Cats aren't allowed on LEGO instruction books, so imagine my surprise when I came down this morning to this:
Saturday, June 28, 2025
Friday, June 27, 2025
Friday: morning, pizza
This morning was odd. My children barely spoke to me. They were both content doing their own thing, so I listened to two podcasts and then continued with my audiobook. It was lovely and sad all at the same time.
I made pizza tonight with the pizza dough and it was delicious!! I'm glad that I had been doing it with the pizza kits from Crust 54 for a while though; I knew what to expect once it came time to actually make the pizzas. I knew that I needed all the toppings chopped and ready to go. I knew about how much cheese to put on, etc. I made all the dough into pizzas and seemed to be just the right amount for tonight's dinner and tomorrow's lunch, which was 143g of the sourdough discard.
Honestly, this went so well that I kind of want to try making bread soon. I had been planning on waiting several months before trying bread to figure out pizza dough, but maybe I won't. We'll see how busy the summer ends up being.
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Thursday: Lego, dough
Joshua came up with a new game today. I was expecting it to be decent, but it was actually quite fun! He made a small Lego item, in this case, a boat.
I also started making some pizza dough today. Liz had kindly gave me some of her sour dough starter. I've been debating asking for some for a while, but finally realized that everyone likes the "make your own" pizzas a lot more than store bought pizzas. So the goal is to make pizza dough regularly. Liz has a lot more experience and suggested some rough measurements for feeding the sourdough, but I'm not there yet so I weighed everything out. Ok, I think I'm all out of order in this paragraph. I took out half the current sourdough starter, as I'm supposed to. I feed the rest of the starter and put it back in the fridge. With the discard, I started making pizza dough.
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
Wednesday: problem?
I might have a problem. Lipton Decaffeinated Unsweetened Iced Tea Mix may (or may not) be discontinued. I had a hard time finding it a year or two ago because it was always out of stock at Meijer, so I bought a case. I just started my last jar, so I starting looking for a good place to find it again.
All the comments say that it is discontinued, but may come back mid 2025 per Lipton. One jar can get me through several months, so I'll look again in a bit. Otherwise there are a few options I could switch to but they all seem more expensive (and more concentrated?) or caffeinated. Stay tuned; I'm sure I'll be really happy or really sad in a few months.
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Tuesday: rice cooker
I think I've mentioned that the rice cooker and I have a love/hate relationship. Ok. That's the backstory.
I asked Isaac to turn on the rice cooker today at 5pm because I'd be with Joshua. He sent me a text while were driving home asking some questions about it. I gave my phone to Joshua and asked him to send a text to Isaac: as long as the rice cooker is set to cook, it's good.
I got home and the rice was cooked properly, but Isaac and I quickly talked about how rice cookers worked.
Ben came home and checked the rice cooker. What? He knows I have problems with the rice cooker, but it was still an odd move. Well, it turns out that Joshua had actually sent the text to Ben. So, out of the blue, Ben receives a text about the rice cooker. He just gave me a thumbs up. I laughed so hard thinking about him receiving that text out of the blue.
Monday, June 23, 2025
Monday: still hot
Today was still hot, although tomorrow is looking a lot better.
One of Isaac's chores for the week is to trim our mulberry tree. It's a chore he enjoys. However, at 3pm this afternoon he tried to go out and trim it. I quickly put a stop to that, reminding him that the rest of the week will be a little cooler and better for tree trimming.
Karate has a/c and the fans were on, but I still ended up taking my jacket off. I think this is the first time I've ever done so due to heat, but we were only 1/3 of the way through the class and I was getting significantly warmer than normal.
Saturday, June 21, 2025
Saturday: hot
a month ago: Memorial Day weekend
vacation Monday: cat cafe and home
Thursday, June 19, 2025
Thursday: mice and pool parties, but not together
Last night I commented to Ben that I thought my mouse was dying as it suddenly was doing a lot of double clicks instead of single clicks. My plan had been to look for a new one in the morning, but Ben said, "oh! I have a new one right here." So I was able to change it out AND get the old one in the yearly electronics recycling that went out today.
We had a pool party this evening. The group was 'guys that lived together in college', but most of the wives knew each other pretty well too. There were fourteen kids between the five families and most of the kids stayed in the pool the whole time, with the exception of coming out for dinner and dessert.
