Saturday: Lego and friends

 Isaac has been working on a Lego radio set that he got for Christmas.  He asked for this one because it is supposed to be a really interesting set to build.  It's been a kind of funny set though.  Isaac will build about five pieces and then fiddle with the latest thing that he made for a while, figuring out how it went together.  Then he would roll on the floor a bit, then he would play with Joshua a bit, and then he would do another five pieces.  And repeat the process.  It's been hilarious, and wonderful.

Friends came over this evening.  It was lovely.  We had tacos, played Space Base, and talked Legos.  

Friday: Operation: Clean the House - Storage Room

Today I started cleaning the storage room.  I originally was planning on doing the storage room last, but it's gotten really hard to move around in the storage room so it needed to be moved up.

Today's project was to get rid of one bookcase's worth of books so that I could stuff that is currently on the floor in the empty bookcase.  We don't use actual books anymore, so for the most part we would just read these books on a kindle if we wanted to read them again.

Before:

After.  I know it looks neater too, but that wasn't really the goal.  There's still a lot of dust and some spider webs, but I was able to move other stuff out of the way.

I grabbed a few other easy things, and this is how much I took out.  It's still a mess, but I feel like it's a lot easier to walk around in.  I'm not completely sure what to next, but I'll contemplate it for the next week and do something.  The goal is about two hours a week.

As I was dealing with some books I had grabbed from Cheryl's house, I found a pack of cards.

I opened them up to see if they were all there, and to my surprise they weren't playing cards!  Ben was happily excited about finding them.

Thursday: traffic

Thursdays are my 'run the kids around in the car' the most day.  However, the trips went faster than normal because there wasn't any traffic.  Well, there was some traffic, but not nearly as much as normal.  It was kind of weird.

Giraffe joined me at work.  Apparently he wanted to watch students go past.

Wednesday: book

I'm listening to an audio book, as normal.  It's not a very good book.  One of those, "I did something wrong so instead of fixing it I'll just ignore it."

Anyway, one of the quotes is when the main character is saying how she needs to get out more, but her favorite activity is reading.  'And reading, by its very nature, is a solitary activity.'  Honestly, this person is doing it wrong.  My favorite way to read is next to someone else.  Yes, can be solitary but it doesn't have to be.

Other things interesting things that happened:
1) The humidifier people came.  They said there was one small mechanical value that they opened and they changed the programming so that the humidifier works independently of the furnace.  The humidity in the house is already up to where we want it.

2) I removed the piece of flooring between the kitchen and dining room.  It popped up a day ago and it was a trip hazard.  I glued it once before, but as I was looking at it again it was really beat up.  So I took it all out and will get a new piece tomorrow.

3) Ben and I went out for dinner while the kids were doing church things.  It was lovely.

Tuesday: snow

This morning we opened the garage and there was a surprising amount of snow.  Ah, well, that happens.  The drive to Hope was pretty bad.  I texted Ben to make sure that he had also gotten to work ok.  

Ben said the following, "The conversation in the car was: [Dad says almost anything]. Boys respond: "And that's why we should have had a snow day!"

To be fair, it really should have been a snow day.  I think the snow started too late to call it though.

There was a new alcove up...there were really interesting routes and the kids talked about them a lot.

Monday: PT

I went to PT for the first time in a while today.  My shoulder got messed up in December, I think from too much grading.  How dumb.  Anyway, it feels a little bit better and I have a special stretch because of my special scoliosis.  

I also made baked oatmeal for dinner.  I have three cartons of eggs in the fridge.  I opened two and saw this:

Good thing I have three cartons.  Although I don't think that carton was full either.

Sunday: an odd sad

It was an odd day today - there is a sadness due to Jennifer's death and the normalcy of everyday life continuing on.

Isaac and Joshua went outside to play in the snow.  (Yesterday I went out to snow blow and there was so much more than I expected!  I was expecting about three inches, but there were at least 5".)  Isaac ended up shoveling the driveway so that they could make a snow chair.  The snow wasn't good enough for a snowman but is was good enough to pack with slight pressure.

There have been more birds at the bird feeder.  The kids really get a kick out of the bird butts.