Friday: blizzard

 The blizzard did show up!  For most of the day we couldn't see the houses on the other side of the lake.  There were a few times we could faintly see them, but they stayed hidden most of the time.  (This is my measurement of how bad the weather is.)  There were still birds at our bird feeder throughout the day; they were taking shelter under the deck.  The wind was not strong enough to blow the bird food out of the bird feeder.  Oddly, I've seen several news articles talking about places that are closed today.  I really think it should be what places are open because it seemed like everything shut down.

We decided to open our Christmas presents today.  I got a whole bunch!

Around 3:30pm I put the measuring stick right outside the door.  Now, I put it right in the middle of the drift, so it is not that deep everywhere.  (In fact, there is still part of the front walk that is clear.)  It read about 28.5" and by 9:30pm it was over 30".  Joshua thinks it'll be over the stick by tomorrow morning, but I'm estimating 33".  It should probably be noted that we had snow before the blizzard too.  I bet there was at least 12" right there, if not a little more.

We all liked looking outside to see what the weather was doing.

So did the cats, even though Tornado also curled up in between.

Honestly, it was a lovely day!

Thursday: getting ready

Today was a day of getting ready.

I woke up to a message from the Christmas Ruiners.  They like to hide around the main area and somehow ruin Christmas.  Not really sure how.  They're similar to how Christmas Magic moves the Nativity animals every night, but Isaac moves them instead of the magic.  Apparently there was one that I was supposed to find and have missed for several days.

It continued with 1.5 bags of potatoes turning into mashed potatoes.  I had peeled them last night, but then realized that I really, really would regret it if I tried cooking all of them in the instapot at once.  So I did it in two batches and it took longer than I was expecting.  I really feel like the name instapot is a misnomer as it is far from instant.  But they didn't get done too late and I sent a very full crockpot of potatoes to work with Ben.  Now.  During previous potlucks most of the food I make comes home.  I don't mind this at all and since I only make food that I like it works well.  So I was planning on bringing half the potatoes with us to another party.  However, much to my surprise, they were all gone!  So I need to rethink that plan and remember, for better or worse, that mashed potatoes are good at Gentex potlucks.

The morning passed.  Joshua and I have been giving each other a lot of massages, enough that we got a library book to learn some new methods.  (Side note, we got it from the main library because that's were we were.  The librarians were helpful, but not as helpful as my wonderful north side librarians.)  I also put out more bird and squirrel food due to the upcoming blizzard.  While I was coming back inside, Horizon escaped.  This was a big surprise, since he's never the one that escapes.  I let him escape as about four inches away from the house there is a hill of snow that I didn't think he'd be interested in getting over.  About thirty seconds later Tornado followed.  Tornado quickly realized it was not fun and went back inside.  Horizon tried going over the hill and, as expected, turned around and came back inside.

Next it was time for errands!  We met a friend at Anna's House, and she gave the boys a large gift certificate to B&N.  It was quite unexpected.  We headed to rock climbing, and stayed a bit longer than normal.  Joshua and one of the kids' instructors were trying to balance a stuffed rat on their head while climbing...apparently it'll be a new challenge for the kids' group.

We got gas next, including gas for the snow blower.  The boys twisted my arm and we went through the car wash too.  We stopped by the library to pick up a hold, and then to B&N.  We got a new game.  I called our game expert about two games.  We decided on one, but Joshua was adamant that he didn't want it so we went with the other.  We played most of it before dinner and I think it was a good choice. 

Right as we were finishing our errands and pulling into the driveway we saw five snowflakes.  The blizzard was starting!  For those of you not in West Michigan, we are supposed to get 10-20" with high winds Friday and Saturday.  The snow didn't start quite as early as it was supposed to, but by 4pm when the blizzard was supposed to start hitting it was snowing well.  The flakes were small though so there wasn't much accumulation.  I was thinking about snow blowing after dinner but decided not to.  I did look about an hour ago though and there is obviously more snow, so it must have gotten a bit worse.  Everything is shut down tomorrow, so I really hope there's a good storm with no power outages.

