a while ago: New Year's Eve

 Ah, New Year's Eve: 12.31.23  I keep thinking we'll run out of fun dates and then more show up.  I guess we'll run out of fun dates at some point, but then you just need to be a little more creative to get more.

We went rock climbing.  I thought the place opened at 10am, but it was actually noon.  It wasn't too big of a deal in the end though.

Evelyn and Dad bonded.  I'm not sure what they were talking about, but they looked cute.  JJ and Isaac played Dominion with me.  They even played twice during the day!

We rang in the New Year around 9pm with a ball drop (from a few years ago, but don't tell anyone that.)  The kids were pretty disappointed in the ball drop.

Cheers!

a while ago: Christmas

Merry Christmas!  It was a busy day and I didn't quite have the energy to blog when we got home.  Busy, but very fun.

Well, expect that I had to yell at the Baby Ruiners.  All the animals had finally found baby Jesus, as they were supposed to.  But then the Baby Ruiners stole him away!  That isn't how Jesus works!  Jesus is for everyone...Ruiners, SMTWRFSs, and animals alike.  We got them all together to worship.

We spent the morning at home.  I'll be honest, I can't remember what we did but my guess would be playing games and Legos and food prep.  We went over to Larry and Cheryl's for a late brunch (yum) and then opened presents.

They once again managed to get me my most unexpected present: a large canvas of me at the black belt ceremony.  (I haven't hung it up yet because it's still Christmas break, but we've figured out where it's going.)

Joshua's present theme was Minecraft, and he loved it.

a while ago: Christmas Eve

 After church, I split up the presents and the kids realized they were split even/odd.  They then had to do a small scavenger hunt to figure out that Isaac had evens and Joshua had odds.

The pictures are really in order, but it still works.

I received Minecraft as a gift so that I can play with the rest of the family.  Joshua made me a cute Minecraft bee.

The Ruiner babies showed up.  Along with some Ruiner Toddlers: bigger, but still only one eye.

Ben got several card sleeves with personalized artwork.  One was both to Dad and from Dad, because it had a picture of his Lego castle on it.  Isaac made some abstract art.

Joshua packed his box, a Lego wizard, in several other boxes with messages on them, such as "No returns" and "I am a box."

The cats didn't get anything this year, so we let them play with the tissue paper.  They probably enjoyed it more than any other gift.

Thursday: Space Base

Today had ups and downs.

Isaac and I played Space Base.  I won, but Isaac put up a good fight at the very end.

I read on the couch with Joshua.  I was excited that 1) he decided to read for fun and 2) I got to read next to him.

Joshua volunteered to play Space Base later in the afternoon.  Isaac and I were very excited about this, as our game preferences don't always align.  I won again, but Isaac had an awesome board with a bunch of left/right arrows.  Joshua was slightly playing his own game, but I was happy he was participating.

The boys were wrestling and bonked heads really hard.  They were both very sad/mad about it afterwards.

Isaac finished his cat from library clay.  The librarian made a huge deal about it and commented about so many of the little details.

Rock climbing went well.  I tossed a sock ball with Joshua and Isaac had team.  Isaac had a good time.

I brought Joshua to piano lessons, only to realize that there were no lessons this week.  Oops.  It meant I was a bit late to karate, but that wasn't a huge deal.  The karate schedule had also changed without me realizing it, but for the most part that just means it ends after forty-five minutes instead of sixty.  This will probably make things work out a little bit better overall.

Wednesday: fails?

Well, today we won some and we lost some.

Dad came over to help with our circuit breaker.  The owners before us did the basement improperly and while we've been fine we should be safer.

Fail: the first trip to Lowes I got the wrong breakers.
Win: the second trip I got the correct breakers and we were done within the time limit.

After snack time we were going to go rock climbing, but it was a fail: the gear was in Ben's car, and he went back to work today.

So we did some other errands.  We failed at Staples, but I was at least able to get a better feel for what I was looking for.

We won at the library!  Our favorite librarian was there, Joshua found a bunch of books he wanted to read, and Isaac got an interesting take-home art project.

We also won at the UPS store, but there isn't anything interesting to say about that.

Both boys were a little bored today, but both of them managed to find something to do so that was a win too.

Tuesday: home

Ben decided to take another day off of work today.  I thought it was a lovely choice.  We were able to finish Isaac's new game, work on some Lego sets, and both boys started a new video game.  It was relaxing.

Around 10:30, while raiding in WoW, we heard a door close upstairs and footsteps start to come down the stairs.  Joshua woke up enough to come find me, climb in my lap, and fall right back asleep.  Now, I absolutely love the cuddles.  At the same time, I feel like he could have just turned over in his own bed.  He's been doing this a bit more often for some reason, but it hasn't been a problem so I'm just enjoying it.

