Entries tagged with daily activities

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Tuesday's Activities Include: no more vomiting! lunch at Julie's, decluttering

No more vomiting! So tomorrow, T. can go back to school. Yay!

It was picture day for A., so she wore her spring dress. Possibly this will be the last time, altho you never know. It has been warm.

T. and I had lunch at Julie's. He skipped ice cream.

I did some minor decluttering today. T. and I went through two of his drawers (socks and undies, and the PJs) and got rid of too worn and/or too small. Now those drawers close much better. I also worked with him on the essay for his yellow belt on the principles of conduct -- he decided on effort. I directed him to talk about the effort of listening and waiting to ask questions at an appropriate time. Because I _will_ exploit opportunities to work on these things when they arise. We printed it out, put it in a page protector and put it in is martial arts back with his track log book and hung it in the front hall closet with his clean gi. I'm not sure this has ever been so orderly. It'll be the only time I'm sure.

We scheduled A.'s vision therapy appointments and are working on the next batch of T.'s vision therapy appointments.

T. was really kind of bored, so I had him do some math out of the Spectrum 3 workbook -- seemed about right, and he seemed to be able to do the work with effort, so about the right level. Nice to know I'm not totally oblivious to where he is in the math curriculum. It was fun watching him type the essay -- he's clearly completely memorized the keyboard layout, and has adopted and interesting single handed typing style that is more sophisticated and efficient than hunt-and-peck.

I had told my sister I was going to send her some of the For Her bic pens so relentlessly mocked months/years ago on Amazon, that I discovered were super awesome to write with. I couldn't fine them at Staples and wasn't sure if they had changed the name. The only ones for sale on Amazon were third party. I have four and only ever use one, and I've got another really nice pen as well, so I sent her three of mine; T. went with me to the post office to drop them off. We also returned 3 library books and dropped off a few items at the Middle Class Guilt Reduction Station when we went to lunch.

When I went through T.'s sock drawer, there was a pair of slipper socks in there, never worn, that he didn't want. I took them to put in my packed bag.

ETA: Eufy arrived! Review to follow, and then be revised repeatedly. Lots of fun!

I started working on the holiday card. This is a little early, but it is nice to get it started, so I know if I want additional photos in certain spaces.

I also stared at the power strip that sits on the short bookcase next to my recliner in the living room. It seems completely ridiculous to have all these USB cords that plug into very fat things that plug into outlets; it would be much better to just plug the USB cord into a USB slot -- takes up less space, etc. Unfortunately, an awful lot of multi-port hubs / charging strips / etc. have both USB and outlets (defeats the purpose) or the USB ports have a really low amount they can handle charging at one time (like, only one iPad, type of thing). I found a 10 port Anker that looks really good; we'll see how it works in practice. It would be nice if this thing would continue to work well in the face of increasing future demand, because that does seem to be the way things are going.

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Monday's Activities Include: sick kid, chat with K., book group, _Silas Marner_

T. was home sick today, still vomiting (started Sunday night, continued through 1:30 p.m. today thus making Tuesday another home sick day, since there is a 24 delay before they want a kid back at school after the most recent event).

My walking partner wisely declined coming by the house either for a walk or a snack. I pre-emptively canceled Dutch.

I had a lovely phone conversation with K., because you can't catch germs from thousands of miles away.

When R. got home, I went to book group. It was small, just me, A., and M. (the librarian). We read _Silas Marner_ this month (I read it today), which is gloriously short at around 200 pages with reasonable sized type. I must say, I feel like Eliot's sense of humor is wildly understated in most people who wax on about the book. The narrator has a very catty -- even bitchy -- tone at times. But beyond that, the plot machinations are so contrived to present clear cut decisions that lead to redemption or damnation that one wonders if the author is winking at one. Nothing so broad as _The Princess Bride_ but along those lines.

Spoilers!

For example, Godfrey has all kinds of opportunities to admit that he is married, but instead of doing so (really, is that a _hard_ thing to do?), and worse, admitting that he also has a baby daughter, he persists in hoping that the two people (wife and brother) who are blackmailing him over his failure to tell anyone else about this will somehow magically stop bothering him. Well, they do! And someone even rescues his daughter without him even having to admit to having a daughter! In the neighborhood, so he gets to watch her grow up without even lifting a finger! So much nicer than her winding up in the workhouse. The thing is, the brother dies almost immediately after killing the horse he was supposed to sell for Godfrey and then stealing Silas' hoard of gold coins. Dunstan -- the brother -- has a couple opportunities to meet a very minimum bar of human decency (sell horse, not kill it; NOT commit grand theft/burglary), fails both and then dies ... saving Godfrey from having to himself behave well.