Wednesday: first day of break

Well, I only heard that the kids were bored several times today. :p  To be fair, there wasn't much going on this morning anyway.

This afternoon we had stuff to do at least.  We went rock climbing, then I dropped Isaac off to play Dominion while Joshua and I did some errands.  We stopped by the main library and there is a turtle there.  Joshua mentioned that the turtle was following him and I didn't think much of it.  But then Joshua kept walking around the tank and the turtle kept following him...it was not a coincidence!  It turns out that the turtle is getting some medicine on it's shell and it has made the turtle follow all people hoping to get his medicine.

Tuesday: the details

This morning I picked up a food compost bag.  The county takes food scraps for composting and since the worms do the best with fruits and veggies I wanted to give it a try.  We also have a lot of food that needs to be discarded from food boxes we got during the pandemic.  We're just not going to eat it at this point.

The grocery store was rather busy.  Still no mint extract, but everything else was there.

I've found the best way to keep my toes warm during piano lessons is to use my gloves.  They stay warm enough while not getting too hot.

Today was the kids' last day of school!  Isaac had a party and said he had too much sugar, and he came home with a bag of treats.  

Monday: grading, O:CtH

Grades have been entered!  It took me most of the morning to finish up, but I'm now done for a while!

I also cleaned the toaster oven corner of the kitchen.  I started last night, when it was *obviously* the best option of things for me to be doing.  Anyway, it really needed to be cleaned.  I wouldn't really call it clean now, but it is still so, so much better than it was.  I got a lot of the brown cooking residue off the door.  I don't know how to clean up the outside though...I tried a few cleaners and none seemed to work.  So I guess I'll just leave it for now.  

Sunday: low key, sort of

Isaac was kind-of feeling better today, but it's been a weird weekend.  He's developed a cough.  There was no elevated temperature, but there was a bit of a headache.  And he was a lump all morning.  That alone pretty much tells me something is wrong, but nothing hurts.  I'm voting for a bad cold and hoping to send him to school tomorrow.

Joshua was feeling fine (and was very helpful when Isaac needed something).  He made some castles on the couch that he was proud of.  He joined Ben in a Christmas party this evening and it sounded like they both had fun. 

Grading update: it's moving along!  I was woken up early due to Isaac's cough and got a bit more grading done today than expected.  I had been thinking about going to the library tomorrow to work, but right now I think I'm 'close enough' that I can not be too distracted at home.

Saturday: more grading

I wasn't really planning on grading over the weekend, but then I looked at all the stuff I'm supposed to do (work and home-wise) and decided I should do some.  I got a little farther down the list.

Isaac had a low, low fever in the morning and in the evening.  He was doing ok for most of the day though.

It snowed a nice amount today!  I got the snow blower out for the first time of the season and surprisingly didn't have to ask Ben to help me with it.  Usually I can't remember were all the knobs are supposed to go the first time but I got it!  I was oddly proud of myself.

Friday: still grading

I had both my exams today.  The day didn't drag quite as much as I was expecting though, so that was pleasant.  I had two students show up late but not too late and since I knew a different class wasn't coming early for the next exam I still let them have the whole two hours.  Really, I could grade in the classroom or grade in my office, so it was easy enough to do.

During the second exam I got an email from Isaac's teacher that he wasn't feeling well.  There was no fever so he could stay at school, but was looking miserable.  Ben had meetings all day so I tried my other options first.  Aunt C was able to bring him home and he was just snuggled in bed when I got there.  I was rather proud of how he dealt with it, honestly.  It was a weird sickness...no fever, but he was acting like he should have had one.  He finally complained about a headache so I gave him medicine for that.  He perked up a bit after that, but was never 100% and wasn't hungry.

We called off our evening plans.  We didn't need to participate in them so it wasn't a big deal.  The boys played Zelda with Ben and I - you guessed it - graded.  I'm finished with the non-final exam stuff and 1/8 through the final exam.

Thursday: still grading

I did a little grading this morning, then a few things around the house that needed to be done.  I had lunch with co-workers and then was planning on getting a lot of grading done.  However, people actually came to my office hours for some help!  It doesn't happen very often, probably because there are student-run help sessions at better times, so I was oddly excited.  I didn't get the grading done that I was hoping to get done, but there's still plenty of time.