Saturday: Christmas 2

 Dad and Pat brought breakfast over in the morning.  While that didn't really start our day, it was a delicious part of the day.  We slowly got ready and went to walk downtown.  Joshua was not excited about going because he was having so much fun playing with his cousins, but none of them had a choice.  

We enjoyed a few stores, and then decided to get some pictures in some big wooden shoes.  But.  But.  The children were having a hard time deciding who should stand where and in the process almost knocked over several delft pieces.  The kids are all smiles, but the adults' hearts were all racing.

We walked down to Cakabakary to get a birthday treat for the 12 year old.

After lunch we opened presents!  There were lovely and thoughtful gifts all around.  Dad and Pat got the largest presents, which seemed appropriate but abnormal.

Pizza for dinner and then a small celebration for Isaac.  (His main celebration is in June.)

Friday: arrival

We spent the morning cleaning.  While I did spend most of the morning getting ready, I also feel like it wasn't as stressful as normal.  The rest of the family helped out with a lot of the chores.  Joshua cleaned a bathroom for the first time and did a great job.  I had also given the kids a chore list, like normal, but then their last chore was to help mom for 400 minutes.  They both wondered why the number 400 and I told them it was easier to need them for less time to give them a "present" than need them for longer and have them "complain".  Honestly, it worked well because Joshua was very willing to help out with some of the little tasks that popped up near the end.

Aunt C came over for the afternoon.  Horizon followed her around for a while because she is his favorite person.

We mostly just hung out for the rest of the day.  The kids mostly did their own thing.  Joshua had made a puzzle this summer for just this occasion and it was put together.

We played a game of Can't Stop and Ben stole the win from Isaac so I was able to win!

We watched a movie after the younger kids went to bed and surprisingly no one fell asleep!  Liz and I were close, but the movie was interesting enough that we stayed awake.

Thursday: they're almost here!

They're almost here!  There is excitement in the house as we wait for our guests.  I've also been making the family help with more of the chores than normal because...they can.  I almost feel mean, but they need to know how to do these life skills, including bringing things from the banister to the basement, so I don't actually feel mean.  

I had a nice day.  It felt productive but I was also able to work on my Lego set and finish up a game and take a nap.  Isaac finished a route at rock climbing that he's been working on for a long time and therefore said that practice was "amazing" today.  Joshua probably had a bit of a boring day, but we did make some items from one of his Christmas gifts and he entertained himself well.

The video is a bit quiet.  Joshua has been playing with this gift a lot more than I expected.

Wednesday: date night

The kids went to Cheryl's house for the evening.  Ben and I had a nice time together.  We read together, played a game of Dominion, had a good dinner, and worked on some Lego sets together.

Tornado sat on a donut pillow...Ben said he has good taste.

Tuesday: feels like Saturday

Today we did quite a bit of work, but we played hard too.  We put away the presents, started cleaning the guest room (which was the present wrapping room), and the main area.  

I continued working on my Lego set, although Tornado fully stole my seat while I was helping Ben look for a piece.

We played Joshua's new Christmas game, The Isle of Cats.  The first step is to have your cat sit in the top of the box.

The kids went rock climbing, and although the gym was pretty busy it wasn't too busy.  After we got back we watched a video on the rules for Apiary.  It was a half hour long!  But...once we got started with the game it is going pretty straightforward.  

Friday: last day of school

It was the last day of school before break!

The Christmas Ruiners and SMTWRFSs put their jail keepers in the jail.  To be honest though, they weren't very good jail keepers.

The SMTWRFSs were no where to be seen, but the baby Ruiners were swimming in a dangerous location.  I found the normal Ruiners all over the place thoughout the day.  I also think I had one in my hood all day and didn't realize it until about 5pm, but am really quite unsure if that actually was what happened.

It was cooking day.  I dropped a lot on the floor.  Most of it was small, easy to clean items, but I was disappointed that I also dropped an egg.

Tornado was very cuddly.

Isaac and I went downtown to pick up some candy and pizzas.  We had the candy and I was looking at my phone to figure out where the pizza place was.  It looked...right across the street.  Yup.  When I looked up and actually looked for it it was right in front of us.  We had a good laugh about it.

Last Sunday: piano recital

Joshua had his first piano recital last Sunday.

Thursday: presents and testing

I made-up my black belt recertification today.  It was supposed to be last Thursday, but instead I had a crazy evening.  Anyway, Mrs. Galli said I was doing a great job!  It was nice to hear.  There were a few very small things to adjust going forward, but that is how it should be.