That is some churning plot machinery!

Meanwhile, Molly is carrying her daughter through a snowy night to Reveal All, but leaves late and apparently in a drugged stupor and dies in the cold. Again, all she had to do was get to the Red House and tell her tale and all kinds of things would have gone better for her and worse for Godfrey, but she can't manage it. The kid is fine, however, and the kid landing in Silas' home presents another choice / opportunity for redemption which of course Silas takes.

If someone told me this story as a _real_ thing that happened, I would just assume that Godfrey -- or possibly Nancy -- was actually a serial murderer, and Molly and Dunstan's unlucky deaths were in fact not due to Chance at all.

I should add, Silas having been an anabaptist (adult baptism was all he was familiar with) and having something like epilepsy really made him feel like My Kind of People, which may have made me love the book more than I otherwise would have. Plus, being depressed / alone and throwing oneself into one's work and piling up cash is a coping strategy I can totally relate to.

Oh well!

It's a romp of a read, for all that the choice / Chance / redemption / Providence is a bit over the top. If I'd known this years ago, I'd have happily read it then -- it doesn't deserve its reputation for dullness.

Totally loved Priscilla of course, and hope some day she finds her Mr Have Your Own Way. Or not -- because Dear Old Dad seemed pretty awesome, too.

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daily activities

Saturday's Activities Include: walk, martial arts, track, Papa Razzi, cooking

I took T. to martial arts. One of the instructors was away, so he joined a small group lesson. After that, we went to Concord for track with Team Verge. I stopped at a Starbucks to use the loo and bought a coffee while I was there.

After track, we went to Papa Razzi, where I very carefully did not have another coffee, but did have the Caprese Bruschetta minus the mozzarella (sad I can't eat it -- they make their own). Mmmm, avocado toast with sunny side eggs.

After lunch, T. and I went home. R. had taken A. to Build a Bear and the Cheesecake Factory in Burlington, so he could drop off / recycle a humidifier that we didn't need anymore since we had the one hooked up to the forced air. A. got a Pinkie Pie at the Build a Bear and R. noticed for the first time that there is a new MLP movie coming out (yeah, because A. hasn't mentioned it more than a few dozen times and insisted we put it on the calendar <-- that is sarcasm, right there). I did some cooking.

I have taken to heart -- at least for the moment -- the idea that clutter is deferred decision making, or at least a project started that was never completed and thus it can be dealt with by completing tasks. So. I made suikerbrood finally, after buying the sugar cubes for this project in 2015. It turned out well, altho I'm going to crank up the sugar and fat next time. Maybe. It is really tasty the way it is and turns out to be utterly amazing with marmalade on it.

I have also been cooking beans lately. After making a partial old fashioned baked beans from BH&G, I finally did the full amount (altho I did still jack up the bacon and the sweeteners. Because I haven't been able to eat out much lately, and if I'm going to eat a lot of my own cooking, I'm going to quit having my own cooking compensate for the excesses of eating out and instead participate in those excesses with moderate enthusiasm) with the correct beans (in this case, navy). I soaked overnight, and started cooking them this morning; R. shepherded them along and then I baked them in the afternoon. They are Excellent. I'm a little surprised still that I did this, and that I did it without actually having to visit a store for any ingredients (I had the blackstrap molasses, and obviously maple syrup and bacon and the navy beans already). Anyway. We have probably 50-100 pounds of dry beans of one sort or another in the house, and I've been meaning to replace some of the meat in our diet with beans for a while now. Hopefully, this will be the beginning of a new trend.

A. asked for cupcakes, so I made her cupcakes. This time, I used the 1/3 recipe that I would normally make in a loaf pan. It's a little bit more than should be in the cupcake cups, so I think next time I will cut the liquid slightly.

Dinner was sort of ongoing snacking. I had some of the baked beans. I had some of the hummous / garbanzo bean and tahini spread that I made the other day, on rye crisp with home made refrigerator pickles. I had a green salad. And obviously, I had some suikerbrood.