We went to rock climbing after school.  Isaac had a great time because there were a bunch of new routes, but Joshua had a hard time for some reason.  He was in a mood.  At the end he bought himself a cookie and it helped a lot.

Karate was fine.  We worked on forms for the first part, which I enjoy.  Then self-defense, which I don't enjoy.  I understand it's important, but I just don't enjoy it.  At the very end there were a few minutes of dodgeball and it seemed like none of the kids actually went out when they got hit.  It made me more annoyed than it probably should have.

It was pizza pick-up at work today too; they have fun signs.

Wednesday: yesterday

On the way home from piano, Isaac and I were discussing what to have for dinner.  It had to be a little easy because I had karate later that night.  He said fish sticks sounded good, but those don't work for the whole family.  Then I thought we could have scrambled eggs, because that's his skip meal and he could have the fish sticks.

But!  Only if we had at least five eggs.  I was pretty sure we had used at least six, but I wasn't sure if we had used six, seven, or more.

When we got home I sent Isaac to check.  A bit later, after he was taking way too long to find out, I looked.  We had four normal eggs and suddenly there was a purple egg too.

We had scrambled eggs for dinner.

Monday: stuff from school, cats

 Isaac brought this home from school and I couldn't love it more.  I should probably frame it.  Not only does it say nice stuff, he said that it was easy to write and fill up all the lines.  I know he often struggles with writing enough so this made me especially happy.

Joshua came home with this gem!  "I am thankful for my 2nd grad teacher 'cus she is the best teacher in the multi-verse."

I was trying to take a few pictures of a quilt, but right after I put it down Horizon got on it.

Of course, he sent a cat-gram to his brother so he would come up the stairs to investigate right at that moment.

I dumped Horizon in the bedroom just in time for Tornado to sit in the middle.

I dumped him in the bedroom too and finally got my pictures. It turned out pretty nicely...I had so many dumb problems with this one though!  It should have been done about three months ago but I kept having to make giant fixes.

The weekend

 Ben and Joshua finished their Bowser.  Joshua is bringing it to school for show and tell tomorrow and is so excited.

We got a big box (because it's that time of year) and so yesterday I had a pet box for most of the day.  The pet box produced an egg.  It all got to be a bit much for me, but at the same time I could mostly pet the box and give instructions to the kids as to my desires for the box and it would happen.

Friday: the normal

I wasn't planning on writing a post tonight.  But then I was looking through the old posts and realize how many little things I forget.  (I was mainly trying to figure out what little stories I need to tell Joshua about when he was younger, because he has been bringing up Isaac putting an apple on his head and forgetting about it.  I've decided on the wall, because I think I've mentioned it to him a few times.  He ended up being ok with his door open.)

Ok, so the little things.  I told the boys it was going to snow out today and Isaac elected to bring boots and Joshua didn't.  Isaac enjoyed first recess, but it got his hat all wet and so he didn't enjoy second recess as much.

I had lunch with Betsy, and we went to Buffalo Wild Wings.  I got the lemon pepper (sauce) boneless chicken and it was an excellent choice.  I also stopped at the library.  A few weeks ago Joshua told me he likes chapter books with colored pictures.  There aren't many of those, although graphic novels work too.  I remember going through this with Isaac a few years ago too, so I'm going to hope that Joshua's just in the same place.  And in the meantime the librarian and I will try to cater to his desires.

We had Jets for dinner.  I tried the text to order because I could get a 20% off coupon, but it really was terrible.  I copied and pasted our normal order from the website into the text and it missed a pizza topping and the breadsticks.  I rated it 4/10, just because of the coupon.

We played Quadropolis tonight.  Joshua managed to win.  The game he played seemed to be somewhat different than the game everyone else played.  His strategy was to remain as the mayor and get a lot of apartments and retail locations, but it worked.  I didn't think it would.

Thursday: o

For dinner we were having taquitos and potatoes, so I also made apple-os because it made me smile.

