Thursday, September 4, 2025

Thursday: weird

Today was a weird day.

I saw a rainbow on my way in to work.

When I got to work, there was a manager loudly reprimanding one of his workers across the hall.  I could only hear half the conversation, but even hidden in my office it was rather uncomfortable.  (I'm not sure about the appropriateness.  Not knowing anything about the situation, some seemed fine and some a bit extra.  The main thing was the volume.)

I caught my first student using AI to submit a summary of some articles.  I'll be honest - I haven't really been on the look out for it.  But I decided that this semester I should look harder.  Due to other considerations this isn't quite as cut and dry as most academic incident reports, which is a bit annoying.

I picked Isaac up for PATH and saw the family that he car-pooled with last year there at the same time.  They volunteered to drive the whole year last year, which was a huge blessing.  (I offered several times.)  So now I'll probably contact them again to see if they're interested in car-pooling, but I feel a bit awkward doing so since I was the one that benefited so much last year.

The chicken nuggets we had for dinner where a different shape.  They were about half the size of a normal nugget.

Catcachino managed to dirty his bottom again.  What is up with that?



Wednesday, September 3, 2025

Wednesday: cats

The cats stole the camera roll today.






Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Tuesday: blue route

It was a rather busy day.  Not the busiest, but there were a lot of things that needed to get done.

Work was fine.  The chair-to-be found me and anxiously asked if I'm planning to teach again next year.  I am!  They are very happy to have me and I'm very happy to have this job.  I do think that another section for a semester would be a good idea to get some of the backlog through so that students are taking it at a better point in their curriculum, but finding someone could be hard.

Isaac had the first of two days of rock climbing trials tonight.  That being said, today really was optional for him.  It was an open trial meant especially for new and younger athletes.  However, most of the older athletes were there too...they're all just so excited to get started and think, "Team!  Climb!  Let's go!!"

I climbed for the first half hour.  I had a very nice time.  This is probably one of the first times I've climbed by myself - usually Isaac or Joshua is also climbing and it changes things.  Anyway, my plan was to not even look at the bouldering wall.  I was just going to do the auto-belays.  I like belays the best, but I also figured there would be a ton of kids that were climbing on the bouldering walls.  Anyway, I finished the blue route!  I've been working on it for a few days and the holds are skinny.  There is still some hold to grab on to, but they aren't great jugs.  Several times I've been one hold from the top and have just run out of steam.  I tried it several times today, not quite getting there.  Then I took a longer break, chatting with another mom, and tried it one more time.  I got it!  It was a great way to end.  Oh, the level is a 5.9.  I can do 5.9 routes, but it usually takes some work before I get them.  There is also a 5.10- that I've made some progress on, but they do get harder.

I still had some chores when I got home.  They were important and I was still going so they weren't too bad to do, but I am now tired.  Good thing it's time for bed!

Monday, September 1, 2025

Monday: labor day

It was a pretty easy day.  Joshua and I took a nice bike ride in the morning.  He resisted me all summer with the bike, but once we finally did it he realized he does like it.  Anyway, it was a nice ride.

We got some work done.  

We played some more of Isaac's D&D champaign.  We fought a dinosaur this time.

I'm not very excited to go to work tomorrow.  But off we go.

Sunday, August 31, 2025

Sunday: fun chores

Once in a while chores are fun.  Today the kids started taking apart the box spring.  We didn't really know what to expect inside, so it was an interesting project.

We played more D&D today.  It was good, although not as good as yesterday.  I was a horse the whole thing and just said, "neigh" once in a while when I wanted to say no.  Giraffe got in on the action when some farie dragons polymorphed some flowers into a giraffe.  We also met a unicorn.



Saturday, August 30, 2025

Saturday: D&D

Isaac has been working on his own D&D champaign for several months.  He has spent a lot of time on it.  It isn't finished, but it is far enough along that we decided that we should just start.  We started last week but it was just a introduction section.

Today we went into the forest.  We met a shady character but nothing happened.  We met a wandering traveler and didn't buy his shiny rocks.  We ran into a group of goblins.  Joshua is the most charismatic of all of us (and I was a warhorse) so he decided to talk to the goblins and see if we could just go safely by them.

They wanted his shield.  (Of course not.)  They wanted his sword.  (No way.)  They wanted something shiny.  Oh no!  We didn't buy any shiny gems.  Without missing a beat, Joshua offers them the shiny wrapper of his granola bar.  They decided they also wanted the granola bar.  And, just like that, we were able to continue on our way.


Friday, August 29, 2025

Friday: no school

Yesterday Joshua came home with his baritone.  It's so big compared to him.  Luckily though, the school has enough baritones that he can have one at school and one at home, so he doesn't have to lug it back and forth.

Today was nice.  We went on a bike ride in the morning.  The weather was lovely and the road was nice and smooth.  (There have been a ton of scooters and roller blades now that the road is smooth.  It's been fun to see.)

In the afternoon we went to the other rock climbing place.  It was a good time.  There were some fun routes.  Joshua only had a medium good time, but we did a take-away and he bought himself a donut and then read for a bit.