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daily activities

Friday's Activities Include: walks, Battle Road Brewing for lunch

Today was order your series 3 apple watch day. I ordered mine in the morning. I ordered T.'s holiday present in the afternoon. During that time frame, the expected delivery date moved out several weeks. Interesting!

I walked with M. at 10, because my phone call canceled. I had lunch shortly thereafter with R. at Battle Road in Maynard. I had the fried haddock sandwich. Really, really good! R. had the pulled pork sandwich, which looked excellent. I had the farmhouse ale, I think, which was tasty. After multiple stops at the loo (once there, and then at home a few times, because I am middle aged and beer for lunch), R. and I did the long walk together. It was a little muggy but otherwise fine. I was really sweaty when I got back, so I took a shower.

T. went to see Nut Job 2 a second time.

A. had a quiet evening in playing Roblox.

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daily activities

Thursday's Activities Include: plumbing, playdate

Last night I made hummous, starting with sesame seeds (stored in the freezer, so they didn't go rancid. Yay!) and chickpeas. I left _out_ garlic / onion / etc., so R. could have some. I had forgotten just what a pain it was to clean the coffee grinder and blender after doing this.

I also started last night and finished today baked beans. I could have cooked the beans more and they probably should have been a few more beans for the amount of bacon I put in. R. ate them tho, since I left the onion out of them.

When I went downstairs to have tuna salad sandwich for lunch with cole slaw and salad, I noticed that there was a puddle on the floor next to the sink. I'd already mopped one up, thinking it had leaked off the counter, but there was no way there had been further dripping on the counter going onto the floor. I checked under the sink -- good fraction of an inch of water. I cleared it out, dried it out, called Papalia. They offered an appointment for tomorrow; I asked if there was any way to get something sooner. And because they are amazing people, they got me someone in about an hour and fifteen minutes, so he was able to get it all fixed by the time I was due at the play date for A. I got a lot more than just a new garbage disposal -- plumbing inspection, two toilets pulled and reset (one I was nearly ready to call to have done, the other one wasn't that bad) and AC maintenance scheduled for Monday. Oh, and some kind of down-the-drain cleaner in a bucket that isn't Draino and is safe for PVC pipes and so forth. It was kind of awesome to get the wiggly toilets stabilized, altho I could have done without the leaking garbage disposal. We used this opportunity to edit some of what was stored under the sink.f

ETA: T.'s sitter was running a little late, so my walk with M. was a little late. T. and his sitter went to Acton Funeral Home, because he has many, many questions about things and the sitter has gotten quite clever about asking people to answer my son's questions. I am sort of in awe of his childhood. He's spent time with the police (toured a cell and the back of a cop car), people at the courthouse, and now the funeral home. I have no idea what's next, but I'm looking forward to hearing about it, whatever it is.

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daily activities

Wednesday's Activities Include: returned tile, walk

I went over to Tiles Plus More to return the unopened box of tile and the few remaining bullnose tiles. That was actually worth the trip -- $125 back. I always wonder, when I'm driving that far and it takes that much time (over an hour round trip). But apparently, $125 is enough to get me to do it.

I walked with M. when I got back.

I am soaking chickpeas and pinto beans. We had really great sweet baked beans from Battle Road Brewery and whatever and I thought to myself, hey, I bet I could make some really good baked beans. And hummous, while I'm at it.

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daily activities

Monday's Activities Include: breakfast out, chat with K.

I had breakfast with A. at the Blackbird Cafe in Groton, followed by a walk on the rail trail. Very nice! Her knee had been bothering her but after doing PT for a while it is all better now!

Later I had a lovely chat with my friend K.

I also walked with M.

Feeling kind of run down today, not sure why. R. is also.

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daily activities

Tuesday's Activities Include: Dutch lesson, ran roomba, finished 3rd In Death book

I was feeling kind of awful Monday and today, altho by the end of the day starting to feel a bit better. Nothing specific -- just kind of sore and a little sniffly.

I ran roomba, and finished reading the third In Death Book (J.D. Robb); hopefully a review will follow.

I had my Dutch lesson for the first time in a while; that was nice, and I got a walk with A. I also walked later with M.

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daily activities

Saturday's Activities Include: walk, martial arts, track, fair, Buffalo Tom

I took T. to martial arts for the first time in several weeks. That was fun! G., the other sensei, was also there but there was no other class, and he was kind enough to just hang out and chat. I really like both D. and G. They are good guys.

