Weekend: unexpected but good

This past weekend ended up being a bit different than expected, but it was still an excellent weekend.

First of all, we had snow.  We didn't get dumped on like a lot of West Michigan, but we had enough to cancel the Saturday night plans.  Joshua's Saturday morning plans almost got canceled too.

Saturday morning Joshua and a friend from school went rock climbing.  They climbed for about an hour and Joshua was an excellent host.

Saturday night Joshua went for a sleepover at Larry and Cheryl's.  (It was a sleepover at Grandma's house, but Grandpa spoiled him more.  I think all it took was Larry telling him he could have as much candy as he wanted.)  The rest of us were supposed to have people over for a game night but, as mentioned, it was canceled.  We still played some games and introduced Isaac to MiB.  (He likes watching movies that aren't appropriate for Joshua yet.)  This one had some gross parts in it and was probably right on the edge of appropriate even for Isaac.

Friday: snow day

The first snow that didn't disappear turned into a snow storm, which in turn provided a snow day today.  It was only going to be a half day, but it did mess up my day a little bit.  In some ways things worked better and in some ways worse.

In the late morning another kid (named Isaac too) came over to play Dominion with Isaac.  I wasn't sure how it'd go after the first five minutes, but by the middle of the first game there was quite a bit of giggling.  They played two games and seemed to have fun.

However, I didn't get my errands done.  I got groceries quickly yesterday after work, but there were several other errands I wanted to do Wednesday that didn't happen.  They still didn't get done and now I've run out of a specific color of thread.  (I know, a serious problem.)

Wednesday: snow and sleepy

We've managed to keep the snow since our first snow fall on Sunday, which is rather odd.  Usually it all melts the same day, but it's stuck around.  It almost disappeared today as we had a sunny afternoon, but enough stayed around that there was still snow.  It was snowing again this evening and I expect there's a decent chance of school being canceled.

I also had to wake Joshua up this morning.  It's odd but happens about once a year.  It usually takes him a bit to get going, but he manages.  Today he did not manage.  For quite a while he was crawling around on the floor because his legs weren't working.  (This is a "chronic condition" that he has, although it hasn't flared up in quite a while.)  Anyway, he seemed to be doing fine by the time he left for school and so I put it out of my mind.

I got a call from the school an hour later.  He didn't have a temperature, but was feeling tired enough that the teacher sent him to the office.  I was in Meijer and had made it through two aisles.  I grabbed some cheese and headed out to pick him up.  Although it disrupted my plans for the day it was still a relatively good day for this to happen.  He rested for a while and then seemed back to his normal self.  I made him rest again after lunch.  He claims he didn't fall asleep, but I'm not sure he would have just laid on the couch for 1.5hours without getting so bored that he'd do something about it.  The goal was to make it rather boring since he wasn't that sick.  (I do think something was a bit off so picking him up from school was the right choice, but staying at home isn't a reward.)

Sunday: first snow

 We had our first snow last night!  It snowed through mid-morning and I was rather surprised at how much stayed.

Saturday: school pictures

I haven't shared school pictures yet because I made Joshua get a retake.  His first one is cute, but not great.  The second one is better, but I do wish he had shown his teeth.  (I think part of the problem is the flash.  The kids hate the flash so I always have it turned off, but then it's hard to deal with for things like this.)

Friday: cats again

The cats were very friendly again today.  Maybe because it's getting cold.

Tornado sat on my lap in the morning.  Then he went into his cat backpack so I took him for a walk.  We went significantly farther than normal...usually we only go to the end of the cul-du-sac (about .1 mi away) but he seemed content so we ended up going .3mi before I turned around.  It was about perfect because his first meow to get out was when we were at the neighbor's house.

Horizon sat on my lap later and then he took a nap with me too.  

Wednesday: falling asleep

Joshua fell asleep on my lap again tonight.  Apparently there was a scary drawing of a witch in the Minecraft book he's reading.

He's currently sleeping in my spot on the bed, unless he's woken up enough to climb the stairs into his bed.  Not being able to put him in his bed was an unexpected problem with a loft.

Tuesday:

Well, another Tuesday's come and gone.  Nothing all that special happened today.  We found out Isaac did well on his ELA interim test, so that was super exciting news.  That's the one he struggles with the most, but he's been working hard at it.  Joshua doesn't like Tuesdays because we wait in the car during Isaac's piano lesson, but this dislike of Tuesdays always surprises me a bit.  He gets some homework done before chore time and then gets quite a bit of screen time.  I took a nap this time.

