Tonight I climbed a route with a very slight inverse incline. I've never managed to get a route on that incline before, let alone flash a route on it!
Then as I was picking Isaac up after practice someone said they'd like to be my belay partner! All right! I had a notice up on the board for about a month and at this point didn't really expect anyone to respond. Yay!
I was on a roll today! I crossed so many things off my to-do list. I went from 62 items to 46 items! It'll go back up again, but hopefully it's going to keep trending down. I haven't been this low in about 2.5 years, and if I can get just a few more things crossed off I'll be at a record low.
I pulled out a chair today to sit down, only to find a cat on it.
Horizon also was sitting on a chair later in the day, but when I pulled it out to take a picture he jumped off.
Usually, Horizon is a very quiet cat. However, when I'm picking raspberries he has been very vocal - reminding me that he wants to come outside too! The problem is that he doesn't just want to come outside, he wants to eat the plants outside. Guess what doesn't agree with his stomach? Plants.
The kids and I helped out during the preschool Sunday school today. The kids noted that it didn't feel like we did much...and we didn't. It's only during the sermon and the fourth person led the lesson. However, there were a ton of kids there and so we were all needed.
We went to Great-Grandma's in the afternoon.
Earlier this week I had proposed going to a corn maze today. The kids were not all that excited about it so I scheduled flu shots instead.
I wanted to bike there; it is less than ten minutes away by bike. Joshua wasn't excited about this part either, but he came around. Isaac wasn't excited about it either, and therefore biked as slowly as possible to the pharmacy. I would look behind me to make sure everyone was with me and Isaac would be a minute behind.
We made it to the pharmacy only a few minutes late. They proceeded to be so slow though. They're always slow, but since Isaac was grumpy I was a bit grumpy. He was coming around, but it's harder when you need to wait a long time.
Unsurprisingly, we finally got in and got our shots. Isaac was the last one to get his shot and after the tech put the band-aid on he started laughing. The tech had completely missed putting the band-aid on the injection site...and it was a lovely turning point. We also got to leave right after that, which was nice.
The trip home was still a bit slow, but this time Isaac led so I didn't feel l was leaving him behind.
Giraffe got to come out to pick Isaac up too.
Today Tornado followed me around. It was especially impressive when I found him already where I was going.
Isaac stayed home today; I stayed home for an extra hour in the morning but he spent most of the day by himself. Unsurprisingly, he was fine by himself. Also, he was doing better today so he'll go back to school tomorrow.
Joshua and I went on a bike ride this afternoon. We were going to bike to church, but then he said he needed more books so we went to the library instead.
I got rid of a bunch of boxes today!
I also got EE-oo out, per the kids' request. I was worried that it wasn't going to work for a few minutes, but then I popped one of the batteries back in. Oh - Isaac ended up with a fever at 4:30am so stayed home from school. He felt mostly fine all day, but has lost his voice.
Isaac woke up complaining of a sore throat, and after church said he had a little headache. We had lunch, I took a nap, and after I woke up Isaac's voice was even more scratchy. He started walking distractedly walking around the dining room. He's a teen boy, and he does this some times. I told him to go take his temperature - expecting it to come back normal. Well, it came back at 100.4F. Well, that meant he couldn't go to the get together tonight. :(
The get together was nice - it always is.
Isaac's temperature was normal right before bed. His voice was worse though.
This morning I brought the futon mattress and non-working mini fridge to the monthly trash collection. I was a bit nervous because I've never done one of these before, but it, unsurprisingly, went just fine. And then I was really glad to have that stuff out of the house! Monday morning I'll be getting rid of some of the other donation boxes. Yay!
Besides that, it was a pretty normal day. Legos, a bike ride, nap, game, D&D.
The drive into school has been rough lately: the sun is at just the right angle to match the stop lights, the sun is directly in my eyes, and I always seem to end up at the front of the line for red lights.
But then today we were behind a small dump truck. I have never been so happy to be behind a truck before.
Then, after dropping the kids off I hit a whole bunch of green lights. It was lovely.
I got a lot of things done today! I guess most of them were pretty short, but they needed to be done nevertheless.
I had coffee with Pat and we took a short walk; it was nice.
Karate was ok. There was a twenty minute karate discussion in the middle. It was on-topic, but I wasn't exercising during that time.
Last night we played Forbidden Desert. We lost to the game, spectacularly. We have a rule in the house that the winner needs to put the game away, so it got left on the table to put itself away.
Surprise surprise, it didn't put itself away. On top of that, more forbidden games showed up.
