used his legs for the last few site changes. This is a good thing because it gives his butt cheeks a little bit of a break…if a site is used too often, scar tissue can build up and the insulin can have a hard time absorbing into his body. Being able to use both legs gives us twice the sites, so each site gets more recovery time between uses.

Vacations Past, Vacations Future.

For the past few days, the family and I have been relaxing at a cottage near Ludington, Michigan. Joining us were Lindy’s parents, siblings, and various family members. On Saturday evening, the cottage was filled well beyond capacity with 27 inhabitants. A violation of the local fire code, I’m sure. While things were tight at times, I have to say that weekend was a big success. Not many families that I know of would even attempt to get everyone together overnight like that. I think it was great of everyone to put forth the effort to spend some time together.

The kids had a great time playing with their cousins and flopping around in the lake. We had access to a row boat, canoe, and two kayaks.  Notice the absence of any gas burning power toys. I’m sure the kids would have loved tubing or skiing behind a boat all weekend, but there is something to be said for the simple pleasures too; for making your own fun. In the end, everyone did have fun, and the perfect weather made for a great weekend.

On the 22nd, we head out for another week at a nearby cottage. This time on Green Lake.  We’ll have a relatively small group…just 4 adults and 9 kids. In the past, we’ve stayed at this cottage and I’ve worked during the week because it is only a 30 minute drive from the cottage to my office. This time, however, I’ve decided to take the whole week off, and concentrate on actually relaxing and playing with my kids. They, and my wife, will appreciate it, I’m sure.

All of this vacation taking in August leaves me with only 7.5 days of paid vacation to last me until next June. I’d rather not think about that right now. Just looking forward to another gray Michigan winter is depressing.

With all of this down time, you may be wondering what I’m reading. Oddly enough, I’m re-reading something that I’ve already read a couple of times. The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. I don’t know what it is that keeps me coming back to this book. I’ve also read Rand’s classic, Atlas Shrugged, multiple times. I guess it’s the way that she describes her characters. She puts together such detailed descriptions of the way a person is standing, or sitting, or looking at another person…Anyway, that sounds really strange, but if you’ve read her you probably know what I mean. I’m also reading God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?, by John Lennox. I’m really enjoying this book as well, as it does a great job of describing what science can and cannot tell us about the world, and about ourselves.

Well, if you have any recommendations for what I should be reading, please pass them along.

It’s never good form to apologize on a blog about not posting more often, but I’m not worried about good form so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’d like to update this site once a week, minimum, but lately I’ve found it very hard to do that. I feel like I have lots of interesting things to say, rattling around in my head, but when faced with a clean sheet of paper, I have trouble putting thoughts into words. Hopefully, as summer gives way to fall, I will be able to update this site in a more timely manner.

Celebration season is almost at at end, here at the Boss house. From the end of June to mid July we celebrate many birthdays, and our anniversary, so it’s a busy time. We wrap things up this weekend with the extended Boss family getting together out here on the farm Sunday evening for a birthday party.

It’s been fun, celebrating birthday’s with the kids. They are growing up so fast, which will sound an awful lot like a cliche. I can’t believe I have a ten year old already. That must mean I’m getting really old as well. In a way, I think that having little kids around the house helps to keep a person young. You can only act so old when you still have to go home and play hide-n-seek with a two year old. Here’s a cheat sheet to refresh the memories of our long lost friends…

• Emma - 10
• Ben - 8
• Grace - 4
• Anna - 2
• Jack - 9 months

This week has been a busy one, with Lindy and 3 of the kids involved with VBS at our church. I’ve been meeting them at church for dinner and then taking Jack and Anna to bed on time. Needless to say, that makes for a very busy week. It’s a shame that something like VBS has to turn into a net loss for the family. I know that it’s great for kids who wouldn’t ordinarily be hearing the gospel, but it definitely stresses us out. Anyway, that’s just my opinion on that.

