Thursday: productive

 I, as always, had several things on my to do list for today.  The boys did amazing during the afternoon 'work' time and we got more done than expected!  

The morning started with Isaac making a huge snow chair.  I helped with the bottom a little bit, but it was really heavy.  Joshua and I made a cake for his Pikachu cake.

Then some chores, an early lunch, and errands.  We went to rock climbing right away and while it wasn't too bad at first it got pretty busy again.  I guess we just need to expect such things during school breaks.

Wednesday: in between

We're in an in-between time right now.  In between the Christmas bustle and my brother coming up for the weekend.  (Joshua is beyond excited.)

So obviously, we started out the day with some games.  Isaac asked and I didn't have a good reason to say no.

I then got a bit of work done and we wrapped presents.  Isaac said the snow was good packing snow, so we went outside for a bit.  It really wasn't good packing snow yet...we probably should have waited until a little bit later in the afternoon.  We made a small snowman and slid down the hill for a bit.

After lunch and nap time we did our errands, but they were rather unproductive.  The parking lot at rock climbing was more full than normal and when I looked at the number of climbers it was the highest I've seen at 30/50.  Joshua and I went once at 25/50 and it felt very full, so we decided to try first thing tomorrow instead.  We stopped by Cheryl's to see if some late Christmas presents had arrived, but they weren't there yet.  We stopped by UPS to do a return, which was successful, as expected.

I used my electric knife to cut bread.  It was wonderful.

Joshua made a new kitty place out of a Christmas box.

I also got all the laundry cleaned and dried, although not sorted or put away yet.  I also took down some of the extra Christmas decorations that become a bit too much with more people in the house.  It's still very Christmas-y, but we needed a bit more space.  There are still a few things to do before we start the official cleaning, but we're close.  I only crossed off two things on the "do before guests come" list today, but at the same time I'm still feeling on top of everything. For now.

Monday: rescheduled Christmas party

The extended Hilldore Christmas party was tonight.  It was supposed to be on Friday but by Thursday they rescheduled - an excellent choice.  It was nice to see everyone in our annual get-together.  

We were allowed to be in the main entryway, and we told the kids this when we got there.  No problem.  Joshua had to go to the bathroom, and one of Ben's uncles was showing him.  When they reached the boundary Joshua stopped and said, "I'm not allowed pass here."  He was easily convinced he could go farther for this purpose, but it was cute.

Isaac and Joshua ran around and around and around.  Then two other kids joined them and they ran around and around and around.  I couldn't believe how much they ran, but they were having fun and with other people!

Ben and I ended up with a pair of very nice socks from the exchange.  Isaac quickly claimed them, even though they're way too big, and was super excited about them!

Sunday: the rest of the day

Today we spent a nice morning at home.  We didn't do anything too special, but finished a game, played some video games, and did whatever.  The snow drift peaked right before we left at 39" right at the stick.  By the time we got home the drift was down.  The drift seemed less steep, so the snow and probably fallen down.  (The picture below was from when I woke up and the drift was at 37.5".)

Also when I woke up I found a crazy scene by baby Jesus.  The Christmas Ruiners had come out and were trying to steal Baby Jesus.  Obviously, the animals were winning, but there was a fight!  One sheep pounced a Christmas ruiner and fell over, which broke its ear off.  The shepherd and the sheep's family brought it to the hospital.

The weather was good enough for us to travel the 10 minutes to Larry and Cheryl's house, but the roads weren't great.  It was nice to have a white Christmas with the snow falling gently in the background though!

Ben helped Joshua put the star on the tree.

We ate brunch first.  It was full of delicious food.  This is probably my favorite traditional meal of the year...I do like all the sweet stuff!  A few things were said that really tickled Isaac's funny bone and it was hilarious to watch.

The only picture I have of opening presents is my new electric knife.  I used it at Thanksgiving and it was amazing.  I'm going to use it to cut everything.  And maybe I'll even make a turkey.  (But I'm going to borrow the roasting dish because I really don't want a huge roasting dish in my house.)  The one I'm most proud of giving is some pie.  At Thanksgiving Scarlet said she had only ever had (or only could remember having) pumpkin pie.  So Joshua and I got her a blueberry and chocolate pie slice from a local bakery. 

The last funny thing from the day was that I asked Joshua to get me a fork at dinner time.  He gave me one, and I continued talking.  A few minutes later I picked it up only to find it was a gigantic serving fork!  It was nice of him to get me one, but Ashlyn was also kind enough to sneakily get me the correct kind.

Sunday: He's here!

Merry Christmas!  As always, the animals that moved around all of December looking for baby Jesus finally found him.

Saturday: Christmas eve

According to my camera, all I did was take pictures of the snow.   In the morning the stick measured about 31.5", but the drift had moved over closer to the house.  The top of that was close to 33". 

