Sunday: Mother's Day

After church I had a few lovely presents to open, and then Tornado jumped into be a present too.

After my nap we went downtown to grab some food from a food truck for snack.  Joshua (and everyone else) tried Deep Fried Oreos and we all decided they were ok.  They were yummy, but not something that we would get again.

Joshua wanted to see the tulips, so we walked down the street and then up a street, and then we were at Centennial Park.  I'll be honest, I wasn't feeling it this afternoon.  But the kids kept being excited..."Let's go to the Gazebo and the Wizard of Oz book!  Oh! Let's walk around the statue!  We need to see the fountain!  Don't forget about the flags!"  "You really want to see the flags?"  "Yes!"  By the time we talked about the flags, Joshua was pulling my leg a bit.  I was a bit surprised about how many landmarks they wanted to see in a block of park.  Anyway, we ended up being lucky to only go around the park once - they also wanted to see the tulip windmill after we passed it but I told them it was mostly dead.  They said they still wanted to see it but I vetoed it.

 

Joshua made a fort at home, so we all read for a while once we got back.  Tornado was feeling extra cuddly and went back and forth between me and Isaac.

Saturday: bike ride

I had the kids bike to Lowes with me again today.  We needed to get a screwdriver, but I also wanted to look at curtain rods.  The hardware to mount the curtain rods was surprising expensive, so we just got a new one instead.  I thought this might happen, so I brought velcro to mount it to Isaac's bike.  He was a bit scared it would fall off, but I mounted it well.

Friday: Catnana

Today was Catnana's birthday!  Joshua got him out of a claw machine exactly one year ago and Joshua was so happy after getting him.

We also got this one of Horizon a few days ago.

Thursday: Tulip Time

I ended up walking with Isaac's band today.  The day was cool, but I was only cold a few times.  (I feel like I have a habit of chaperoning cold field trips.)  The sun was out and that helped a lot.  Unfortunately, we were in the last division of the parade so it took about 1.5hrs from when we needed to show up to when we actually got to move.

The band played the first few lines of the Imperial March.  So we picked up some red and black tape on our way to the parade and Isaac made himself some light saber sticks.

Unexpectedly (to me), Isaac also had the job of setting the tempo during the bridge between the song and the cadence.  

When all was said and done, Isaac said it went a bit better than he was expecting.  After walking back, we grabbed a treat from a food truck and ate it in my office.  (The treat was ice cream, but it was a bit too cold to sit and eat ice cream outside.)  Having an office near the parade was super nice - we used it as a base of operations and came and went several times as we also watched a friend Dutch Dance before Isaac needed to be in his spot.

Wednesday: cleaning

After a low-productive week last week and working the first two days of this week, things have fallen behind.  The kitchen was in a "how high can we stack dirty dishes?" mode.

I ran the dishwasher twice today, so the kitchen is back on track.  I did other things.  I wouldn't say that I caught up, but things are under control.  For now.

Tuesday: pictures

 Joshua made a large fort.

Giraffe finally got his birthday cake.  Ben had picked it up and managed to find one with grass.  Giraffe was really excited because he loves leaves.

Why yes, we did sing Happy Birthday to Giraffe.

Saturday: play

Today was the second, and last, performance of 'Freaky Tiki'.  The students did a great job.  Joshua did a great job with the lights.

Among the many things that Joshua did, he made this poster.  (At one point in the play someone thought it was a window and another actor had to say it was a painting.)

There was a really nice blurb about Joshua as the only crew member too.

Friday: lip

Well, the lip is getting better.

Wednesday I went right back to sleep after everyone left for school/work.  I slept for most of the morning and ended up going to the dentist around noon.  I thought the swelling was slightly worse and there was a bit of leakage/crusting.  The dentist gave me some antibiotics.

Thursday the lip looked better but what I thought was fever-ish symptoms turned into cold symptoms.  I don't know if they were related or if I just happened to get a cold at the same time.  I got through teaching, which wasn't all that hard because it was a review.  I got home and crashed, electing to skip my two activities that had been planned for the evening.

Friday the lip is looking even better.  I'm feeling a little better but the cold symptoms are still present.

In other news, Giraffe had his birthday on Wednesday.  He got a Lego set of a giraffe having a birthday party and it has been played with more than I expected.

Tuesday morning I took a picture of Joshua in all black, which he did not appreciate.  So I let him take a picture of me.  You can see my lip starting to look weird, but I'm sitting in my hiding spot in the kitchen.  It's really comfortable because it's in the corner and people don't see me readily, but I can see everyone else easily.

Tuesday: lip

There was not much change in my lip today.  I did stop by the dentist, who seemed rather surprised by how my lip looks, but he thinks I may have accidentally bitten it.  I'm not convinced of this, but the main thing is that it doesn't seem like an allergic reaction and he expects it to go down within the next few days.

I made it through most of the day no problem, when I got home to make dinner I crashed. 

