I got this picture from Ben at lunch time. He thought it looked like it was about to eat him.
A MIMIC! Well, a second generation mimic. They're my favorite monster. A few years ago I read a book series where the main character had a funny fear of mimics, but then they kept showing up in my life. They showed up in D&D, in a few movies, in a Lego set, in some Lego creations from the children.
I think I need to make notes throughout the day of the interesting things that happen. For example, let's rewind to Friday. My morning devotions always end with the same prayer, and that prayer includes the phrase: "Jesus, help me give myself to others, being kind to everyone I meet." However, since I was donating blood that day I laughed about the fact that I would be literally giving myself to others.
And I had completely forgotten about it.
Today we were watching Great British Bake Off and Noel made a comment that a contestant looked like a person from the game "Guess Who." Ben and I cracked up because he was right on target with that statement. Then we had explain why we were laughing.
Anyway, hopefully the notes will help make write more interesting blog posts.
Well, I still take monthly quilt pictures and have only missed a few months, but rarely post them. Last time was in April 2022! I always tell myself not to wait too long, but time just flies by. I'm stuck in a waiting room right now though, so that I'd get a post started at least. I might not get far, but it's a start.
(I obviously didn't finish in the waiting room. But at least we got a bit farther.)
93 months:
I had a nice day today. Legos, nap, games. A few things got done too.
Isaac and Joshua mostly had a good day, but they got on each other's nerves more than normal.
Today I had a power red blood donation. (They take more blood but then give me some of my fluids back.) I drank so much water this morning! (Within safe levels, of course.) I got there a there a little early, but then realized I was the first donor of the morning. So I waited around a bit but because I was a power red donation I got to sign in first. My iron was fine! That's always a worry. I moved to the table and they looked at my arms. Normally around this time they look, do a lot of tapping, hem and haw, and then choose an arm. The needle sometimes has a hard time going in. This time they took a quick look, tapped for a second, and said, "this one". The needle went right in. There's a little bag that needs to fill up with power red before they get started and apparently mine filled up much faster than normal. Must have been all the water!! The donation otherwise went well and was one of the best I've had.
I was glad that I had my blanket with me. The cold fluids made me cold. I made it through the canteen but started shivering on my way out. I easily made it home, had a small lunch, and then napped in my warm blanket.
As expected, I didn't get much of my normal work done today. But Fridays are my O:CtH day. I had about 25 minutes so I decided to work on it and ignore the other stuff I should be doing. Ben and I decided that we really didn't need all of our college text books anymore. (Although Isaac noted that we should keep some so that we have books to use as solid things to put under things.) I pulled out two boxes of my old notes and course packets and decided I didn't need most of them. I kept two out, but in hindsight I think I'll get rid of them too. I also pulled out a box of books. (There are still at least six boxes left.)
But there were some sentimental items. I found two copies of a Maple guide....Ben and I took the same class!
Ben and I also found Tornado in the cats' new toy. Joshua picked it out and we haven't seen cats go it in of their own volition.
Isaac had his band concert tonight. I couldn't see well but it went fine.
Tuesday Joshua and I did a take away. He was pretty excited to get the final route.
Every evening, I ask the kids and the lovies the same questions.
How are you?
Well, only Isaac, Joshua, and Giraffe get this question. It usually doesn't have interesting answers.
How was your day?
Same thing...as above.
What was a bad part?
Joshua: often school, or that he has to go to school.
Isaac: changes every time, but being busy and / or homework shows up the most.
Amanda: changes every time, but have a dirty kitchen comes up often.
Grey Bear: that he didn't get to go outside or that he was bored or that he didn't get to nap with Amanda
Catcachino: that he didn't get a special drink
Creeper: Usually something that everyone else would a good part. There are a lot of sad sighs after his bad part.
Snaxolotl: Usually not being able to do something with water, but it often changes.
Giraffe: Being alone all day.
What was a good part?
Joshua: that there's no school tomorrow
Isaac: rock climbing
Amanda: various
Grey Bear: either going to sleep with Joshua or seeing his friend Zebra
Catcachino: some sort of drink
Creeper: something that everyone else would consider a bad part and as close to an explosion as possible. For example, throwing up, things crashing, things breaking, fire, etc.