We had five blue jays flying around at one point.

It was a lovely day.  We played several games.  Isaac made chex mix.  Joshua wrapped presents.  Ben cleared the driveway (4-24" deep).  I helped with a lot, cleaned the kitchen, and dealt with food.  I was quite excited about how I could oversee the kids and get some stuff done all at the same time: they're getting more capable!

By this evening the snow at the stick was reading around 35".  If you measured the drift between the stick and window it was at the top of the stick, 40".  (You can see the stick in the picture below, but I angled up just slightly so that you actually could see it.  It's sort of under the corn.)  The drift to the left is higher yet.  The weather conditions were much better today.  It snowed most of the day, but I could usually see the houses across the lake.  Also, it's only about 12" or even a little less right by the edge of the deck.  There's a pretty steep drift right now.

Friday: blizzard

 The blizzard did show up!  For most of the day we couldn't see the houses on the other side of the lake.  There were a few times we could faintly see them, but they stayed hidden most of the time.  (This is my measurement of how bad the weather is.)  There were still birds at our bird feeder throughout the day; they were taking shelter under the deck.  The wind was not strong enough to blow the bird food out of the bird feeder.  Oddly, I've seen several news articles talking about places that are closed today.  I really think it should be what places are open because it seemed like everything shut down.

We decided to open our Christmas presents today.  I got a whole bunch!

Around 3:30pm I put the measuring stick right outside the door.  Now, I put it right in the middle of the drift, so it is not that deep everywhere.  (In fact, there is still part of the front walk that is clear.)  It read about 28.5" and by 9:30pm it was over 30".  Joshua thinks it'll be over the stick by tomorrow morning, but I'm estimating 33".  It should probably be noted that we had snow before the blizzard too.  I bet there was at least 12" right there, if not a little more.

We all liked looking outside to see what the weather was doing.

So did the cats, even though Tornado also curled up in between.

Honestly, it was a lovely day!

Thursday: getting ready

Today was a day of getting ready.

I woke up to a message from the Christmas Ruiners.  They like to hide around the main area and somehow ruin Christmas.  Not really sure how.  They're similar to how Christmas Magic moves the Nativity animals every night, but Isaac moves them instead of the magic.  Apparently there was one that I was supposed to find and have missed for several days.

It continued with 1.5 bags of potatoes turning into mashed potatoes.  I had peeled them last night, but then realized that I really, really would regret it if I tried cooking all of them in the instapot at once.  So I did it in two batches and it took longer than I was expecting.  I really feel like the name instapot is a misnomer as it is far from instant.  But they didn't get done too late and I sent a very full crockpot of potatoes to work with Ben.  Now.  During previous potlucks most of the food I make comes home.  I don't mind this at all and since I only make food that I like it works well.  So I was planning on bringing half the potatoes with us to another party.  However, much to my surprise, they were all gone!  So I need to rethink that plan and remember, for better or worse, that mashed potatoes are good at Gentex potlucks.

The morning passed.  Joshua and I have been giving each other a lot of massages, enough that we got a library book to learn some new methods.  (Side note, we got it from the main library because that's were we were.  The librarians were helpful, but not as helpful as my wonderful north side librarians.)  I also put out more bird and squirrel food due to the upcoming blizzard.  While I was coming back inside, Horizon escaped.  This was a big surprise, since he's never the one that escapes.  I let him escape as about four inches away from the house there is a hill of snow that I didn't think he'd be interested in getting over.  About thirty seconds later Tornado followed.  Tornado quickly realized it was not fun and went back inside.  Horizon tried going over the hill and, as expected, turned around and came back inside.

Next it was time for errands!  We met a friend at Anna's House, and she gave the boys a large gift certificate to B&N.  It was quite unexpected.  We headed to rock climbing, and stayed a bit longer than normal.  Joshua and one of the kids' instructors were trying to balance a stuffed rat on their head while climbing...apparently it'll be a new challenge for the kids' group.

We got gas next, including gas for the snow blower.  The boys twisted my arm and we went through the car wash too.  We stopped by the library to pick up a hold, and then to B&N.  We got a new game.  I called our game expert about two games.  We decided on one, but Joshua was adamant that he didn't want it so we went with the other.  We played most of it before dinner and I think it was a good choice. 

Right as we were finishing our errands and pulling into the driveway we saw five snowflakes.  The blizzard was starting!  For those of you not in West Michigan, we are supposed to get 10-20" with high winds Friday and Saturday.  The snow didn't start quite as early as it was supposed to, but by 4pm when the blizzard was supposed to start hitting it was snowing well.  The flakes were small though so there wasn't much accumulation.  I was thinking about snow blowing after dinner but decided not to.  I did look about an hour ago though and there is obviously more snow, so it must have gotten a bit worse.  Everything is shut down tomorrow, so I really hope there's a good storm with no power outages.