In diabetes news, Ben had his quarterly check up last Friday, and it was an eye-opener. It didn’t go well. His A1C number jumped up from 9.5 to 9.7. (We’re shooting for low 8’s) I was really disappointed with that result because I thought that we were doing better at managing his numbers. I was chastised for not communicating with the office between visits, and not sending pump data and meter downloads. We were also told that we cannot let Ben work the pump on his own. We need to enter every bolus, or at least confirm every bolus after he does it. There are studies that show that if a child is given responsibility for doing all that when they are too young, they will get burned out when they are a teenager, and their diabetes management will suffer. This will be tough for us, because Ben really likes to do that stuff himself. I can imagine him fighting us for control. However, this last appointment showed that that arrangement wasn’t working. On a positive note, the doctor made a number of changes to his pump settings and his numbers over the last week have been great. His best numbers in a long time. He had a couple of days in a row of nearly non-diabetic numbers. Hopefully that trend continues. I’m going to try harder to communicate with his office and get them the data they need to manage his numbers better.

That’s sort of a long winded wrap up of the last few weeks out at Boss farm. Coming up we have camping, cottage, and other fun summer time stuff, so stay tuned for that.

We are right in the midst of celebration season here at the Boss’. Kicking things off on June 24 with our anniversary, we follow that up with Ben’s birthday on the 29th, Lindy on July 2nd, Grace on the 9th, and Emma on the 13th.

Ben is wrapping up his 16 game baseball season with his final game tomorrow night. Best I can tell, he likes it, though he knows less about the game than some of his teammates with access to ESPN.

Other news…

• Lindy and I are taking the Dave Ramsey course, Financial Peace University at our church….so far it’s been good.
• I bought a used go-cart for the kids, and presented it as a sort of group birthday present since so many of their birthdays are in the summer. They are loving it, but I’m not sure they respect it quite like they should. They need to learn that these things can do serious damage if misused…hopefully not learning the hard way.
• Ben had a birthday party with 4 of his buddies. Everyone seemed to get along well and they seemed to have a great time.
• We spent 4 days/3 nights camping in an 18 foot trailer. It was tight, but the kids had an absolute blast, so we’ll probably be doing that again.

Here’s a photo of Ben getting acquainted with the cart. It didn’t take him long before he was doing donuts complete with counter-steering action. Of course, it also wasn’t long before I was getting my hands dirty fixing the cart. I have a feeling this is going to be a learning experience.

Benny at bat…

Way back in May, Anna and Grace got a Barbie Jeep for their respective birthdays. Grace now considers herself an expert driver, and can’t understand why she is not being allowed to drive the go-cart.

Saturday I finally had a chance to install some wall shelves that I’ve been working on in my shop. They are pretty simple…just basic boxes that I tried to arrange in a unique configuration. The larger two horizontal boxes are MDF with poly on them, and the smaller boxes up high are birch veneer plywood, also sealed with poly. I’m pleased with how they turned out. I’d like to do something a little nicer than the cleat that is currently running along the bottom of the lowest box, but I haven’t decided exactly what. I’ve considered marker board, cork board, and steel…we’ll see what happens. I’m just happy to be able to start making use of the storage space.

A photo of Jack-Jack for good measure…

This is what we woke up to Sunday, June 8. Not a very nice surprise. I have no idea how old this white pine is, but most people seem to think somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 years. You have to feel kind of sad to see and old tree taken out like this. Just imagine all of the storms that this thing has weathered over the years. The main trunk is still standing, for now. We’ll see if it dies all together after this event, then decide how to remove the rest of it. Who knows…it could stand another 50 years the way it is right now.

A section of dead wood is visible when you peer all the way into the “hole” left from the fallen limb. It seems like the old tree was dying on the inside.

Dad is always eager to lend a hand when it comes to cutting things up. This picture was taken before he was drenched in sweat. It was a hot, sticky day to tackle such a big project.

A friendly neighbor came by with the perfect tool for the job. Thank goodness! The skid steer made the whole production much more manageable. We have one large piece left to move, but everyone ran for cover as more storms rolled in.