Friday: playground

When I picked up the boys from school today they were excited to tell me something.  (It's always a bit hard because it's really loud in the parking lot.)  Anyway, the fourth graders had several extra minutes of recess and so Isaac and Joshua had recess at the same time.  Of course, they found each other and started playing together and it was exciting.  I just loved that they were excited to play with each other at school.

I gave blood today.  They had a hard time finding my veins, but gave it a try and it worked.  Phew.  "Recovery" has been a bit harder today than it normally is.  Normally I can't tell, but today there were a few times that I needed to sit down for a few minutes.

Thursday: work

So it turns out I just don't have much to say on Tuesdays/Thursdays when I work lately.  The most interesting thing I have today is that the second class went much more smoothly today.  The first class had a review of graphs and how to make them.  Please keep in mind that there are about five different paths you can take to do any one single thing with graphs...it's actually a bit annoying.  Anyway, during the reviews I call on students to tell me what to do next.  One student started the graph in a completely different way than I was expecting and I couldn't see my screen well enough to make the slight correction that would have made everything work just fine.  It wasn't a huge problem, and I'm a firm believer that working through mistakes in lecture is actually helpful, but it was annoying.  I felt a bit off for the rest of the class.

On the other hand, the second class went really well.  

Wednesday: O:CtH - guest bathroom

Today I finished cleaning the guest bathroom.  I was a bit surprised at how much stuff came out of it.  (To be fair, quite a bit was old medicine or empty boxes.)  The boys' drawers were especially messy, so I added some containers.  Joshua was rather excited this evening when he discovered it.  

I was also surprised at how much toothpaste I cleaned off the door.  I understand toothpaste on the cabinet, but was surprised to find it on the door.  But at the same time, knowing my kids, it didn't really surprise me that much.

I'm not sure the before/after pictures will show the work well since most of the clean up was inside cabinets, but here they are anyway.

From the door-ish:

One of the cabinets:

I think the office will be next.  We're still hoping to get it painted this fall and it needs quite a bit of work.

Tuesday: bugs

We have some bugs in our house. 

They can fly, but they just sit in one spot most of the time.  A month ago I was hoping they'd just disappear, but they haven't.  For the most part they aren't too annoying, but they do seem to be slowly multiplying.  

I'm vacuuming them up as I see them, but that doesn't really seem like a great plan.  However, they don't fly enough for fly traps, they don't seem to congregate around one thing (i.e., left out food) or in one place so I don't really know what else to do.

Monday: domestic things

Well, this light fixture is as clean as it's going to get.  There are a few spots of bright pink around the bathroom (as though it used to be painted bright pink), but I'm ignoring them because they don't come off easily.  I also made it down to around the back floor of the toilet today.  

 

And I made a meal!  I love this one.  No one else loves it though.  Ben likes it, although it was a bit salty for him today.  Isaac ate it but didn't enjoy it.  Joshua, unsurprisingly, didn't eat it.  He doesn't eat anything I make though, so I've given up on him.  Joke's on them though!  I froze enough for two more meals.

Sunday

I made an apple cake yesterday.  It's half gone already today.  (It is delicious.  And while there's a lot of sugar in it, I skip the frosting because it is plenty sweet.)

I told the boys they had to go outside for a little bit this afternoon.  Joshua wanted to go swimming or kayaking with me.  I said no to swimming...I felt a little bad because I had promised that I would at some point this summer, and then didn't.  But the water is now rather cold.  Or at least, too cold for me.  So we went for a kayak ride.  The wind was a bit strong, but we made it around the lake.  After he did a few chores he wanted to work on a puzzle with me.  Sure!  I was happy to have two things to say "yes" to that I also enjoy.

Saturday: book review

Today I finally finished "Pandora's Star" by Peter Hamilton.  It was recommended to us and it sounded like a funny scifi, so Ben and I read it.  It was not funny, and we realized that pretty quickly, but it was still scifi so we continued on.

It turns out the genre is actually "space opera."  I'm going to admit that it did a fabulous job at putting me to sleep.  It probably took me a month to finish because some times I would start reading and literally didn't get more than a paragraph before I fell asleep.  It was a good book and the stories in it were very interesting...and very good at putting me to sleep.

It is book one of a two book series.  I think I'm going to try and listen to all 41 hours of the second book.  Most of the story lines were not tied up very well as the book ended and I'm quite curious as to how they will resolve.  In some ways I think this is the option Ben is hoping for too so that I can give him the cliff notes as I go through it.  He can then enjoy the story without all the extra...extras that a space opera includes.

I ended up giving it a 3/5 stars.  I wanted to give it 2, but the stories really were interesting.  It was just a really hard read.