Monday: dentist

I had a routine filling done today.  I also have a canker sore near where they were doing the filling.  They numbed everything up, did the filling, and said it would be back to normal in about an hour.

I woke up from my nap, about two hours later, and noticed that my lip still felt really funny.  My cheek and gums felt ok, but my lip was not.  It turns out that it had swollen to about twice it's normal size.  I'm guessing it was mostly from canker sore plus instruments, but it was annoying.

Around 4pm it lessened in size - maybe to 1.5x.  Around 7pm it went down a bit more, but it hasn't gone down since then.  It isn't quite as annoying now, obviously, but it still does not feel right.

Here's hoping things are better tomorrow.

Sunday: warm weather

After a cool morning, it got very nice out.  Ben went out to eFoil

The boys and I biked to Lowes for some paint cards.  It was a short but lovely bike ride.

I tried to make a focaccia tonight.  It was more of a thick flat-bread.  It was edible, because warm bread is edible, but we probably won't finish it. 

Friday: under the sink

 I was cleaning yesterday and found another cat under the sink. Hahaha.

Thursday: excel

 One of the assignments in my class is to do something with a picture.  (There's more to the assignment to make it worthwhile.)  Anyway, it's fun to see what the students come up with.  Some put a lot of time into it, some put the bare minimum.  This one is actually a bit in the middle but the first one I've seen with a title.

Wednesday: errands

I got a lot of errands completed today.  I didn't get much else done, but oh well.

It started at the dentist.  It was an ok appointment, other than I had a "large gag" reflex.  I'm going to be honest, it felt like a normal gag reflex.  When you stick something large in my mouth and all the way to the back we should be happy I only gag twice.  Also, the fact that you can't get a picture of the root of one in the middle back doesn't seem like my fault.  Anyway, it is done for six months.

It turned out that I only had 11 items to get at the grocery store, so I had enough time to get groceries.  I give myself a gold medal.  I came in just under $100.

I got gas.  It was the first time I've had to wait for gas in quite a while, but I usually don't try to get it at 11:30.

I had lunch with a friend.

I stopped by the library.

I finally got home and took my nap.  There were a bunch of friends waiting for me.  I had a bit more time to do some chores, but I really didn't get much done before I had to pick up the kids.

Between dropping off the kids at church in the evening and karate I also stopped at GFS, just to round out the errands.

Tuesday: Middle School Move up

Tonight we had middle school move up night.  Joshua had his first band concert.  There's a chance it will be his last too...he's having a hard time deciding between Spanish and band next year.

After the concert Joshua elected to go around to all the stations by himself and get his card stamped.  I felt a little bad for not joining him, but he wanted to go by himself and I have a good idea of what will happen next year since Joshua is the second child.

Periodically: rocks in the house

Periodically we have rocks in the house.  They don't talk, but they do move a little bit and they can often follow simple instructions.

The frequency that these rocks show up has gone down a bit in the last few years, but it also happens more than I would expect.

 

Saturday: storms

We've had a lot of storms recently and Horizon doesn't like them.  He usually hides behind a toilet.  Last night we found him under the sink, but he did seem rather relaxed there when I checked on him.

We also had Lego group tonight, although I'm not sure much was done with Legos tonight.  The kids played outside quite a bit on the trampoline and ghost in the graveyard and the food was delicious.  It was just a really nice night.

Friday: Vox Machina

I've been watching Critical Role's first season, Vox Machina, in which "a bunch of nerdy voice actors get together and play Dungeons and Dragons."  

It is hilarious.  A bit crass sometimes, language I don't love sometimes, but besides that I find myself laughing regularly.  I don't laugh at shows very often, so this has been an interesting experiance.

Today's funny was when the giant couldn't remember if the group was going to "at dawn we fight" or "at dawn we plan".  Everyone else immediately jumped on this with the fact that no one would say "at dawn we plan".  They also suggested a whole bunch of other options: "at dawn we quorum", "at dawn we rise and make a plan", and it continued throughout the rest of the episode.

Wednesday: vindicated

I don't use AI very often.  What tends to happen is I'll try something I think is rather straightforward and it will fail completely.  This leads me to not use it as often.

There are some things I've asked of it that work.

The other day though, I asked it to do something that I thought was very simple.  It needed to look through a table on Wikipedia and return the image URL.  It would not work.  It just made up links that looked very realistic.  

Ben uses AI on a more regular basis, so he gave it a try.  Not because I needed the information anymore, but because I wanted to know what I was doing wrong.  Well, Ben tried pretty hard and couldn't get it.  It turns out that part of the reason was that Wikipedia was blocking the AI generator.

I was rather relieved.  I was glad that it actually didn't work and it wasn't just me.

Tuesday: tired

I've been staying up too late.  Then today was a busy day - I didn't really stop until 9pm and I am exhausted.  I should go to bed but that involves getting ready for bed.