I finally got all the trash/recycle bins out to the curb.  (Oh, it is a slow news day, isn't it.)  I usually one do it every other week when recycle comes but I missed two weeks ago.  They come at like 7:00am and so if I don't get them out before Ben gets home it's either a lot of work or we miss it.  Surprisingly, it was the trash that filled up this month, mainly because of all the bags from the insulation.

I didn't vote today, but I did mail in my absentee ballot earlier.  So I've been watching the results.  It looks like I'll "win" some and "lose" some.  I can't remember all my different district numbers which makes the state congress significantly less interesting.  

Monday: cats

 The wisdom write-ups came home this weekend.

Joshua saw me taking a photo of his, and so photo-bombed it.

The cats got their flea medicine today, which meant that one of them was shut up in the cat bathroom most of the day.  (Otherwise they clean the medicine off of each other.)  Anyway, it meant that I had a cat following me around most of the day because they weren't able to see each other.

Saturday: insulation

 Phil from church helped me put some more insulation in our attic today.  It wasn't too thin, but there were some paths that needed more and just a little extra everywhere.  He's done this several times and said that it wouldn't take too long, but I didn't really know what that meant.

Anyway, it took a bit to get started.  With purchase of insulation from Lowe's you can rent the blower to put it in the attic, but the hose didn't have the correct attachment.  Well, Phil said no way to that and immediately went back to get the correct attachment.  He had messed around with the hose without the attachment before and said it just doesn't work.  So a little bit of extra time there, but we also didn't have to spend time finding out it didn't work.

After that everything went really, really smoothly!  The new hose also had a remote control, so either of us could turn the machine on or off.  I was in charge of halving the bags and sticking them in the paddle machine.  Most of the time this went well, but there was one bag that had opened up before I got to it and the insultation had expanded too much to go in the machine.  I stuffed it in by handfuls until I could put it in the other way.  And really, if that's what I have to write about it means everything really went well.  We also have some insulation over the garage now.

Friday: moral focus and ice maker

Both boys came home with some moral focus signs for the yard.  They didn't have them last month, so there's been a flood of them this month.  You can elect to send the picture to the school for social media, but since the kids don't have social media accounts I decided it was ok to just take the picture.  After the picture they were free to move the signs anywhere in the yard.

Also, I'd like to talk to day about Horizon's (somewhat) newly-found fascination with the ice maker.  Every time someone gets a drink from the fridge Horizon runs and looks at it.  When it makes a weird sound Horizon runs and looks at it.  It means he stares at this thing often.

Thursday: late Halloween

 I was going to make mummy dogs for Halloween but didn't have any crescent rolls.  I got them yesterday and finally made them.  Joshua especially appreciated the eyes.

Wednesday: vaccine

I received my latest COVID vaccine today.  It went rather smoothly and fast compared to some of them.  My arm is a bit sore, but so far that seems like the worst of it.

I also went for a walk with Cheryl today.  The weather is lovely today (and for the next few days).

Oh, I also got groceries today.  I got the vaccine in the middle of grocery shopping which is one reason it went so smoothly.  I don't have much in the way of grocery adventures any more, other than prices have definitely increased.  There are one or two things I have a hard time finding still, but that's not too bad.  The shelves are mostly stocked like normal.

Monday: take 2

Yesterday I got all my 'required' chores done a bit earlier than expected so I worked on the bathroom a bit more.  The shower is looking a ton better, but I'm still a little unhappy with it.  I'm not sure if I need to scrub more or if I'm just not going get it as clean as I'd like.  We'll see.

I also finished going through all the drawers and cabinets.  I was really surprised at how much is leaving as there doesn't seem to be that much storage space and we still have many things in the cabinets.  There's a little box full of recycle, the large box full of trash, and another large box and large bag that is 'deal with'.  About a third of it is old medicine that needs to be properly disposed of, a third is donation, and a third will move somewhere else in the house.

Monday: Halloween

Last Wednesday we went to Trunk Or Treat at church.  We didn't do anything today, and the kids didn't complain about that.

Isaac went as a wizard with a magic orb.  It would light up and not light up, but it was very hard to see.  Ben went as Isaac's servant to carry the potion bottle/candy holder or orb as the wizard deemed necessary.

Joshua went as Squirtle.  He made a Pokeball candy container where the candy dropped down into a bag.  It worked quite well.

Saturday: walk

Joshua had a sleepover with a friend last night.  It went really well.

This afternoon we went for a walk with Aunt C.  We had originally been planning on doing it without the kids on Wednesday, but it was rainy and wet.  Today was much nicer and it was fun to have the boys along too.  We ran across a story walk that made the walk more interactive.

