Several months ago we had some friends over to our house. We had a noodle fight. I got the cheap pipe insulators from Lowe's instead of real pool noodles. I'm not sure it was the best choice because they were a little flimsy, but they worked.
We sent the kids out first and then a few minutes later the adults came out with a surprise attack.
It felt like I made several minor mistakes today. Oddly enough, they didn't make it a bad day - it was just that I could have done better. Some of them weren't even mistakes. They were the right choice but not quite how I wanted the day to go.
It was a pretty normal Wednesday. There were a few notable exceptions though...
1) I went to the Spectrum store to cancel our internet and bring back the modem. Now, I decided to do it in-store because we had to bring back the modem and I was afraid that doing it over the phone was going to be a nightmare - we've had to deal with them in the past. And my experience was lovely. I had just sat down when my name was called. (I bypassed several other people in line which I felt a bit bad about, but I had made an appointment.) I told them I wanted to cancel my service and they said, "ok" and proceeded to process it without issue. I was in and out within about five minutes, and one of those minutes was waiting at the kiosk to sign in.
2) I found another army man. One day Isaac was on a mission to hide them all, and he has hidden them well! I have found them in places that I only look a few times a year, if that. This time it was on the headboard of the guest bed. I'm a bit surprised it was still there because it had to stay there while I was sleeping on the bed for several nights and when I took off the sheets.
3) One of Joshua's spelling words is 'equation' and he just can't remember it. The other words are coming along, but this one wasn't. So instead of writing it again three times I made him draw it. We'll see if it actually helped tomorrow.
Today was busier than most Tuesdays. I had several students in my office, so I didn't get as much prepped for Thursday as I needed to. (However, one of the meetings was rather uplifting and we were able to celebrate some small victories.)
During rock climbing Isaac fell off the wall and got the wind knocked out of him, again. Of course, I was belying Joshua and he was at the top of the wall. There were people around to help Isaac, but I also got Joshua down quickly (and of course safely) and went over to see Isaac. By the time I got there he was breathing again so I attempted to back off. I'm not completely sure it worked, but I also think it mostly worked. I'm not sure he got back on the wall again, but the coaches were there checking in with him and by the end of the practice he was mostly ok. He was really tired this evening and went to bed earlier than normal though. I did want to mention that while falling was Isaac's bad part of the day, rock climbing as a whole was his good part.
After feeling someone productive yesterday, mainly because we all worked hard during our extra half hour of cleaning, today felt the opposite.
If I think about what I did accomplish, it was quite a bit! I even put a new toilet seat on, although admittedly that isn't a very hard task.
In the morning I had finished raking the edge and clearing out all the seaweed that had washed ashore. I was glad Joshua had helped on Sunday, as it was one of the largest seaweed volumes we've had. I looked back at the lake in the afternoon only to see a significant amount of seaweed back by the shore. Six hours from clear to not clear. Laundry at least gives me a week before it requires more attention.
That's not really true. I'm still working on last week's laundry. I try to finish by Saturday, but there was a lot of bedding that needed to be done this past week. Everything is now clean from last week's wash, but not put away. And the new cycle starts on Wednesday, so there'll be more to do again.
Am I on top of things? Yes. The important things are getting done. Do I feel in control? Not quite...but I do expect to eventually be back in control and so I'll hold out until then.
I also found a spider in my refrigerator this morning and I felt like it was taunting me. "haha. Things are so dirty in your house that there are even spiders in your fridge!" I was running behind this morning and so I left it. I told it, "haha. Fridges aren't good places for spiders because they're cold." I did finally save it this afternoon because I was afraid Joshua would see it and it would be an ordeal. Laura suggested that maybe, since it was an itsy-bitsy spider, it just climbed the wrong water spout.
For the third year, Isaac grew watermelons. Today he picked his harvest.
It was a fun game and the kids loved it. Their imaginations have gone crazy making spin-offs. Ben did a great job being the dungeon master, but it's also a lot of work to DM so I don't know if we'll do something similar again soon. Well, besides the stories the kids have come up with.
We had dinner with Ben's family. Isaac sat by Larry. There were water bottle shenanigans happening.