After that, we went to track. Then it was off to Papa Razzi, where I got the "Caprese bruschetta", but without cheese. It had avocado on it and sunnyside up eggs. I think I had avocado toast! It was yummy.

Meanwhile, R. took A. to the Boxboro fair. She got a couple very pink and/or rainbow bags.

Later on, I went for a walk with M.

R. cut the grass, and then he went to see Buffalo Tom.

ETA: I've been reading J.D. Robb, because I realized I'd never read any of the In Death series, and someone over on SBTB really loved number 45 or whatever that she dove into without any knowledge of the rest of the series. (I know, a series that is up in the 40s -- and the author started writing it in 1995! I remember being super excited when Robb/Roberts filled out the automated author interview feature I implemented about a year after the first couple books came out. She was super amazing early on at doing her own promotion, and I knew about her at the time ... but never did read any of the Robb books until just now. Weird!).

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Friday's Activities Include: piano out, phone call, walk, photo purge

Yesterday and today, I continued to go through my newly stocked filing cabinet and shred / recycle. I've run lubricant sheets through the shredder at intervals, and it hasn't overheated yet. Maintenance, FTW!

Today, "Trash Can Willys" came by to get the piano. On their website, one gets the impression that getting rid of a piano will cost around $200. They asked how big it was, so I measured the height (it's an upright) and said it was a little over 4 feet, and quoted me $370. They showed up, said I should have measured the width, and it was going to be $450. I did not tip them. They did not scrap the floors, which is Not Nothing. The website emphasized how they try to recycle; these guys said it was going straight to the dump -- I don't blame them, it is a 1903 Chickering with a weird and unrepairable action, and when we had it tuned a decade ago it was deemed pretty much Not a Piano Anyone Would Want to Buy (at the time, and increasingly over the years, more keys had quit resulting in any sound). Sad, but gone.

I have a lovely phone call with my friend K. She told me there is a Thing now where you can get something that lets your dog call your phone -- like, a video call via Skype. Weird! Hard to imagine that being a good idea, but very funny. The potential for relentless calling and begging seems entirely out of control.

I walked with M.

I went through a bin in the basement that contains a couple photo boxes. One contains discs with scans and also developed film. I _probably_ should get rid of that, because I've uploaded to Flickr everything that I want uploaded to Flickr from this lot. But it is hard to let go of and not doing any harm down there. The other photo box contains actual prints. I went through those (I've done this before, but I was a lot more ruthless this time) and only kept ones where I knew the people and didn't have really awful thoughts about the people, and a very few landscape / plant photographs. I also took this box upstairs and emptied out a thin album of hiking photos (similarly purging them while I was at it) because the shelf of photo albums has gotten too crowded. And then I collected the box with leftover Holiday Cards (the ones I have made up through Snapfish or whatever each year) and the stack of accordion photo thingies from the photographer each year, dumped them into the newly created space in the photo box and returned it to its bin. I got the photo albums to fit onto their single shelf again (yay!) and got a little space back in my office from the box of cards and the accordion books. One of the reasons the photo albums overflowed was because I finally got all of the J.M. prints out of the box in that same place in my office and into an album.

R. is off to return leftover tile from the shower, and to stop at the piano store and try out a Yamaha hybrid we are discussing (and maybe other things, but I told him I'm not just buying a straight acoustic), and to donate some things to Savers.

Part of moving the piano out of the house meant that things that were sitting on the piano had to find new homes. A picture went to the bar, so things had to come off the bar -- an ice bucket set of cocktail equipment went to Savers (we never use it -- we have other things we prefer). The bicycle guy went to the case we store DVDs in, so the electronic picture frame went into a donation / recycle box. The lounge light went to the top of the bookcase and the games on the top of that case went into a different shelf of games. The light that was on top of the piano went out to the front hallway (it looks really good there -- that may be permanent). So there was some downstream rearranging and purging triggered by the piano purge. There is an incomplete painting project that is now on the table in the living room, for R. and A. to work on this weekend.

Now that the trash and recycling has been picked up, I can move bags of shredded paper and recycled paper along. I may pause the decluttering project for a bit. I got so tired I took a nap today.

Oh, and I got R. to extract the film from an ancient camera for me, and mailed it off to Darkroom. Who knows what I'll get back. I _think_ it dates from some time in college, but we'll find out. Or we won't, if it is too badly deteriorated.