Thursday: barrels, bare, belay

They put up several barrels on the way to the kids' school last week Wednesday or Thursday bringing a two lane direction down to one lane.  (It's especially annoying because the didn't block the turn lane.  There are two left turn only lanes but one of them runs right into the barrels so it's always a bit of a crazy mess.)  The one lane makes it harder, although not impossible, to make a left turn out of the parking lot as I'm leaving the school.  I've opted to go right several times instead.

Then on Wednesday they put up more barrels, bringing the single lane all the way through the parking lot where I drop off the kids.

Today they extended the barrels farther down the other direction, which doesn't really impact me.

Do you know what hasn't happened though?  Any work that would require so many barrels for so long.  They're messing up my routine for nothing.

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Both of my classes were missing a surprising amount of people today.  Several were sick, but several just didn't show up.  Apparently summary functions (COUNTIF, COUNTIFS, AVERAGEIF, SUMIF) just didn't seem that interesting.  It's too bad, because I use COUNTIF all the time and we had a bunch of good review for ANDs, ORs, and VLOOKUP.  Oh, I'm starting to touch on XLOOKUP too, if anyone cares.  Next semester I need to include it more, but this semester I'm trying to get a start on it.

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I took a belay class at our rock climbing place.  I passed and can now belay anyone, although I expect it'll mainly be my kids.  It was more fun than I was expecting.  I have a feeling that we'll get to know everyone there and I'll be on the floor belaying and I'll have my own equipment and...never actually climb on a rock wall.  Although since the kids are members I could go for mostly free once a month.  We'll see what happens.

Tuesday: rain

It was a lovely rainy afternoon.  Luckily, it was just misting when the kids were waiting to be picked up from school.  Shortly thereafter it started raining harder, so Joshua and I had the nice sounds of rain in the car while Isaac had his piano lesson.

Monday: O:CtH - bathroom

Today as part of Operation: Clean the House I worked on the area that contains the toilet in the master bathroom.  I've been looking at this area for a while, knowing that the window behind the blinds was going to be yucky.  It was yuckier than I thought.  Guess I should clean it more than once every ten years, but we never have a reason to lift those blinds and forget about it.

But!  Now the window is clean, the walls are wiped down, and some of the tricky places to clean on the toilet are all set.  There's still one place on the toilet that I'd like to get a little better, but need to think about different cleaning implements.

After rock climbing the weather was still wonderful and a bunch of leaves had fallen over night so the kids played in the yard for a while.  They made a leaf wall in order to hide from Ben.  It wasn't really all that tall, so I wasn't sure it was going to work...but it did!  I helped Ben find them after a few minutes or it would have taken forever.

Sunday: colors

This fall the trees seem to be especially pretty.  Several people have mentioned it, although no one seems to know if it's real or if we're all just imagining it.

Anyway, I normally notice the trees while I'm driving, so after church I gave the kids my phone to take a few pictures.

Saturday: a best part of the day

One of my favorite parts of some days is when Joshua comes down to give me good night hugs.  (I say some days because it's on days that Ben reads to the kids...otherwise I get the good night hugs upstairs.)

A while ago I started asking four questions.  How are you?  How was your day?  What was a bad part?  What was a good part?  (We don't do best and worst because that is too hard to answer.)  Anyway, in the last month or two Joshua has started asking me the same questions too.  I feel like it's a small step in becoming an actual person to him and not just a person that takes care of him.

Friday: cats

 Joshua forgot to close the garage door when he got the mail, so when I realized it 30 minutes later I closed it.  Of course, this prompted the cats to wait by the door because it was about time for Ben to come home.

So I showed them that no one was there.

Of course, Ben came home about two minutes later. so I had really messed them up.

Ben and Isaac went to play Magic tonight, so I had the only lap available.  Horizon curled up so nicely and then alerted me when they got home by leaving.  He did stay long enough to help me skip my evening snack, so I guess that was nice of him.

Thursday: pretty normal

It was a pretty normal day today.  I taught.  The kids went rock climbing.  I went to karate.  We had risotto with sausage for dinner; it was delicious (and easy).

Wednesday: quilting

I worked with my 4th grade girls on a quilting badge at church tonight.  We only had 1.25 hours, but got pretty far, especially considering some sewing machine issues and the girls having not used a sewing machine before.  I'll finish them up over the next two weeks or so.  I think they had fun and probably learned a little something.

Tuesday: cold

Today it got cold.  The rain made it feel colder.  I got Joshua's winter coat out for tomorrow, although this weekend is supposed to be nice again.

Also, Google put together a 'similar shots'.  It seems as though it's telling me that we have messy floors.