Wednesday: first day of break

Well, I only heard that the kids were bored several times today. :p  To be fair, there wasn't much going on this morning anyway.

This afternoon we had stuff to do at least.  We went rock climbing, then I dropped Isaac off to play Dominion while Joshua and I did some errands.  We stopped by the main library and there is a turtle there.  Joshua mentioned that the turtle was following him and I didn't think much of it.  But then Joshua kept walking around the tank and the turtle kept following him...it was not a coincidence!  It turns out that the turtle is getting some medicine on it's shell and it has made the turtle follow all people hoping to get his medicine.

Tuesday: the details

This morning I picked up a food compost bag.  The county takes food scraps for composting and since the worms do the best with fruits and veggies I wanted to give it a try.  We also have a lot of food that needs to be discarded from food boxes we got during the pandemic.  We're just not going to eat it at this point.

The grocery store was rather busy.  Still no mint extract, but everything else was there.

I've found the best way to keep my toes warm during piano lessons is to use my gloves.  They stay warm enough while not getting too hot.

Today was the kids' last day of school!  Isaac had a party and said he had too much sugar, and he came home with a bag of treats.  

Monday: grading, O:CtH

Grades have been entered!  It took me most of the morning to finish up, but I'm now done for a while!

I also cleaned the toaster oven corner of the kitchen.  I started last night, when it was *obviously* the best option of things for me to be doing.  Anyway, it really needed to be cleaned.  I wouldn't really call it clean now, but it is still so, so much better than it was.  I got a lot of the brown cooking residue off the door.  I don't know how to clean up the outside though...I tried a few cleaners and none seemed to work.  So I guess I'll just leave it for now.  

Sunday: low key, sort of

Isaac was kind-of feeling better today, but it's been a weird weekend.  He's developed a cough.  There was no elevated temperature, but there was a bit of a headache.  And he was a lump all morning.  That alone pretty much tells me something is wrong, but nothing hurts.  I'm voting for a bad cold and hoping to send him to school tomorrow.

Joshua was feeling fine (and was very helpful when Isaac needed something).  He made some castles on the couch that he was proud of.  He joined Ben in a Christmas party this evening and it sounded like they both had fun. 

Grading update: it's moving along!  I was woken up early due to Isaac's cough and got a bit more grading done today than expected.  I had been thinking about going to the library tomorrow to work, but right now I think I'm 'close enough' that I can not be too distracted at home.

Saturday: more grading

I wasn't really planning on grading over the weekend, but then I looked at all the stuff I'm supposed to do (work and home-wise) and decided I should do some.  I got a little farther down the list.

Isaac had a low, low fever in the morning and in the evening.  He was doing ok for most of the day though.

It snowed a nice amount today!  I got the snow blower out for the first time of the season and surprisingly didn't have to ask Ben to help me with it.  Usually I can't remember were all the knobs are supposed to go the first time but I got it!  I was oddly proud of myself.

Friday: still grading

I had both my exams today.  The day didn't drag quite as much as I was expecting though, so that was pleasant.  I had two students show up late but not too late and since I knew a different class wasn't coming early for the next exam I still let them have the whole two hours.  Really, I could grade in the classroom or grade in my office, so it was easy enough to do.

During the second exam I got an email from Isaac's teacher that he wasn't feeling well.  There was no fever so he could stay at school, but was looking miserable.  Ben had meetings all day so I tried my other options first.  Aunt C was able to bring him home and he was just snuggled in bed when I got there.  I was rather proud of how he dealt with it, honestly.  It was a weird sickness...no fever, but he was acting like he should have had one.  He finally complained about a headache so I gave him medicine for that.  He perked up a bit after that, but was never 100% and wasn't hungry.

We called off our evening plans.  We didn't need to participate in them so it wasn't a big deal.  The boys played Zelda with Ben and I - you guessed it - graded.  I'm finished with the non-final exam stuff and 1/8 through the final exam.

Thursday: still grading

I did a little grading this morning, then a few things around the house that needed to be done.  I had lunch with co-workers and then was planning on getting a lot of grading done.  However, people actually came to my office hours for some help!  It doesn't happen very often, probably because there are student-run help sessions at better times, so I was oddly excited.  I didn't get the grading done that I was hoping to get done, but there's still plenty of time.

We went to rock climbing after school.  Isaac had a great time because there were a bunch of new routes, but Joshua had a hard time for some reason.  He was in a mood.  At the end he bought himself a cookie and it helped a lot.

Karate was fine.  We worked on forms for the first part, which I enjoy.  Then self-defense, which I don't enjoy.  I understand it's important, but I just don't enjoy it.  At the very end there were a few minutes of dodgeball and it seemed like none of the kids actually went out when they got hit.  It made me more annoyed than it probably should have.