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Thursday's Activities Include: purging files continues

Last night, I found more travel folders (2009-2013 WDW trips). I've gone through the 2009, 2010 and 2011 files, shredding, taking notes into the travel document (I have a 30+ page document describing very sparely family trips we have taken. It started life as a way to answer T.'s questions about When Did We Do X? It includes links to Flickr photo albums, blog posts, and similar.) and recycling. Obviously, hitting the 2011 trip was mildly stressful.

As I was typing this, I got a robotic voice mail from the town saying that they found a mosquito in town carrying West Nile. They will be spraying, including my street. *sigh* I guess the good news is (I mean other than, the species of mosquito mostly bites birds, so hopefully not us) the spraying might reduce mosquitos in the area in general, and A. has been getting some wicked bites lately. Hopefully, she won't get West Nile. :(

Where was I?

I wound up taking some of the documents I requested from Disney at the time and dropping them (along with a transcript of voicemail) into the nanny termination file, which is really where they should have been anyway. I probably should have just gotten rid of all of it (it _has_ been over 5 years) but whenever an event results in me amending taxes, I reflexively keep documentation for a really long time. I mean, you just never know what the questions will get into.

Along with the travel folders I found in a plastic file box, I found a folder of DVC documents. I went through that and tossed everything that wasn't a deed or title insurance. That file is now a lot thinner.

I still have [ETA: one] more travel folders to do (2012-3) [ETA: only 2013 left], and there are still plastic file boxes upstairs. At some point, I'd like to at least get rid of one of the plastic file boxes via consolidation. Then I might declare this whole thing done. [ETA: I successfully emptied one of the plastic file boxes. I did this in part by putting the rest of it into my now available second drawer in my office. In practice, this is insane: several inches are taxes dating from 1986-2003. However, I'm optimistic that I will get up the nerve to actually destroy some of those. Because I really don't need to keep taxes back to 1986. I'm quite certain of this.]

ETA: I have a great phone conversation with J., now that all of our children are back in school. A. had a half day. I forgot to get cash for T.'s sitter, so I left the sitter with both kids while I went to the bank, then I walked with M.

A. wanted her nail polish removed and redone with some of the nail glitter art stuff. I'm really starting to notice differences in nail polish quality.

ETAYA: I have started shredding parts of tax files. Gives me goose bumps, it does.

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Wednesday's Activities Include: walk, T.'s first day of school!

It was T.'s first day of middle school today! Very exciting! He leaves really early in the morning -- shortly before 7 a.m.

A. rode the yellow school bus today. The stop is two doors down in front of neighbors who we like, and they were out with another girl whose first name starts with A. So we had a nice chat, and the bus wasn't crazy late and A. seems to have had a good day altho she forgot she had sneakers in her backpack for PE and wore her Mary Janes instead. Oh well!

I continued purging financial files. And then I branched out into photos. One of the drawers of the two drawer filing cabinet in my office has a bunch of miscellaneous photos (a couple albums, some boxes, some envelopes, etc.). I'm hoping to get this entirely cleared out, so I can move more files down to my office. In the meantime, I'm doing what I can to reduce the amount of paper in the filing system overall, in hopes that I can maybe get a really large fraction of the active files into my 2 drawer cabinet.

As I was going through photos, I found discs with digital photos from the 2009 and 2010 J.M. photo sessions. So that was pretty awesome. I'm now only missing 2011 and 2012 (I have 2013 on already uploaded to Flickr).

It was a rainy day, but I did get one short walk.

ETA: I found the remaining photo discs. So R. and I now have caught up on uploading digital photos from the J.M. photo sessions (well, not this year -- we haven't received it yet). This feels like a huge accomplishment, perhaps disproportionately so, but it really makes a lot of this effort feel worth while.

I also went through some envelopes of photos and threw a lot of them away, but saved pictures of me, of R. and a few plant / landscape photos from hikes that really stood out. There was no organized process -- I suspect that at least all of mine are already digitized and uploaded to Flickr, and R. has his own copies of his photos, so I just kept stuff I liked enough to put in the albums. I wanted to get that file drawer back, and I have. The two remaining items in search of a home / next step in the process are a camera from my late teens with a roll of film in it that I should find a developer for to see if there is anything there, and a spiral scrapbooking supplies thing from Disney.

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Tuesday's Activities Include: A.'s first day of school!

