Saturday: ending sadly

Most of the day was lovely.  Isaac is working through a final exam for math and making better progress than I was hoping for.  We played some games.  We put together some Lego sets.  We laughed about the bird butts we see on my new bird feeder.

And then this evening I got an email from Hope saying a student had died in an accident.  More surprisingly, I knew this student.  We actually spent quite a bit of time together last semester and the world was a brighter place with her in it.  She was so full of joy that it was a delight to see her.  And while I never expected to see her again, I will still grieve.  As the email said though, we will grieve with hope. (1 Thes 4:13)

Friday: Operation: Clean the House - Laundry room

I finally got back to Operation: Clean the House!  I had started the laundry room in September and October.  I thought it would take two Fridays worth, but I finished in about an hour and a half!  Huzzah!

Here are the pictures, because that really is what helps understand what's going on.  The big things that happened, besides a general cleaning, is that I cleaned very well behind the washer and dryer.  I removed a cabinet door.  I also reorganized the upper cabinet in October and have been enjoying the new locations of stuff.

Next up?  The storage room.  I was going to wait until the end of Operation: Clean the House, but it's gotten really bad.  

Thursday (and Wednesday): life

 Yesterday:

Ben: What are you having to drink [for dinner]?

Amanda: I have a mountain dew in the ...laundry.

Ben: Um...oh, so you do.

On my way into the house I grabbed a mountain dew from the fridge.  But then I didn't have enough hands while taking off my coat so I dropped it in the clean laundry basket.  It wasn't anything I had ever been expecting to say though.

Today:

It went pretty well over all.  However, I was trying to make a video for my graders and it took me three times.  The virtual meeting kept stopping without notification and then my laptop died.  I was pretty annoyed by the end.  But I think I have a full instructional video now.

Wednesday: down the list

Oh, it's time for bed so this is going to be short.

I felt like I got a lot done today, and it wasn't all just "what absolutely needs to be done" stuff.  For example, I was able to take a moment to clean Joshua's electric toothbrush and holder.  He lost his toothpaste cap, and apparently this means that toothpaste goes all over the bathroom.  I wish I was exaggerating, but I'm really not.  Most of it gets cleaned up, but the toothbrush holder was disgusting.

Tuesday: first day

Another day, another new semester.  First days are the worst.  They're almost as bad as the last day.  To be fair though, it was pretty good as first days go.

Then I needed to go to Eagle Crest to give Isaac some medicine.  It was a bit annoying, but understandable.

I went back to Hope to have lunch with Natalie and continue working.  I may have taken a short nap too.  Being in the office during nap time may be a problem.

Rock climbing went well - I climbed a lot with Joshua and helped belay the team a little bit.

Isaac went to the doctor this evening for his toes.  There is a probable diagnosis for his weird colored toes which isn't a big deal, but also doesn't account for the itching.  We'll continue to monitor.

Monday: 2024 reading stats

Since I'm tired of talking about the chores I'm doing (which really aren't that interesting), I thought I'd talk about my 2024 reading stats instead.

I read (or listened to) 57 books*

This is also the same as 29,486 pages.

I read the most books in February, but the most pages in March.

The longest book was Iron Prince by Bryce O'Connor.  (This was also one of my favorites.)

My average rating was 3.64/5.  I only gave 6 books the five star rating.

*This doesn't count about three weeks worth of reading on Royal Road, which is an app that somewhat pre-publishes books.  I was loving the book series I was reading and wanted to continue it.  I enjoyed it for a bit, but then it started dragging and I gave up.  However, the content wasn't divided into books yet so I don't know how many books worth it would have been.

Sunday: the day before

Oh, the day before going back to school.  We didn't really have a long enough break - three more days would have been just right.  Enough time to get fully bored and actually ready to go back.

At the same time, I have a lot to do.  I really need to attempt to actually do work and not just have fun.  These errands don't run themselves.

Isaac started one of his crochet kits recently, but we decided that maybe starting on a dishrag would be a better choice first.  There's something about getting the motion down before trying to do it in a circle.

We also played the Axolotl game.  Snaxalotl enjoyed watching.