Monday: Quickly! Do the chores!

I didn't get much done this morning.  Er, I guess I should say I didn't get much done that was on my to-do list.  I helped Ben a bit and got groceries.  I sent several emails that I hadn't been planning on sending.  Emails take more time than I expect sometimes.

But there were many things on my "I should do this today" list.  (That list is a subsection of the overall to-do list.  I do like my lists.)  After my nap (not on my list but an important part of the day) I looked at the clock.  I had 60 minutes until I had to pick up the kids. The list still had about seven items still on it.  Surprisingly, I knocked out those items rapidly!  To be fair, they weren't really long things.  They just needed to be done.  

Sunday: surprise party

Ben and I woke up to a surprise party this morning.

I was rather impressed by the word streamer.

Joshua made some decorations.

Isaac's been asking us our favorite foods for a week or so.  We ended up with pizza, steak, corn, raspberries, grapes, pineapple, and cider for breakfast.

Saturday: outside

 It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so we needed to get outside today.  We ended up going to Hemlock Crossings with the scooters.  Everything was still surprisingly green, which made the walk wonderful.  It was a nice temperature and not too sunny.

Grey Bear got to come too!  He loved being in the forest.

Isaac has been asking for a while to show me the tricks he's learned on the playground.  I told him we could do it Tuesday, but there was time so we went today.  Basically, he can climb on top of everything.  He's also rather good at the monkey bars...I think his upper body strength is better than I realized.  The nice thing about this is that I know he's been doing it with at least one friend.

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.