Monday: grocery adventures

It felt like I got a lot done today.

I started at the grocery store.  I didn't go last week, which turned into a problem as we had less and less fresh food.  Well, baby carrots were on sale and they were the small size, so I got five bags.  (I also try to stock up when they're smaller.  I don't know why they aren't always a uniform size, but some weeks the baby carrots are noticeably larger than other weeks.)

I also stocked up on 100 grand for Isaac.  It turned out they were classified as Halloween candy and were on sale for more than advertised: $.53/bag.  I almost went to get more, but we still have some from last year because he was rationing them well.

There was no iced tea for spice tea, so I ended up making a walmart order for 7 jars of the stuff to get the free shipping.  It'll take me a little bit to get through that much, but not as long as one might expect.

Grocery shopping with the new phone was annoying.  I'm pretty sure there were many things that I missed and will realize in the coming weeks.

At home several things got done too.  Several little things, but the Christmas lists are almost finished.  Adding a few more things for the kids took longer than I expected, but we also have a nice assortment of ideas.

Joshua won the moral focus award for Respect this month.  (Isaac did too, but he couldn't even remember what the award was for when asked.)

And a nice photo from the field trip came through:

Sunday: normal

Today was back to being a pretty normal day - other than falling back to standard time.  The kids woke up early, as expected, but before our fan was on to drown out the noise.  Since I don't have the app on my phone to turn it on, I had to (horror of horrors) actually get up and turn it on.  I never fully got back to sleep after that.

As normal, we went to church.  After nap time we didn't get family together time in today, but three of us finished up a game from last night, I finally got all the laundry washed and dried, and the kitchen isn't a complete disaster.  Everyone worked on Christmas lists too, so those are coming along well.  Ben and I also looked through some paperwork that has needed to be reviewed for several weeks.

This picture was from a few days ago, but I don't have anything more recent.  Joshua was in the middle of eating, but I took it anyway.

Saturday: phone

I woke up this morning, read a text, started to reply and suddenly my phone stopped responding.  After turning off the screen it wouldn't turn on.

Well, we (and by we, I mostly mean Ben) tried several things to fix it and we couldn't fix it.  So after almost getting new phones from Verizon (but being told different things on-line and in the store) and going to the repair place we decided to pause.  I finally put my phone number on Joshua's phone (Ben's old phone) so that we have a little more time to figure out what we want to do.

It was annoying to spend the day without a phone, but it's also nice to step away from it.  I added the minimum number of apps to Joshua's phone that I need to "survive".

Thursday: karate

 We were practicing knife defense in karate today and at one point I couldn't get the knife out of her hand and said, "oh shoot".  She proceeded to laugh at me, because obviously that is what you would say to a bad guy that was attacking you.

The next moment she was trying to get the knife out of my hand, couldn't do it, and said, "oh shoot".  I laughed pretty hard.

Wednesday: special Mom ability

 Growing up, Mom could always look at me and instantly know if something was wrong.  It was never surprising that she could do this, but it did always feel like magic.

Turns out I have that special touch too.  I think I've had it in the past, but it's been rather obvious since the school year started.  I can tell how Isaac is feeling the instant I pick him up at school.  (To be fair, I can often do this with Ben the second he walks in the door from work.  I would assume with Joshua too, but I haven't noticed it like with Ben and Isaac.)

Nothing has been terrible.  Today the last fifteen minutes of class were not ideal (for reasons with which I agreed and commiserated with him about).  He has a cold.  It's been a weird cold because he's been sick for a two to three days, then he'll be better for five, then the cold will be back for a few days.  He was also feeling a bit overwhelmed with his school work and really sad that he didn't have any time to read at school.

Well, I can take care of one of those needs easily.  He obviously needed a break anyway, so I sent him off to go read with his snack.  When he came out of his room 45 minutes later, he was ready to go.  He progressed well on his school work.  I'm not so sure that it should be overwhelming this week, but he also has two interim tests tomorrow that he isn't looking forward to taking.  There seems to be no study guides for them, so we'll see how they go I guess.

Tuesday: snow

 I came out of work today to go run around town...first to pick up Joshua, then Isaac, then to rock climbing.  But wait a minute!  There was a ton of snow on the ground!  I knew some snow was expected, but I was expecting flurries.

It takes a few minutes longer to get to Joshua than I was hoping, but not too bad.  BUT THEN!  I sat in the parking lot trying to get out for twenty minutes.  I was about ready to strangle someone.  There didn't seem to be the normal traffic directors and everyone was going slow because of the snow and I don't think people were "merging" nicely.  I didn't let anyone cut in ahead of me after the first ten minutes.  I know it was a bit mean but they also weren't trying to get through the line from the very back of the parking lot, letting everyone in.  If I had picked Joshua up the other way I could have been out in ten minutes.  For reference, it usually takes about three minutes.

So I was about a half hour late picking up Isaac by the time I dealt with the slow traffic on the way to get him.  Now, the teachers were super nice about it and the kids were nice about it and I knew he was safe, but I couldn't quite get out of my own head.  Almost.  I almost calmed down, but not quite.

We went to rock climbing and the driving conditions had improved a lot by that time.  Joshua used Isaac's guest pass for the month...he enjoys being belayed due to the fun drops I can give him on the way down.  I don't blame him as I do try to make them fun.

The kids played outside for a little bit before dinner.  They tried to cover up the front window with snow, but it kept sliding off.

Monday: finishing up

I finished up a lot of little things today and it felt good.  I completely finished the little storage room in Operation: Clean the House.  I don't have pictures, but it feels so much better when I walk in there.  Next up, the basement bathroom!  The garage is ready to store the bike that's down there.

A few weeks ago I bought a king sized blanket for our bed to replace one that was currently on there.  We've had that one for so long and it always felt too small: it wouldn't easily cover my shoulders.  It still makes me happy every night when I go to bed.