I finished Christmas wrapping today!  Then 30 minutes later another present showed up at the front door.  Then I remembered two more presents that needed to be wrapped.  This evening I bought another one.  So...I'm once again not finished.  This is how it's going to go this year though, since there were some late arrivals scheduled.

I got to squish Joshua's face today.

Wednesday: legacy

 First off, the sound mufflers that we got Joshua seemed to work great.  He came home saying they worked well and he was in a much better mood.  The class might have been less loud too, but we'll take the win.

I thought I was reasonably close to being done with wrapping presents, only to find another stash.  Oh well.  What I have been doing is writing numbers on the To: part of the present instead of Isaac or Joshua's name.  This is a throwback to when Mom would use a code.  Or, one notable year, when she didn't put names on at all!  We opened a present and figured out whose it was.  Isaac has been most intrigued, trying to figure out a reasoning behind the numbers.  (This is extra hard when he doesn't know which ones go to which person.)

Tuesday: more things

 Ahh... a day that felt back to normal.  I worked down my to-do list and checked things off.

But let's start at the beginning.  I woke up and the Christmas Ruiners had hidden a present and were around the Christmas tree listening to "Rockin' Round he Christmas Tree."

The Mother Christmas Ruiner had been locked up in Joshua's lockbox, but escaped.  Probably because Joshua had the key.

Joshua had a bad day at school.  His teacher was out and will be out for the rest of the week.  I think it's a rather loud class, and my guess is that the sub isn't able to control them as well as the teacher.  So he came out of school sad to not have a teacher and annoyed because it was so loud.  I ordered a pair of noise-canceling ear covers.  (Like headphones, but they won't connect to a computer)  Amazon is apparently overnighting them and if we're lucky they'll be on the porch when we wake up.  I usually don't get the next day delivery, but Meijer and Target didn't really have what I wanted.

During the raid tonight everyone was told to wear festive costumes.  But since I heal in tree form, I couldn't see my festive costume.  So they gave me the star marker and rainbow lights instead.  They also changed the guild banner to a tree.

Monday: all the things

It was a whirlwind of a day, but lovely in the end.

The SMTWRFSs were in a line towards the Christmas tree.  Since they weren't doing anything wrong (yet), I let them stay.  The Christmas Ruiner below keeps having more babies, so tonight she's locked up in Joshua's lock box.  But Joshua has the key, so I don't know if it'll work.  Even more worrisome, the babies are starting to grow into kids.

Horizon was being cute.

This morning I went to help Cheryl clean her basement.  My job was to move things from one place to another and it was a great way to get my exercise.

Then I had lunch with Betsy.  I tried the special, gingerbread French toast.  It was good but not great.  Well, conversation was great.  The food was good.

After a nap, Elizabeth came over and we worked on a puzzle.  I was very social today!

During this whole time, it was snowing out.  Not accumulating much, but it was windy.  I saw so many emergency vehicles - almost one every time I went out.  I didn't think the roads were too bad, but I do have winter tires on.

I found out that talking physics with Isaac and making dinner is not a good combination.  I can't concentrate on both at the same time and messed everything up.  I was able to salvage dinner, but Ben came home as I was trying to do so, asked if he could help, and I just said, "Hope".  I meant to say something else less profound with more words, but there's already so much multi-tasking with dinner that nothing else came out.

Saturday: things

 The Christmas Ruiner babies showed back up.  I tried to put them in to-be-sorted, but they came back with a sign that said I had to keep them.

We finally went to get our COVID boosters today.  We were told that insurance denied the shot for the kids - apparently they're supposed to get them at the doctor's office.  However, a few months ago we were told that the doctor's office wouldn't have the shot for the kids.  So this sounds fun.  Hopefully the doctor's office is stocking the kids' version now.  I don't understand why this is a thing.

My upper arm is slightly sore but not too bad.

Grading is progressing well.  Kitchen cleaning, on the other hand, is not.

Thursday: math

Joshua's class has been doing a lot of measuring lately and his teacher has been sending a lot of pictures.  It's been fun to see.

Wednesday: stuff I find interesting

 Dec 13 is Ear Day.  What is Ear Day you ask?  It's when the kids' ears are most delicious and so I try to eat them.  I also make chocolate ears to eat since the kids don't let me eat theirs.  How did this start?  A year or two ago it came up as a silly conversation, and so now we have an ear day.

I haven't had a nap the last two days so both kids hoped that I got one today and Isaac even put Giraffe next to Grey Bear so I could nap with both.  I did have a nap and it was a very good one.

