Thursdays are my 'run the kids around in the car' the most day. However, the trips went faster than normal because there wasn't any traffic. Well, there was some traffic, but not nearly as much as normal. It was kind of weird.
Giraffe joined me at work. Apparently he wanted to watch students go past.
I went to PT for the first time in a while today. My shoulder got messed up in December, I think from too much grading. How dumb. Anyway, it feels a little bit better and I have a special stretch because of my special scoliosis.
I also made baked oatmeal for dinner. I have three cartons of eggs in the fridge. I opened two and saw this:
Good thing I have three cartons. Although I don't think that carton was full either.
It was an odd day today - there is a sadness due to Jennifer's death and the normalcy of everyday life continuing on.
Isaac and Joshua went outside to play in the snow. (Yesterday I went out to snow blow and there was so much more than I expected! I was expecting about three inches, but there were at least 5".) Isaac ended up shoveling the driveway so that they could make a snow chair. The snow wasn't good enough for a snowman but is was good enough to pack with slight pressure.
There have been more birds at the bird feeder. The kids really get a kick out of the bird butts.
Most of the day was lovely. Isaac is working through a final exam for math and making better progress than I was hoping for. We played some games. We put together some Lego sets. We laughed about the bird butts we see on my new bird feeder.
And then this evening I got an email from Hope saying a student had died in an accident. More surprisingly, I knew this student. We actually spent quite a bit of time together last semester and the world was a brighter place with her in it. She was so full of joy that it was a delight to see her. And while I never expected to see her again, I will still grieve. As the email said though, we will grieve with hope. (1 Thes 4:13)
I finally got back to Operation: Clean the House! I had started the laundry room in September and October. I thought it would take two Fridays worth, but I finished in about an hour and a half! Huzzah!
Here are the pictures, because that really is what helps understand what's going on. The big things that happened, besides a general cleaning, is that I cleaned very well behind the washer and dryer. I removed a cabinet door. I also reorganized the upper cabinet in October and have been enjoying the new locations of stuff.
Yesterday:
Ben: What are you having to drink [for dinner]?
Amanda: I have a mountain dew in the ...laundry.
Ben: Um...oh, so you do.
On my way into the house I grabbed a mountain dew from the fridge. But then I didn't have enough hands while taking off my coat so I dropped it in the clean laundry basket. It wasn't anything I had ever been expecting to say though.
Today:
It went pretty well over all. However, I was trying to make a video for my graders and it took me three times. The virtual meeting kept stopping without notification and then my laptop died. I was pretty annoyed by the end. But I think I have a full instructional video now.
Oh, it's time for bed so this is going to be short.
I felt like I got a lot done today, and it wasn't all just "what absolutely needs to be done" stuff. For example, I was able to take a moment to clean Joshua's electric toothbrush and holder. He lost his toothpaste cap, and apparently this means that toothpaste goes all over the bathroom. I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm really not. Most of it gets cleaned up, but the toothbrush holder was disgusting.
Another day, another new semester. First days are the worst. They're almost as bad as the last day. To be fair though, it was pretty good as first days go.
Then I needed to go to Eagle Crest to give Isaac some medicine. It was a bit annoying, but understandable.
I went back to Hope to have lunch with Natalie and continue working. I may have taken a short nap too. Being in the office during nap time may be a problem.
Rock climbing went well - I climbed a lot with Joshua and helped belay the team a little bit.
Isaac went to the doctor this evening for his toes. There is a probable diagnosis for his weird colored toes which isn't a big deal, but also doesn't account for the itching. We'll continue to monitor.
Since I'm tired of talking about the chores I'm doing (which really aren't that interesting), I thought I'd talk about my 2024 reading stats instead.
I read (or listened to) 57 books*
This is also the same as 29,486 pages.
I read the most books in February, but the most pages in March.
The longest book was Iron Prince by Bryce O'Connor. (This was also one of my favorites.)
My average rating was 3.64/5. I only gave 6 books the five star rating.
*This doesn't count about three weeks worth of reading on Royal Road, which is an app that somewhat pre-publishes books. I was loving the book series I was reading and wanted to continue it. I enjoyed it for a bit, but then it started dragging and I gave up. However, the content wasn't divided into books yet so I don't know how many books worth it would have been.
Oh, the day before going back to school. We didn't really have a long enough break - three more days would have been just right. Enough time to get fully bored and actually ready to go back.
At the same time, I have a lot to do. I really need to attempt to actually do work and not just have fun. These errands don't run themselves.
Isaac started one of his crochet kits recently, but we decided that maybe starting on a dishrag would be a better choice first. There's something about getting the motion down before trying to do it in a circle.
We also played the Axolotl game. Snaxalotl enjoyed watching.
Today's plan was supposed to be similar to yesterday's, although we didn't have any errands to run. However, we ended up playing a longer game and so I didn't get as much done. The game was fun though!
We got more snow that I was expecting. I was expecting less than an inch, but there's about five inches on the picnic table.
Ben went back to work today, so the rest of us also (sort of) went back to work. We got about half the Christmas stuff down, Isaac worked on some of his math, and I continued to work on the kitchen and laundry.
We also played some games, went rock climbing, and enjoyed some time without too many things.