Today was the last day of classes.  I don't love final review day.  We reviewed as a class for a bit and then I had some review for them to work on on their own.  The students that should have stayed longer left right away* and the students that didn't really need to stay stayed.  The first class actually had a bunch of questions and the TA and I were busy for a lot of the time, and then in the second class everyone left 20 minutes before normal.

*The final exam isn't until next Friday though, so in some ways I get it...it might be more beneficial to study closer to the exam time.

Tuesday

Oh, today was fine.  Nothing really went wrong, but nothing was fun either.

I feel like I need a detail about the day to at least make this a worthwhile post. 

I'm working on a boring quilt.  I'm not sure why this one isn't interesting to me, but it's a bit of a slog.  I'll have some interesting sashing and I've been able to work on that just a little bit.  I do have to make 180 of the same subunit, but that's rather normal in a quilt.  The subunits are then going into 30 blocks, and all the blocks are the same.  It is different from what I normally do, but not that much.  Oh well.  I'll keep working away at it.

 

Monday: O:CtH

I did a drawer and a cabinet today!  It seems like a small amount, but at the same time there's always other stuff that needs to be done too.  These were also the worst two spots by far, so I'm excited.

The outside of the lazy susan was surprisingly dirty too.  I kept thinking I had gotten all the spots, but then I'd move my head and find more.

Isaac looked pretty amazing during rock climbing today too.

Saturday: overheard

Setting: Isaac and Joshua are playing a game of make-believe in the basement.  It is important to note that this is Joshua's character talking to Isaac's character.

Joshua: I have a note of encouragement for you.  

Joshua: "I hope you are doomed!!!"

Isaac, deadpan: I don't think that's encouragement.

Friday: blood donation

 I gave blood today.  The donation went so, so much better than it has the last several months.  I did *actually* do a good job of drinking enough water, so I'm hoping that was the reason.  I've tried in the past donations to drink enough, but this time I drank even more.  We'll see in January if it goes well again.  

Anyway, I was a bit worried when they poked my finger for the iron test because the blood did not want to come out.  (If you recall, the last blood donation was barely eligible because we were having a hard time getting the blood to come out of me.)  Anyway, they got the needle in my arm easily and I finished in six minutes, which was record time. Woot woot!

Thursday: bananas

 I got these bananas last Monday.  They were green, but they tend to ripen within two-three days.

It's now been ten days and they still aren't ripe enough to eat.  I'm annoyed.

Tuesday: the worst

I hate final exams on Fridays.  This semester I have two.

Monday: Back to it

The day started out early, as I volunteered to be up in case our 6-9am delivery showed up in the 6-7:30am slot.  (It showed up at about 7:40, which was an ideal time.)  Anyway, Joshua was a bit crazy in the morning at one point only walking backwards.  It caused him to trip into the laundry basket, and then we had to recreate the whole scene for some pictures.

I felt as though I got a surprising amount done today...I just kept working through the list.  As normal, several items only took 5-10 minutes.  I can't, or don't want to, do them when I think of them though.  It works for me.  I did start O:CtH - kitchen.  There were two drawers/cupboards that I was thinking about tackling first.  Then I ended up in a completely different one as I couldn't fit stuff in it this weekend.

Before:

During:

After:

I remember doing this not that long ago: empty or stale chip bags seem to pile up on us fairly easily.  Hopefully it'll last a while though.

Sunday

 Joshua made a Christmas tree with presents during church.

We also went to Red Rock for Ben's birthday dinner.  I had a pesto-sausage-mushroom-feta pizza and it was delicious!

Saturday: Happy Birthday!

It was Ben's birthday today!  It really was a pretty normal, but very nice, day.  We did some work, put together some Lego sets, played a game, and had some screen time.

Joshua made a cute dragon.  It rolls up into a ball, although that's not pictured.

Yesterday I hurt my hand a bit while moving a TV.  I took on something that was just a little too much for me: getting the TV off the mount.  I was a little too short and a little too weak.  (Yes, Ben said we could wait for someone to come help but I wanted to get it done and thought I could.)  Anyway, yesterday my hand was rather sore.  Today it is bruised, although it doesn't hurt nearly as much.