Today was A.'s first day of school. T. and his sitter went to the beach. It was kind of muggy out, and it never did cool down. It was a slightly crazy day as I had a vacation planning window start at 7 a.m. that I got up early to do, then I called CASE transportation to figure out what the status on A.'s transportation actually was. I got her up, dressed, fed and then R. dropped the two of us off at the school so I could hang out with her until I could hand her off to someone else. Once I was home again, I talked to J., and then I looked at the bus schedules and called the regular transportation department to confirm what I thought I understood from the schedule. So tomorrow will be her first day on the regular school bus.

A little before 11 (which is when that window started), a guy came from Country Glass to measure the shower for a glass door; so that is progressing.

I requested a pickup for the piano that we are (finally) going to get rid of and hopefully replace. I want to get a hybrid. I found the Samick Ebony Neo, but R. was concerned about .. I'm not sure. After some discussion, and not really getting what the issue was (future proofing, whether it would "feel" like a "real" piano, should we just get a keyboard so we could move it around the house -- which had been my first plan, but he wanted an acoustic, so this was my solution to satisfy both), I finally found a Yamaha Nu1, and while he wants to visit one in a shop and see what it feels like, absent someone telling us this is a horrible idea, I think that's what we'll be getting. It seems to hit a sweet spot of quality furniture appearance, potential social hub and ability to play without disturbing others by hooking up headphones.

We've been talking about doing this forever, it seems, but I was reluctant to bring something really nice into the house and have it be destroyed by the kids. Waiting seemed like it might get us to a point where the kids would be able to play it without damaging thing. Also, the 1903 Chickering upright with the weird action that this is replacing is deteriorating pretty noticeably.

I also purged a bunch of financial files.

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Sunday's Activities Include: temporary shower caddies, curtain

R. and T. went to Lowe's and Bed Bath and Beyond in Hudson. They came back with suction cup based shower caddies, which look nice and are pretty good for what they are. I've also ordered more permanent (Nie Wieder Bohren) to install with adhesive. R. also got a curtain and a tension rod, so we can now actually use the shower. Despite having taken a shower earlier in the day, T. was so excited it was all set up and ready to use that he beat R. and I to taking the first shower.

R. got take out from Battle Road Brew Pub in Maynard. O.M.G. truly excellent BBQ. The beans and greens are particularly amazing. The slaw is not safe for me. The ribs, chicken and pulled pork are also excellent. And of course the beer is good, but I didn't have any. Fries were not going to be the sort the kids like and they are salty, but the spices are really nice.

I bought Duck Tour tickets for T. and his sitter to use tomorrow. They have all kinds of fun planned.

No horse today; rain. So basically A. and I never did leave the house.

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daily activities

Saturday's Activities Include: Walk, shower head

R. installed the shower head that the man who did our tile shower couldn't figure out how to install. I have no idea why this was so difficult for the person who was otherwise very organized and capable, but I think he might have a bit of a block on anything gadgety, and this shower head has a hose, a bar and so forth.

Someone will be coming out to measure for a glass shower door next Tuesday.

I got a walk, which was nice, with M., and a later walk by myself doing the 3 mile loop.

No martial arts today, and track for T. starts next week.

T. wanted to make pizza for dinner, so I made crust and we used contadina sauce for him with pre-shredded mozzarella and I used the ground beef, bell pepper and mushroom red sauce on my side of the pizza. Perfectly good dinner, nothing amazing. I think I'll make the crust thinner next time.

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daily activities

Friday's Activities Include: Walk, dentist, bed shuffle

R. went to the dentist today. I got a walk with M. T. went with the sitter. A. and I had a relatively quiet day at home. R., A. and I went to Crossroads for dinner. There was a wait, so A. and I went next door to the dollar tree where we got a ludicrous amount of candy and plastic for $7.09, and A. had fun chatting with an adorable 5 year old who was with her grandmother doing back to school shopping.

ETA: I think this was the day I made the banana bread. I used ginger and cinnamon. It turned out really pretty.

ETAYA: This is definitely the day of the bed shuffle. We took the bunk beds apart in T.'s room. We moved the futon from A.'s room back up to the third floor (undoing a key element of the previous bed shuffle). We moved the _double_ bed to A.'s room (so that's not what was there before; she had the single from the bunk beds before). And we set the single up in T.'s room with his new, black, privacy pop tent. So A.'s has a pink double and T. has a black single privacy pop tent. They make "bunk bed" size different from the regular size. I did not order that and possibly I should have. We had to take the poles out from the bottom of the tent because they don't fit properly into the bunk beds.