Since it was out, we decided to get rid of Forbidden Sky. I think we played it all of twice, once when we massively cheated and one when we turned into ghosts but still didn't win.
Really, it was a pretty normal day. So let's talk about Joshua's lovies, as they all have personalities.
Grey Bear
Grey Bear is the oldest of the group, and the one who loves the most. He is a kind soul. He loves napping with people and going out of the house. He's rather sad that he doesn't get to go everywhere with Joshua anymore, so especially enjoys going on vacations. He also has a friend that is a zebra.
There were several other lovies who had been part of the core group who are now just in Joshua's bed and only come out once in a while.
Creeper
Creeper is the next oldest, but he isn't very old - about three years. Creeper really likes explosions and anything that is even explosion-like. He also is the grump of the group and tends to hold opinions that are opposite those of everyone else. That being said, he is still a nice Creeper and sometimes is unexpectedly nice.
Catcachino
Catcachino is only about a year old. He likes drinks. Apple juice, spice tea, milk, water, he loves them all.
Snaxalotl
Snaxalotl showed up about a month after Catcachino. He likes snacks! Joshua only lets him have two per day. He also has a snack shop where he can get pretty much any snack he wants. However, he often has whatever treats we have that day tend to be the treats he gets too. He likes to go outside and swim, but not as much as Grey Bear. He has a pool that he can swim in too.
Catnana
Catnana likes bananas. Since he's only been with us a short time his personality is still developing though.
I knew there were plans for quite a bit of exercise today, but I didn't really add it all up.
1) I biked to lunch with a friend. Honestly, I had forgotten about the lunch and looked at my phone eight minutes before we were supposed to meet. The restaurant is close, but there's a ton of construction and the fast way through is often closed. I had been planning on biking (partially because the short way is closed for cars, partly because the restaurant isn't that far), but I went a bit faster than normal.
2) Joshua and I biked to the library, taking the long way around. It was actually pretty close to the amount of time I wanted to bike for his exercise, so that was nice. I have been enjoying biking around with him lately.
3) I went to karate. As with every new year, the schedule changes. This year karate needs to be Monday and Wednesday to help drive on Tuesday and Thursday. We worked on forms; they are my favorite.
4) Normal household chores. Between groceries, laundry, and feeding the compost worms, I carried things all over. I didn't get an amazing amount done, but I was happy with what I got done.
Joshua came down to the basement for questions, and then, as normal, chose two lovies to also get questions. Grey Bear was second, and his bad part was that he really wanted to be a parachute. (He was just looking extra parachute-y and he loves going outside, but rarely gets to anymore.) Joshua and Ben both laughed, but I was a bit surprised about it...it wasn't that amazing of a bad part. It turns out that they had just had a similar discussion after books about Catachino using Grey Bear as a parachute. I promise I did not hear that discussion and it was total coinedence.
Ten minutes later Isaac came down to discuss plans and he only had one slipper on. "I couldn't find the other," he said. (It was found in the laundry the next morning.)
Creeper was required to be part of nap pile today. He was not amused.
I got through a bunch of chores today, although I'll also be honest that a lot of them were less than five minutes. I know that per all the advice I'm just supposed to do the chores that are only a few minutes, but that just doesn't work. But, it sure is a lot of fun to check the items off.
We played a bit more of the D&D campaign today. Isaac made a fun cave.
We're also watching the live action Lilo & Stitch with meals, and Joshua commented that Creeper is a lot like Stitch. So today's bad ...and good!...parts were that Joshua made that comment. Creeper has complicated emotions. A few days ago Creeper's bad part was nap pile, but Joshua had thoughtfully put him on the couch so that he didn't have to join nap pile. It turns out that Creeper hates nap pile so much that he doesn't want others having nap pile either. But his good part was also nap pile, as he was really glad he didn't have to join.
It was a normal and not normal Saturday. Ben and I didn't have any plans, but Joshua ended up spending the afternoon with a friend and Isaac has a pool party in the evening.
Friday is my day to work on Operation: Clean the House. While I'd love to do this more, I've kind of found that Monday needs to be "get the stuff off the to do list" and Wednesday is "do the weekly chores", for the most part.
Anyway, I cleaned up the paint can area, getting rid of several things that were there since we moved in. I also went through two boxes that I was not looking forward to dealing with. There was a bunch of stuff that needed to be washed, a few things to donate, and a few things to put in other locations. But the boxes are gone! I also got a few things off of a shelf because I had a different place to put them.
I'm working my way from the back corner towards the front, more or less. I'm probably about 2/5 of the way done, but I did do some other things early on to make the space usable, so I'm more than 2/5 of the way through the whole clean.
