Wednesday: Operation: Clean the House

My to-do list has somewhat gotten under control.  So today I started out with one or two random things from it along with the normal things, like cleaning the kitchen.  Then I moved on to Operation: Clean the House fairly quickly.

In so doing, I put up a bunch of shelves near the TV.  The weight limit lied and so I need to get two more sturdier shelves (hence the blue tape still there).  But this is uncluttering the kitchen counter.  I haven't removed all of them yet and the counter already feels better.

I still want to better secure them to the shelves for safety, but we're happy with how it's looking.

Tuesday: another normal day

It was another rather normal day.  There's only one more day of classes which is pretty exciting, but my graders are a bit behind.  I think they'll get most of the stuff graded this coming week, but I'm expecting to have to do more grading than I was hoping.

At karate they helped us with our forms.  There are people that know them well, people that know them well enough, and people that don't know them.  This isn't unexpected, but we'll see how the test goes Friday.

Monday: life

It was a normal Monday.

I got groceries.  There seemed to be a lot of things out of stock.  I now can't remember if it used to be like this before the pandemic or if it's gotten worse.

I did my exercises.  I finished my mile at exactly 12:30 which is my goal for Friday.  I'm not sure I'll make it after everything else that needs to be done, but we'll deal with it then I guess.  My forms were feeling pretty good so I didn't spend much time on them.

I did my other chores.  There were a bunch of short ones so I felt like I made good progress.  

I ate lunch, read my book, and took my nap.  Grey Bear joined me.

I worked on O:CtH.  I put up a shelf for one of my Lego flower sets and cleaned the door by the trash can.  It was rather yucky.

I picked up the kids.

I made dinner, a blueberry almond oatmeal bake.  I gave instructions to Isaac to put it in the oven.  I've been doing this a bit more and love it.  Having Isaac put dinner in the oven adds a lot more meal options.

I helped out at karate.  The little kids are cute but there's a lot of them.

We ate dinner.  The oatmeal bake turned out pretty good.

I did a few more chores/stuff for kids/miscellaneous stuff.

I worked on my quilting and watched TV.

And now it's almost bed time!  I'll read a bit again and probably fall asleep while reading.

Weekend: this and that

Today at church I doodled this...

 
Then Joshua (tried) to copy it and added some colors.  It was interesting to see the differences between the two.

Yesterday Ben made pick-a-brick cups for us out of Legos that have been waiting to be used.  Ben made a temple and then Joshua added to it.

I made a wall.  Well, first I made a dragon-plane, but that wasn't amazing.  I had a bunch of the arches, so I made a wall that I rather liked.

Friday: could have skipped this morning

 It felt like all the small things were going wrong this morning.  I missed picking up a library book.  I forgot to pay a bill, some measurements for a quilt block were wrong (and the pieces were already cut), and the rumba kept thinking it was stuck.

So I put the library book back on hold.  I paid the bill.  I figured out the new piece sizes.  I didn't really fix the rumba, but I put it back on the charger to hopefully reset.

And then I took a nap.  I was pretty annoyed with myself and knew that a nap would help reset my perspective.  It helped that Grey Bear was waiting for me.

Poor Grey Bear.  He rarely gets the respect he deserves.

It did.

I got a few more things done before it was time to pick up the kids.  Karate boot camp was this evening.  It went well...enough.  The second test is next week.  We didn't have a ton of time with self-defense, but we at least got through all of them.  I messed up a little bit on most of the forms, and one of the forms I messed up a bit more on.  That form I realized I was doing a few things wrong, and trying to fix them and keep pace is hard for me.

Wednesday: life

I got more chores done today than I was expecting.  Not by a ton, and there's still a lot to do, but it was still a good feeling.  I also packed lunches at Kids' Food Basket.

At nap time I finally remembered to nap with Grey Bear; I forgot last week and so I get two naps with him this week.  He was happy.

 Rock climbing was today after school.  Isaac climbed yesterday's V2 several times (see video below) and then found another V2.  After a few tries, he got that one too!  It was a good day for him.  In the video he's climbing the black route.  It's hard to see some of the holds and he uses the volumes a lot too.

When we got home Joshua picked a bunch of dandelions from the neighbors' yard and then was excited to find the cats sleeping together.  

Tuesday: Isaac

 Isaac took the ELA M-step today.  It was an all-day affair.  He has a little bit left to go tomorrow, but he doesn't think it should be very long.  But it's a long time of sitting and concentrating and writing, and ELA is by far his least favorite subject.

So when he asked to go rock climbing after school, I really wanted to make it happen for him.  We weren't able to go until later in the evening, but that ended up working out really well.  The gym was pretty empty, but his teacher, who is the nicest guy ever, was climbing there too.

Isaac was working on a V2 route, which is rather hard.  At the top was the tricky part, and it's scary to have the tricky part at the top.  Furthermore, the teacher suggested a new move for Isaac which basically put him horizontal for a short time.  I didn't see any holds up there so I was a bit nervous for him.  But, well, there are soft mats if he falls.  Anyway, he made it.  The whole gym was excited for him.

(This picture was a little bit after the scary part.  I may have been exaggerating when I said horizontal, but that's what my Mom brain thought.)