We said good-bye to my family and promptly started to flip the house for an evening party. They left a little earlier than normal due to weather, which was rather sad.
Anyway, we weren't sure how long people were going to stay in the evening and neither were they. Since it was potentially a longer time than normal, Ben came up with a few Lego challenges. The first one was "build a firework". We took most of our bins out of the stacks so it was easier for 13 people to move around and get the pieces they needed.
The next challenge was build in a polybag. While it seemed impossible at first, several of us got it! A few people got it in a sandwich bag, and a bunch that just didn't care and left pretty quickly.
Kids were getting tired so we decided not to do the third challenge; we're seeing them again in a few weeks anyway, so we'll do it then.
Happy 2025! It was a nice day, but not all that special. I didn't get very far on cleaning up from the party (blog post will come), but had a relaxing day.
We worked on a new Lego set, played Isaac's new game from Christmas, and I took a nap. I have a cold and it's been knocking me out.
It was a lovely weekend. It's always lovely seeing my brother, even though several of us had colds.
Sunday: We started with our traditional bagel breakfast.
Then we opened presents! Liz got her own container of spice tea this year, since I heard she enjoys it as much as Nathan. Ben got two boxes of cheddar penguin crackers. We saw them in October when we were visiting without Ben, and Liz said she'd give them to Ben as a Christmas gift. Ben is forced to love his penguins!
Isaac and Joshua got a 'boulder ball'. It's a rock climbing game and Isaac has especially been getting into it.
There was a short nap time.
And then Aunt C came over! I see her from time to time, but it is always nice to see her.
The kids were going to watch half a movie in the evening, but then everyone was enjoying it so we watched the whole thing. The kids also fell right to sleep - they were all really tired.
Monday morning was just some down time, and then we went rock climbing. I don't have any pictures. It was a nice time, but they were route setting so there weren't as many walls available as normal.
After we got home and played a game, we got out some nerf guns in the basement. The stealing of darts was the best part.
It was also Isaac's birthday! It often gets down-played because we celebrate more in the summer, but it doesn't change the fact that he is now a teenager! We were teasing him about it and he started to be all, "I'm a grumpy teenager." in a grumpy voice. It was hilarious. I love his sense of humor.
We finished cleaning the house in the morning. Unsurprisingly, it went faster than I expected. Joshua was a huge help. Then the house looked amazing! It seems like I should do it more often, but takes family buy-in too.
Then Nathan and family were here! We had lunch and then the kids...disappeared. Ben stuck his head into Joshua's room and Joshua said that he and Evelyn were just talking.
Nothing overly special happened...we talked, we ate, and got caught up.
Yesterday we couldn't find the present that Isaac had found and then wrapped for Larry and Isaac was rather sad about it. We checked all the trash and all around the tree.
Well, it turns out it was left at home. Larry kindly came over first thing in the morning on his way to his first appointment to unwrap a duck.
I'm a little behind on everything else, but made initial progress today. The groceries are ordered, most of the presents for this weekend are wrapped, and a tentative menu was figured out. I also sent several emails and started to deal with this week's laundry. Tomorrow will include some food prep and some cleaning, which will hopefully set us up well for Saturday morning when I expect we'll be doing most of the cleaning.
This morning I found the Christmas Ruiners moved baby Jesus and were all looking away. Isaac thought it was because the Ruiners were trying to ruin Christmas by ignoring Jesus, but I say they were just trying to keep watch over baby Jesus. And since they don't talk, we'll assume I'm correct.
We had a nice morning: a game, some chores, some preparation of food. Then off to Larry and Cheryl's!
Bruch was first and as always, it was delicious. It's one of my favorite meals of the year. Then presents. I got a wi-fi bird feeder and I'm really excited about it. Ben found a good deal on little nerf guns, and so gave one to everyone. Chaos ensued! But it was a fun chaos. Even Great-Grandma joined in and she was so cute when she was shooting her son.
There was also some discussion about Larry's socks and whether they had rubber ducks or pelicans on them. Fast forward to while we were opening presents. I have forgotten exactly what the conversation was about, but Isaac yells out, "No, they're pelicans!" The timing and delivery were spot on and everyone laughed.
Afterwards Isaac and I played Space Base with Scarlet and Jacob. They both got a copy of the game...Scarlet because we had her name and Jacob because we were asked for game ideas. It's a great game though, and it's always nice to go through the game once with people that know what they're doing.
It is also almost Larry's 70th birthday, so we celebrated that too!
We played a few minute-to-win-it games, ate as we felt like it, and just had a lovely time together.
And once again, the animals found the person they've been looking for all month. The cat offered some fish bones to Jesus, but it was because the cat treasured them and wanted to give his best to Jesus.
It was the most loveliest of days.
We saw Dad and Pat for breakfast.
We opened presents.
Joshua and I went to a Christmas Eve service with one of his friends while Ben and Isaac watched from home.
We played one of the games after church. It has a Minecraft theme, and was pretty fun.
It was an odd day. Joshua had a friend over for most of the day. Isaac and I went to the library for the 3D printer. I finished up some present stuff. Isaac and I went to a Hilldore Christmas get-together.
Ben and Joshua have colds, so they stayed home. They finished wrapping some presents and made sunglasses.