Also, Joshua liked that Tornado was giving Horizon a hug and wanted a picture.

Friday: busy day

Today was surprisingly busy.  Not with bad stuff, but weird stuff.  Joshua played at a friend's house and so I transported him for that.  Ben sold our TV to Jamie so a lot of the day was dealing with getting packaging ready and taking it off the wall and then he went to Jamie's to help put it back up.

Isaac made a stop motion:

Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving

We had a relaxing morning: we looked through a box of used Lego pieces, played a game, and hung out together.  I guess I should say it was mostly relaxing: it felt like the kids were bouncing off the walls and wrestling and talking in outside voices a lot.

We went to Larry and Cheryl's for Thanksgiving and it was delicious.  I ended up carving the turkey.  It was my first time ever carving.  I'm not sure I did a great job, but I did get enough meat off for everyone to eat and some leftovers.  A few other people picked away at it after dinner to get some of the last pieces of meat.  So now there's one less thing in my life to 'fear' as I have conquered carving the turkey.  (Still up, actually making the turkey.  I'm happy to wait a long time for that one.)

After dinner we talked and played a game and it was nice just being with everyone.

Wednesday: finished!

I'm declaring the master bathroom finished!  I had been hoping to finish about a week ago, but sickness and snow days got in the way.  Luckily there's no real timeline, so it didn't matter at all.  Today all I had to do was add some paint to the trim by the window.  None of my sticky things to protect the wall paint would stick though; it was pretty weird.  The painter's tape, a sticky note, wall tape all just lost stick as soon as I tried to apply them.  I decided that since it was a really short area I was trying to apply it to I'd just be really careful.  (This isn't a foreshadow.  It really was fine.)  However, since I had the blinds open Tornado decided he needed to look out the window and managed to get three feet in the wet paint.  He was not happy with me as I cleaned him up.  Besides that, everything went smoothly though.

From the outside, not a lot looks all that different.  I changed the color of the hand towels for more contrast.  The lights are dusted and the hanging origami removed.  The biggest changes are in the drawers and cabinets and you don't really need to see all that.

Before:

After:

Next is the kitchen.  A year ago when I started this project I didn't think the kitchen needed much work but I was wrong.  It needs a lot of work.  However, it is also full of cabinets and drawers so it's easy to do one or two of them at a time.

In other news, the kids had a half day so we started putting up Christmas decorations.  I helped a little bit, but was curious to see how much they could do by themselves.  (I have a picture of Isaac, but Joshua was the one that actually did more work.)

Tuesday: double take

I recently got a Shutterfly order and put this picture from our Alaska trip on the counter until it gets in a frame.  I've done so many double takes wondering why there's a flier for ...something...life insurance perhaps...on the counter.

The day was rather boring.  Classes were a bit sparse since it is two days before Thanksgiving.  (I have plenty of thoughts on that, but I won't talk about them here.)  It turned out to be a rather short lecture with a lot of practice time, so I suppose it was possibly a good day to skip.

Monday: the day

I got all the things done that I wanted to get done today!  It was a bit surprising!  Meijer was rather busy, but I didn't have too many things that I needed to get.  Paint took a while...I was hoping that since it was just white paint for trim the worker would show me were it is.  The can I had was really old, so he ended up making a match instead.  

I also got some cat food and picked up a cat toy while at the store.  The cats like this toy; all the shiny things are off the old ones.  Well, I had it in the bag with the paint.  They always search through the bags a little bit and they found the toy.  And then they had the audacity to take it out of the bag and start playing with it before I gave it to them!

I'm also trying to not kill my strawberry plant this winter.  It's a low bar, I'm just trying to not kill it.  It's in the laundry room up high.  We don't have any good places that get natural light that the cats don't get to, but the kids forget to turn this light off enough that I thought it might work.  It also gets a cup or two of water a week, when I remember.  Anyway, imagine my surprise today when I saw some flowers!  I don't know if strawberries will actually grow because there are no pollinators, but we'll see what happens.