Snaxolotl: Gives his snacks. He gets two snacks a day. They are often snacks in the house, but they don't have to be. Sometimes he tries to sneak in three snacks and the Joshua only lets him have one the next day.
Giraffe: doing anything that isn't sitting on a bed or table.
While everyone has themes, sometimes a random thing surprises everyone. For example, today's bad part for Snaxolotl was that he can't write capitals E's well. He wanted to write "Everyone gets a snack" but it keeps coming out "Fveryone gets a snack."
Well, Joshua fully enjoyed this weekend with just his parents. His bad part was that Isaac came home.
Isaac had a great weekend! I heard a lot about the fun parts and not much about the Jesus parts, but that's ok. Sledding Friday night and Saturday was apparently amazing...it was a little bit icy and there was a big hill. It also sounded like there was a lot of games. He also made healthy food choices. Well...at the least he didn't drink tons of pop.
Joshua and I finished listening to Bert and Ernie's Sing-Along while working on our puzzle. There are bunch of mini-pictures in the puzzle and we finished all the borders of the mini-pictures. And I had Big Bird's "yes...love is a really good feeling to have!" in my head all day.
Joshua and I were working on our puzzle and I said, for some reason, "but wait! there's more!" I say this often. So then we started talking about the song that it's from and Joshua didn't know who the Count is. So we found a video, but it was the wrong song.
Then I found the song on the internet, and as we listened to it I realized that there was a story associated with it. And I realized I knew all the words. We started listening to the sing-along from the beginning.
And so, if you'd like to listen to it too, here's a link for the ...record? tape? ...here's the link: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2ys81r
I'm continuing to remove stuff from the storage room. I had about thirty minutes to clean stuff out, and that included a crumbling piece of drywall. The drywall was on the floor and we've just been walking on them for a while. I got the drywall to the trash can and then had to vacuum up all the little pieces that fell off while I was bringing it upstairs. I also vacuumed up some sand that had fallen out of a decorative piece.
It was another rather normal day. The first class had a few bumps because I moved some content around and didn't dot my i's and cross my t's. It wasn't a big problem, but it was annoying.
I got a fair amount of work done in the afternoon. Sometimes I get tired but I actually got up enough and so I got a lot done.
My travels around town to taxi kids around went a bit faster than normal.
Karate was just ok. The class I like was co-opted by stretching and information instead of exercise. Then we had self-defense and it isn't my favorite. But I don't have to pick Isaac until 6:30 and Isaac really likes a few extra minutes after his practice so I've stayed the whole self-defense class.
The evening has been nice as always. Some computer stuff, some quilting.
I love the normal days, although they aren't very interesting to blog about. I mean, doing three loads of laundry is pretty good, but for once they all got dried and separated too! I even put 2/3 of my laundry away. We had cheddarworst for dinner and it was not as filling as I expected. The cats had their vet appointment and are doing well. Both cats weigh exactly the same as last year. We were hoping Horizon would lose a bit of weight, but the vet was happy with no increase. Isaac had a lot of homework, but worked on it well after school. The snow is melting, sadly. Both cats escaped while I was re-hanging* the bird feeders, but they didn't get very far. They're willing to walk on snow but not to go in the deep stuff.
*There was a wind advisory the last two days so I put the feeders on the deck. One is really heavy and I didn't want it toppling over and the other is really nice and I didn't want it falling to it's doom.
It was a normal day. I went out to lunch with Natalie, which was really nice. The only thing of any note is that I finished a rewrite of homework 5. I've needed to rewrite this homework for several semesters but have just kept putting it off. So hurray!
I've been trying to get an account set up under our trust. It's been a bit of a battle with a lot of automated responses.
So Friday I sent an email instead of trying to use the messaging system on the website. It was all of about three sentences: 1) I submitted an application on this date. 2) It's been longer than expected. 3) Can you please tell me the status?
Today I got a response. "Sure, we can help. When did you submit your application?"
I snarkily responded with, "per my first email, it was on this date."
Then they told me what was missing on the application.
I am about two poor interactions away from moving my business somewhere else.
The middle name Bruce runs in the family, and I know that Great-Grandma told me in the past where it came from and I couldn't remember, so I finally asked her.