My advent calendar today and two surprises.  First, all the baby Ruiners tried to make themselves a gift by going in one of the already opened days.  Aren't they cute.  The day I opened today told me to open half of another square.  Half!?  I opened half of the bottom left one and there is just a piece of paper that says "hahahaha" on it.

We were working on a harder version of a boss tonight in WoW and the raid leader said, "If we all just stay alive, we've got this."  Yeah.  I mean, he's not wrong.  

Tuesday: a good end

 The day was a bit weird.  Not terrible or even bad, but different than I had expected.

Ben and I raided tonight in WoW.  It was a really good raid and we were clearing content really quickly.  We had just killed the penultimate boss when a dead person said, "I can rez here, right?"  Someone else said yes but a breath later I processed the question and said, "No no you don't want to do that no!"  (Which since I don't talk much probably surprised the whole raid.)

Anyway, for the next ten minutes I was in tears laughing.  Two weeks ago I did the same thing and felt every single emotion that the other person did.  "Oh, I'll take this portal."  "Oh, I am still in the same place."  "Oh, I'll fly to the right spot." "Oh, I can't find it."  "Ok, I'll die and then go to the right spot."  "Nope, that didn't work either."  "Maybe I'll leave the raid and come back tomorrow."  I couldn't stop laughing and Ben just kept turning on his push-to-talk to let the whole raid hear it.  I do think that it brought appropriate attention to how hard it is to find the right path and so people went to go find him.

Monday: Moodle, day 2

Long story short, Moodle came back on-line today around 2pm.  They reverted back to a save from Sunday at 7am, and that caught a lot of stuff.  At least, it seemed to catch almost all of my stuff.  The final exam was a bit annoying because everyone had to email me their files instead of uploading them, but it is workable.  

I also almost couldn't find the printed version of the final exam.  A student worker had been tasked with bringing it to my office and put it in a different, although connected, room.

I was tired while making dinner.  Isaac kept trying to get me to do some exercises to wake me up and I finally told him I just wanted to complain about it.

I have a lot of grading to do in the coming week, but I feel like it is a normal amount for the end of a semester.  There is one assignment that needs to be graded, a few miscellaneous items, and then the final.  I'm hoping that I can steadily work away at it and it won't be too big of a deal.

Well, I guess that's all for now.

Sunday: Moodle and Christmas Ruiners

There were two surprises today.  First is that Moodle, the website for organizing class stuff, was down today.  It's been down since at least noon, and it is still down.  Normally this would be a minor problem, but it is exam week this coming week and students can't access material they need.  I have the first exam slot tomorrow!  I had been all excited because that's the best time slot, but my excitement has been dampened.

Now, I have been somewhat proactive.  I sent out some of the study guides and class recordings this afternoon.  I've sent out links for the homework instructions too, because it was all in google drive.  However, I did remind students that I have a firm policy that no late homework is accepted after the exam, even if there is an emergency.  This isn't the emergency I envisioned, but I'm holding the policy firm anyway - the homework was already late and they were warned multiple times.

The Dean's Council also sent out an email with some suggestions.  I'm letting students have a bit more time and will double check the grades between the two classes to make sure there isn't a huge difference.  I don't expect there will be.  Most students seem to have the material down.

It will be annoying, but just annoying, if Moodle is still down in the morning.  They'll have to email me the files instead of submitting them to Moodle, so it'll take a bit more time organizing everything.

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Secondly, the Christmas Ruiners were out in force today!  Yesterday one just had a few babies, but today there were a ton baby Ruiners!  They were trying to steal my coat.  And just like all babies, they are super cute.

One of them also left me a poorly spelled and written letter saying their dad was trapped in the top of the microwave, so the first thing I got to do was save a Ruiner.

Honestly, it's been so much fun.  The little guys hide everywhere so I'm finding them throughout the day.  There was one in the carrots, one in a stocking, and several just around.

Saturday: helpful

It was a good day today.  It had been a bit of a week, so we all just stayed home and enjoyed that.  It also felt like we were especially helpful today.  Joshua was willing to find me a Lego piece and bring down a tray, I was willing to go help him wrap a present, we cooperatively helped each other win a game.  I'll admit, it also seemed like a loud day, but for the most part it was a happy loud and so Ben and I don't ask for quiet too much.  Some.  No stomping.  But some of it we let go too.

However, the Christmas Ruiners were not helpful.  I opened another one of my advent calendar doors to find a note that said to open a second door.  No Christmas Ruiners in either door!  I think they all left during the night.