I gave Snackxalotl and Catcachino a bath today. They were both pretty happy about it, although Snackxalotl wanted to play in the water more.
We went trunk or treating at church tonight. Isaac was a rock climber. Joshua was a Creeper and made Ben go as Steve. I'm not sure anyone realized that Ben was dressed up too.
This morning before anyone got up Joshua made us a "lock-in" (i.e., escape room). He usually does a nice job with these things, so I was somewhat excited to do it. I had had an itinerary of the day in my head and it did not include a lock-in, so that was the part I was a little annoyed with. I got over it.
Anyway, Joshua had put a bunch of items on the table and there were several that I thought were going to add to the story but were complete fakes. A large bowl of Lego dots, a stack of books, and two glasses filled with colored water, for example. The first puzzle was a little confusing, but after that we figured things out pretty well.
In other news, the cats finally posed for a Christmas card picture. I had on my calendar, "Christmas Cards! Just do them! Now!" because we always get to December and I'm overwhelmed and don't want to do them. So obviously, I'm going to do them in the middle of one of my busiest semesters in a while. I'm only getting 25 though, so that should keep the crazy to a minimum.
Groceries: gotten. I was only asked once if I got groceries.
Toilet: probably fixed. It might have a slow inner leak. One time I noticed the water level inside had dropped an inch and therefore the valve was slowly leaking water into the tank. It is function for now but I need to keep an eye on it.
Black belt recertification: Done. I wasn't going to do it, but the timing has been rather inconsistent. It's been a while since the last one and I wanted some new material for the next several months. I didn't feel confident in everything, but the teachers said I'd be fine. I was fine. I wasn't great, but I was fine. (Think normal belt test, but for black belts. There isn't a rank up associated with it, but I need a certain number before I'm allowed to go to the next rank of black belt.)
Friends: Joshua and his friends got Boba tea after school. They were all so excited.
Laundry: put away
Grading: in progress
Kitchen: almost clean
Nap: taken
Ok. So Dad came over Tuesday morning before we went to work and replaced the shut-off value. There were a few minutes of touch-and-go, but he got it! No more leaking, which is the biggest deal.
Today I continued to work on the toilet. I put in a new supply line. I finished putting in the new value. I put in a new handle, the thing that started this whole process, but it wasn't ideal. I got a cheap one from Lowe's and it is curved the wrong way such that it rubs hard against the front of the tank. And I turned on the water.
There was no leaking! It was a miracle! The tank filled and stopped appropriately. I was able to flush. (Which was rather necessary, since the kids forgot once or twice not to use the toilet.) But. The water kept draining into the bowl.
That's right! Now the flapper isn't working either. I'm happy with the progress I was able to make, but it would have been nice if the flapper just worked. I hate the flappers - they're always so finicky.
It was a pretty normal Monday, really. Aunt C came over so I opened Isaac's window so the cats could say hi. It was a beautiful day so I was glad to air out the house a bit.
I wasn't planning on doing some of my winterizing, but since it was such a nice day I spent a bit of time on it. There's still more to do, but some is done. That's how I felt about most of the day. There's still more to do, but some is done.
We had a great weekend - I'll post on that eventually.
Today we worked hard in the morning. I had a mountain of grading (that I just finished), Isaac had a mountain of math (that he is on top of), and Joshua forgot his math packet this weekend so he had about a week's worth of homework. He was going to bring it and work on it during the competition, but it got left at home.
Then Joshua went to the optometrist for contacts. He got the contacts in and he got one out - I did the other one. It was an emotional time for him, I think because he wants them so badly and they didn't just pop in and out of his eye. But he did the minimum required at the office and it'll get easier over time.
Then Isaac had a dentist appointment. He needs to have a wiggly tooth pulled because it's preventing another tooth from coming in, but no one seems otherwise worried about it.
At home I decided to make applesauce to go with dinner. There was good reasoning in my brain: the fruit flies had enjoyed the smell of the apples while were were gone and I'm afraid they're about to turn. I'm not sure that a) they're about to turn as they seem just fine and b) that it was a good use of my time. There's a toilet that's rather high on my priority list that I didn't look at today. But! Grading is done ...for now. Unless something changes on the calendar I expect this will have been one of the hardest weekends to get that done.
While Joshua was at church the rest of us ended up snuggled under a blanket, reading. Then Joshua came home and joined in. It was lovely.