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Wednesday:
This morning Isaac and I volunteered at Kids' Food Basket, which meant Joshua didn't get out of the house. While I'm not a stickler for the "you need to get out of the house every weekday" rule, I do try to enforce it. Joshua decided to combine going outside with writing a poem on the driveway.
"I am chalk.
I can't go for a walk.
It's up to you if I can talk
For I am chalk.
The sky is getting dark.
I can 't hear a dog bark.
The rain is starting.
I am fading."
Horizon always comes into the kitchen when I'm making dinner, hoping for a treat. (He rarely gets one.) Today he hung out on the black step stool for a surprisingly long time. I wanted to put more dishes in the dishwasher, but also didn't want to move him. Needless to say, dishes didn't get in the dishwasher but I did remember to put sheets on the bed.
vacation Sunday2: SkyTree
Although it was late when we got out of TeamLab - it really did take the 3-4 hours that on-line suggested - we decided to go to Sky Tower. This was one of the things we really wanted to do and Travis wanted to see it at night. So off we went.
The Sky Tree is the third tallest structure in the world, as of 2024, and was the tallest for a while starting in 2011. (Wikipedia)
Getting to the tower was a bit odd; we went the the fourth floor in a shopping plaza and then outside for a bit and then back inside to the tower.
Everyone was getting rather tired by this time. We started to look for food, but had poor luck. /they were either full (Kirby restaurant) or needed cash (street food). We finally found a pork katzu restaurant that was good. Not as good as the other place, but decent. The waiter looked at us very strangely when we asked for water, but the tea that was served (Oolongcha) at all the meals was not to anyone's liking. Travis texted us a few minutes later and noted that in some believe that water with a meal will make it harder to digest your food. How this is different from the tea, we weren't really sure.
We found a taxi to take us back to the hotel and it was the longest taxi ride ever. Joshua literally couldn't keep his eyes open, so after fighting to stay awake for five minutes I told him to go to sleep. Isaac ended up falling asleep. What should have been a thirty minute ride took about forty-five minutes because the taxi driver didn't take the toll road and hit every. single. red light. We would go a block and then wait two minutes. It was ridiculous. But we made it to the right place and everyone quickly went to bed.
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Tuesday: rock climbing
Monday, June 16, 2025
Monday: busy day
It was a lovely day and we had several plans.
Isaac cleaned out his treat box; Joshua and I took advantage of it and snagged several snacks that he didn't want anymore.
Sunday, June 15, 2025
Sunday: turns and Father's Day
We went to church this morning and there is construction on the way, which requires a detour.
We took seven left turns* and one right turn to get there. The imbalance seemed really odd to me since church is about 1.25 miles from our house.
It was also Father's Day! I have lots of great dads in my life.
Ben is a wonderful dad for many reasons, but today it was because he patiently helped Joshua be the bad pirate as we played Treasure Island this afternoon. Joshua has wanted to be the bad pirate for a while, but it's a role in which other players can't help as much.
*A turn being defined as an intersection, not a spot where the road is curvy.
vacation Sunday1: back to Tokyo, teamLab borderless
Travis and Scarlet went back to Tokyo super, super early! I think they chose the 6am train because Scarlet wanted to do some of the Tokyo things that we did earlier. We stuck around a bit more. The hotel breakfast was delicious and staying for that was totally worth it. And then we took the 4.5hr train ride back to Tokyo.
We went over to the other teamLab installation next. Our taxi driver dropped us off in a fine spot, but it was in the basement off a shopping plaza and we had a bit of a hard time finding it. The picture below only works on a phone. When you're just walking through the hallway the words are stretched out and 3D. This one, as a whole, as a lot more artsy and less focused on movement. I think I liked the other one a bit better, but this one still had some really cool moments.
On our way out of this we walked by a wall. EXCEPT THERE WAS A HOLE! Ben took a video of it and it was just clever projection, although it doesn't show up well in the video. We were all amazed at how much it messed with our minds.
We were at the Tea Room, which was billed as a must-do experience. However, everything was Macha flavored and I'm the only person in the family who enjoys tea and Macha. (Honestly though, Macha is a weird flavor. I put it in my mouth and don't like it, but then a second later I decide that I do like it. Every time.) I enjoyed two servings of macha ice cream and my tea while everyone else enjoyed the cool things that happened to the food.
When you set down your ice cream, a branch grows from it. When you set down your tea, a flower grows in it and then when you move your tea the petals all come off.