The third floor now has its couch back, which is probably a good thing; certainly, if the S. family were to come visit again (hint hint!) we could readily put them up on the third floor again. Had they come in between these two rearrangings, some of them would have been on the third floor and some would have been on the first floor on the sofa bed.

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Thursday's Activities Include: painting continues, play therapy, sitter, walk

I had a lovely phone conversation with J. from noon to almost 1:30. Thank you A., for your patience!

I had a walk with M. at 2 p.m.

The sitter came today. T. had play therapy. I think he might do that again next week, altho I'm waiting to hear back definitively from T. later on. In the meantime, A. is off a regular schedule for that, but if we want to have a session, all we have to do is reach out.

Painting the trim continues; the deck now has two coats.

I'm back at work on taking pictures of ephemera from travel binders. I did the one from this trip to the Netherlands AND the one from the 2013 trip to the Netherlands.

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Saturday's Activities Include: Efteling. Twice. And swimming

We went to Efteling, and I didn't understand how to get to Symbolica (it is _through_ Octopus! Silly me!) during the half hour before regular hours for people staying on property. Oh well! We did a lot of rides, and I bought the photo pass. We went back to the room to rest, and then later with swimming. A. didn't realize that 1,3 m meant More Than 4 Feet Deep, so she got over her 4 Feet Deep phobia and had a ton of fun.

Then we went _back_ to the park to see what it looked like after dark, when we realized it was open really late. Lots of fun, but exhausting.

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Monday's Activities Include: deck stain gallon purchased, hair cut, play date, book group

I got to the hardware store before half the house was up to buy the gallon of deck stain. So, both gallons acquired before the arrival of the painter. Yay!

I have a haircut later today, and A. has a playdate at Castle in the Trees in the afternoon. I've got book group this evening. T. is off with the sitter, and she was kind enough (and T. patient enough) to let me do the short loop with M. first.

I'm currently reading the book group selection, an unusual one for us, a genre romance by Nora Roberts (_Born in Fire_, so not a new one by any stretch of the imagination!). It will be interesting hearing what the rest of the group makes of it! It is more or less in line with other books by Nora Roberts which I have read.

Bee Guy should be out in the next couple days.

ETA: I got the last item that we took off the wall (a wooden display cabinet with a glass door) back up. I'll have to have R. rearrange the little explanatory cards with the items from his side of the family.

Entry tags:

Back from the Netherlands; will catch up blog later

We went to the Netherlands and spent a few days at Efteling, followed by a few days staying in Diever and visiting Fryslan pretty much all of those days (yeah, not the smartest thing, but we really like Diever, but Fryslan is where family is). I'll try to catch up on blogging over the next few days and backdate the posts.

Today's activities Include:

Cleaned fridge (tossed food that had gone bad and actually cleaned the two main drawers)
Went grocery shopping
Lunch at Julie's Place with T. (I accidentally hockey pucked my burger that I was going to eat at home, when someone came to the door)
Talked to the powerwasher / painter (that's who interrupted the lunch process)
Bought a can of paint
Picked out a color for the deck stain (will be buying that gallon tomorrow)
Wrote checks, one to the person who did the shower (finished!) and one that is complicated to explain
Went to a birthday party after shopping for birthday presents for the two kids whose birthdays were being celebrated
Sent invites for my daughter's upcoming birthday party
Sent documents for my son's physical to someone at the school who needs those
Sent documents to transportation for the kids
Sent a query to someone at my daughter's school about more transportation
Sent a request to The Bee Guy regarding stinging insects that appear to be nesting in the siding (discovered by the power washer / painter)
Visited the bank
Uploaded vacation photos
Caught up on email (mostly)
Made cole slaw and cooked bacon
Vacuumed and roomba'd (mostly construction dust) and swiffered walls in the master bathroom (ditto)
Put some pictures back up on the walls (taken down during construction)

I'm super forgetful from the jetlag, but otherwise seem to be doing okay. Kids seem happy, altho, predictably, got tired early.

ETA: Did a couple loads of laundry. I did get mostly unpacked last night, even tho we got back really late.

ETAYA: Downloaded the ride photos. Efteling is using Picsolve. This seems to be where a lot of parks and other attractions that do group photos are winding up.