Today was fall break. I cleaned the laundry room.
I also found our Christmas tree and a stash of the cats' toys. I understand how the cat toys get there, but why where there so many fake Christmas tree needles? The Christmas tree is on the other side of the house.
I am 3/4 finished...but those three quarters are cleaned well.
Scene: Getting the kids out of the house for school, which means making breakfasts and lunches and, most pertinent to this story, snacks.
I'm not always the cleanest lunch and snack maker, taking out food slowly and then putting it all away at the end. I don't always close the cabinet doors.
Ok. Well, I cleaned up a bit and closed the cabinet door. I dealt with something else.
Oh, the cabinet door is open again. I must not have closed it. I got everyone off to school.
Oh, the cabinet door is open again. Have I really not closed it yet? I thought I put all the snacks away. I close it - I am certain it is closed.
Oh, the cabinet door is open again. I haven't even been in the kitchen since last time I closed it!
I close the door and watch it. Over the course of the next three seconds it opens all the way up. I wasn't imagining it! But it opened slowly enough that I had moved onto the next thing and didn't see it open.
I put a rubber band around the knob attaching it to the cabinet above. It'll work for now. Surprisingly, no one has said anything about it to me yet. What changed to make it suddenly want to be open?
So far we've defeated a sewage monster, found (and opened) a hidden door/wall, found a sword in a stone, defeated a metal blaze, and defeated a mimic. We also found some new weapons and spells. Joshua has everything quite organized: he has a spell book for Isaac, monster information for all the monsters, and a story. The monsters were on the easy side to defeat, but better than way than too hard. It meant that we made progress. I think there's also a few misunderstandings about the exact rules sometimes, but everyone just goes with the flow and it works.
Joshua's monsters are also well created and the hidden door/wall actually opened and closed.
It might be a while before we have time to play again, but it should be fun to continue on.
I'm currently on fall break for a short time but it started off well. I finally got a bunch of stuff off my to-do list. I had time to get all the small stuff off and it felt good. (Tornado helped by walking all over the clean clothes in the dresser.)
Several months ago we had some friends over to our house. We had a noodle fight. I got the cheap pipe insulators from Lowe's instead of real pool noodles. I'm not sure it was the best choice because they were a little flimsy, but they worked.
We sent the kids out first and then a few minutes later the adults came out with a surprise attack.
It felt like I made several minor mistakes today. Oddly enough, they didn't make it a bad day - it was just that I could have done better. Some of them weren't even mistakes. They were the right choice but not quite how I wanted the day to go.
It was a pretty normal Wednesday. There were a few notable exceptions though...
1) I went to the Spectrum store to cancel our internet and bring back the modem. Now, I decided to do it in-store because we had to bring back the modem and I was afraid that doing it over the phone was going to be a nightmare - we've had to deal with them in the past. And my experience was lovely. I had just sat down when my name was called. (I bypassed several other people in line which I felt a bit bad about, but I had made an appointment.) I told them I wanted to cancel my service and they said, "ok" and proceeded to process it without issue. I was in and out within about five minutes, and one of those minutes was waiting at the kiosk to sign in.
2) I found another army man. One day Isaac was on a mission to hide them all, and he has hidden them well! I have found them in places that I only look a few times a year, if that. This time it was on the headboard of the guest bed. I'm a bit surprised it was still there because it had to stay there while I was sleeping on the bed for several nights and when I took off the sheets.
3) One of Joshua's spelling words is 'equation' and he just can't remember it. The other words are coming along, but this one wasn't. So instead of writing it again three times I made him draw it. We'll see if it actually helped tomorrow.
Today was busier than most Tuesdays. I had several students in my office, so I didn't get as much prepped for Thursday as I needed to. (However, one of the meetings was rather uplifting and we were able to celebrate some small victories.)
During rock climbing Isaac fell off the wall and got the wind knocked out of him, again. Of course, I was belying Joshua and he was at the top of the wall. There were people around to help Isaac, but I also got Joshua down quickly (and of course safely) and went over to see Isaac. By the time I got there he was breathing again so I attempted to back off. I'm not completely sure it worked, but I also think it mostly worked. I'm not sure he got back on the wall again, but the coaches were there checking in with him and by the end of the practice he was mostly ok. He was really tired this evening and went to bed earlier than normal though. I did want to mention that while falling was Isaac's bad part of the day, rock climbing as a whole was his good part.