Monday: the day

Today was rather uneventful.  I worked at Kids' Food Basket.  I think half of the people that signed up didn't show, and so I thought we would be working longer than normal.  There were two organizers that were there and so they pitched in and we were done after an hour (instead of the normal hour and a half).  So I'm not really sure how that worked, but it was nice.

I stopped by Joann's to get some thread, but they were completely out.  It was an extra bummer because I ran out of that thread color today and so need to pause until I can get some more.  I don't always run the quilter Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday because the evenings are busy, but I can still be a little annoyed.

The morning was nice and rainy, but it stopped by the time it was time to pick up the kids from school.

I was tired this evening.  I'm not really sure why.

Sunday: Sunday school

Last week Isaac complained that Sunday school was boring; they were learning the same stories that he already knew.  I actually understand this.  It's been hard to find Bibles/devotionals at this point that don't just go over the 'big' stories of the Bible.  Not that they aren't important, but there is so much more to learn.

Anyway, Isaac came to the adult Sunday school today with me.  It's a different format this semester, where there is a short teaching about different ways to pray and then you pray using that method.  Today was focusing on Adoration, so as a practice we put out attributes of God following the alphabet.  Isaac participated!  He had several, but my favorite of his was 'unworried'.  His favorite of mine was 'umbrella'.  I think it'd be an interesting exercise to do with kids because they don't have the standard words that are normally used to describe God as engrained in them and you'd get some unique descriptors.  

Joshua joined at the end because it was going long.  The leader had thought that Q was going to be a problem (it wasn't) but as we were talking about it on the way home Joshua mentioned that 'you are my Q' would have been good.  I was a bit confused at first, thinking he meant queue.  After talking it through I realized he actually meant cue, and it became a good attribute.

Saturday: attic

I needed to measure the amount of insulation in the attic, so I took Isaac up with me.  He really enjoyed seeing it and doing a bit of climbing in the rafters.

He later told me that the whole experience (all fifteen minutes of it) would be a good topic for his personal narrative in writing.  :D

Thursday: rock climbing

Isaac went up several new runs today.  He said he cheated a bit on this one because he was being belayed, but he still got up to the top and it looked like a really hard one.

Joshua went up a run blind-folded.  I had to look twice when I saw it because it looked so funny.  (Actually, I think Isaac did too but I didn't see him do it.)

Wednesday: O:CtH

Today I cleaned the bathroom medicine cabinet as part of Operation: Clean the House.  I got rid of so much stuff!  This is especially amazing because Ben cleaned out the same cabinet a few months ago and got rid of a bunch of stuff too.  Needless to say, the cabinet is rather empty and ready to be refilled with medicine that we won't use again.

I also found eleven toothbrushes and tons of dental floss.  I kept three toothbrushes and a small basket of floss and will get rid of the rest.

Monday: the good, the bad, and the sleepy

Good news: Isaac won first prize in an art competition.  I'm not sure if it was just in his class or in all of the 5th grade, but I do know that he worked really hard on it.  (The theme was peace and he colored a bunch of flags behind an Earth.)  I was really proud of how he managed his time while finishing it.  He had a lot of coloring to do and not a lot of time, but he did a nice job using minutes here and there to finish.

Bad news: After school Joshua complained that he had a headache for most of the day.  I guess that using my mom intuition I had him check his temperature before giving him some medicine and surprise surprise, he had a low fever.  So he's home tomorrow.  Luckily, I guess, I have the day off.

The sleepy: Horizon settled in my lap this evening and hasn't moved.  It's rather surprising because he usually likes Ben better.  Furthermore, I usually move to much as I quilt and it disturbs the cats.  I even moved him on the chair when I went upstairs for a drink and then moved him back on my lap and he re-settled.  He's nice and warm.

Saturday: a nice day

Today was a lovely day, possibly because I didn't do much work.  I worked on my puzzle, did a Lego set with Ben, took a nap, and we went out to dinner with Cheryl. 

Friday: threads

Horizon surprisingly decided to sit on my lap most of the evening.  He ended up covered in threads.

Thursday: rock climbing

The rock climbing place had a competition over the weekend, so all the rock walls had been changed around.  Isaac said he spent a while figuring out this pink one.  Joshua, not pictured, spent most of the time in an obstacle course.  They were both enjoying it though, so that's what matters.

Wednesday: wisdom

Isaac and Joshua both received the award for wisdom as it was last month's moral focus.  (Two or three students per class get an award each month for the past month's focus.)

Tuesday: milestone

We're now paying more in principal than in interest on our house mortgage!  A milestone!