It was pizza pick-up at work today too; they have fun signs.

Wednesday: yesterday

On the way home from piano, Isaac and I were discussing what to have for dinner.  It had to be a little easy because I had karate later that night.  He said fish sticks sounded good, but those don't work for the whole family.  Then I thought we could have scrambled eggs, because that's his skip meal and he could have the fish sticks.

But!  Only if we had at least five eggs.  I was pretty sure we had used at least six, but I wasn't sure if we had used six, seven, or more.

When we got home I sent Isaac to check.  A bit later, after he was taking way too long to find out, I looked.  We had four normal eggs and suddenly there was a purple egg too.

We had scrambled eggs for dinner.

Monday: stuff from school, cats

 Isaac brought this home from school and I couldn't love it more.  I should probably frame it.  Not only does it say nice stuff, he said that it was easy to write and fill up all the lines.  I know he often struggles with writing enough so this made me especially happy.

Joshua came home with this gem!  "I am thankful for my 2nd grad teacher 'cus she is the best teacher in the multi-verse."

I was trying to take a few pictures of a quilt, but right after I put it down Horizon got on it.

Of course, he sent a cat-gram to his brother so he would come up the stairs to investigate right at that moment.

I dumped Horizon in the bedroom just in time for Tornado to sit in the middle.

I dumped him in the bedroom too and finally got my pictures. It turned out pretty nicely...I had so many dumb problems with this one though!  It should have been done about three months ago but I kept having to make giant fixes.

The weekend

 Ben and Joshua finished their Bowser.  Joshua is bringing it to school for show and tell tomorrow and is so excited.

We got a big box (because it's that time of year) and so yesterday I had a pet box for most of the day.  The pet box produced an egg.  It all got to be a bit much for me, but at the same time I could mostly pet the box and give instructions to the kids as to my desires for the box and it would happen.

Friday: the normal

I wasn't planning on writing a post tonight.  But then I was looking through the old posts and realize how many little things I forget.  (I was mainly trying to figure out what little stories I need to tell Joshua about when he was younger, because he has been bringing up Isaac putting an apple on his head and forgetting about it.  I've decided on the wall, because I think I've mentioned it to him a few times.  He ended up being ok with his door open.)

Ok, so the little things.  I told the boys it was going to snow out today and Isaac elected to bring boots and Joshua didn't.  Isaac enjoyed first recess, but it got his hat all wet and so he didn't enjoy second recess as much.

I had lunch with Betsy, and we went to Buffalo Wild Wings.  I got the lemon pepper (sauce) boneless chicken and it was an excellent choice.  I also stopped at the library.  A few weeks ago Joshua told me he likes chapter books with colored pictures.  There aren't many of those, although graphic novels work too.  I remember going through this with Isaac a few years ago too, so I'm going to hope that Joshua's just in the same place.  And in the meantime the librarian and I will try to cater to his desires.

We had Jets for dinner.  I tried the text to order because I could get a 20% off coupon, but it really was terrible.  I copied and pasted our normal order from the website into the text and it missed a pizza topping and the breadsticks.  I rated it 4/10, just because of the coupon.

We played Quadropolis tonight.  Joshua managed to win.  The game he played seemed to be somewhat different than the game everyone else played.  His strategy was to remain as the mayor and get a lot of apartments and retail locations, but it worked.  I didn't think it would.

Thursday: o

For dinner we were having taquitos and potatoes, so I also made apple-os because it made me smile.

Today was the last day of classes.  I don't love final review day.  We reviewed as a class for a bit and then I had some review for them to work on on their own.  The students that should have stayed longer left right away* and the students that didn't really need to stay stayed.  The first class actually had a bunch of questions and the TA and I were busy for a lot of the time, and then in the second class everyone left 20 minutes before normal.

*The final exam isn't until next Friday though, so in some ways I get it...it might be more beneficial to study closer to the exam time.

Tuesday

Oh, today was fine.  Nothing really went wrong, but nothing was fun either.

I feel like I need a detail about the day to at least make this a worthwhile post. 

I'm working on a boring quilt.  I'm not sure why this one isn't interesting to me, but it's a bit of a slog.  I'll have some interesting sashing and I've been able to work on that just a little bit.  I do have to make 180 of the same subunit, but that's rather normal in a quilt.  The subunits are then going into 30 blocks, and all the blocks are the same.  It is different from what I normally do, but not that much.  Oh well.  I'll keep working away at it.

 

Monday: O:CtH

I did a drawer and a cabinet today!  It seems like a small amount, but at the same time there's always other stuff that needs to be done too.  These were also the worst two spots by far, so I'm excited.

The outside of the lazy susan was surprisingly dirty too.  I kept thinking I had gotten all the spots, but then I'd move my head and find more.

Isaac looked pretty amazing during rock climbing today too.