She said that her husband had a good friend in Ohio, where he grew up, named Bruce. He was a banker. Her husband wanted that middle name for their son and so she went with it. It kind of seemed like she was glad he was involved with the naming of their son, but she didn't directly say that so I might have been reading into things. It also didn't seem like she ever met this Bruce.
It was a pretty normal Sunday. We helped out with nursery at church and there were a ton of kids, but they were pretty good.
We visited Great-Grandma and painted some new rocks.
Isaac had a local rock climbing competition today. He was in the intermediate level, which was definitely more challenging.
This route was his favorite. It took him a ton of tries to get to this position, but he got it! There was a tricky bit at the end too, but he got that on the second try. There was a lot of cheering; the route was located in a less busy spot but a lot of people he knew were there at the same time.
We came home and I fell asleep on the couch. I really didn't do much work today. We built Lego sets in the morning, I cleaned a box from the basement, helped Joshua with a few things, did lunch, and then went to the comp. It was lovely.
I spent some time cleaning the storage room, as is my goal on Fridays. Today's goal was to get some easy stuff out of the basement. I also put a few things back in the right place: gift bags had fallen out of their spot and tissue paper was out of its bin. It wasn't super long, but it was still something. Some of the stuff needs to be cleaned and will be put back in, while some of the stuff will need to temporarily go back in because that's where donations are kept. By taking some of the stuff out I was able to put some suitcases under the shelves and free up more floor space. Hurray! I also brought all of last week's books to the bookstore, so they're out of the house! I think next week I'm going to do the same thing; there are still a few obvious things that could be removed.
Ben and Isaac went to play Magic tonight, so Joshua and I had our normal night too. It's nothing special, but he really seems to enjoy them. We played two games, had some screen time, and he got hot chocolate with a candy cane.
Today was another great day, but for different reasons. I didn't get much work done and forgot about the laundry a lot. But! I played a lot of games, went cross-country skiing, and had Joshua help me with a few small projects.
The projects Joshua selected included putting up the milky way and changing a toilet handle.
Well, I had a very nice snow day today, and it culminated with another snow day tomorrow! My week was going to be quite busy and, honestly, I wasn't very excited about that. But both things for tomorrow have been canceled and I had time to get several things done today. Doing my other things would have been good, but I can also be happy that I don't have to do them now.
Isaac is only medium-excited about the snow day tomorrow. I think he'd prefer it next week...which we have absolutely no control over. He might have this idea in his imagination about what a snow day should look like and in reality they include more work. Joshua was excited though!
I sent Laura a Happy Birthday picture and she wasn't sure if I photoshopped it or actually went to the store and put party hats on chip bags. I'm just excited that someone thinks I would do such a thing and now I think that'll be my goal for her next birthday. The chip bags and I can go around to all the different foods that say "party size" on them, put a party hat on them, and get a picture.
Today was a lovely day. Ben stayed home and the kids were home because of MLK day. We put together Legos. We fixed a light switch. We did a Lego challenge a la Joshua. We worked on the D&D puzzle. There is also a snow day tomorrow! I am rather jealous: I'd like a snow day, or at least a virtual day, too.
The Lego challenge was to make something for a lovie.
Isaac got Snacksalotal. Isaac was going to make five treats, but only had time for 1.75...a Danish and mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Ben got Creeper. He made an exploding cat hospital.
Catcachinno got a coffee dispenser with a coffee cup that would move from the dispenser to his mouth.
Isaac has been working on a Lego radio set that he got for Christmas. He asked for this one because it is supposed to be a really interesting set to build. It's been a kind of funny set though. Isaac will build about five pieces and then fiddle with the latest thing that he made for a while, figuring out how it went together. Then he would roll on the floor a bit, then he would play with Joshua a bit, and then he would do another five pieces. And repeat the process. It's been hilarious, and wonderful.
Friends came over this evening. It was lovely. We had tacos, played Space Base, and talked Legos.
Today I started cleaning the storage room. I originally was planning on doing the storage room last, but it's gotten really hard to move around in the storage room so it needed to be moved up.
Today's project was to get rid of one bookcase's worth of books so that I could stuff that is currently on the floor in the empty bookcase. We don't use actual books anymore, so for the most part we would just read these books on a kindle if we wanted to read them again.
Before:
