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Tropical Christmas Cookies

I got around this morning and went to Walmart and to get gas on my way to Summer’s. She baked lemon cookies for the kids to decorate when Noah got out of work. Eaddie was still in bed, so I was more or less left to my own devices for most of the day. When Autumn left the TV, I played some more Don’t Starve, which has been fun playing a little more casually on the couch.

Summer made a big pot of chicken alfredo, and we ate when Noah arrived. Then they decorated the tree while Summer made colored icing. It didn’t seem like anyone was really in the mood to do any of that stuff this early, especially with highs in the mid 70s this past week. Our weekends are pretty booked up until Christmas though, so we made do.

When Noah left, Eaddie went to finish up homework while Autumn did chores. I played my game some more, but ultimately died. C’est la vie. I needed to warm back up to the mechanics anyway.

You don’t keep it this warm in here even during the summer!

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Streamer

Summer and Autumn had a Quiz Bowl tournament at the high school today. I couldn’t get back to sleep after they left, so I just got up and picked at some leftovers for breakfast. Then I tinkered around some more with the Steam Link, which worked really well. Some of the controller support still felt pretty unintuitive, but overall it was a really good experience. I played Don’t Starve on it for quite a while.

Eventually I had to get out and get things done, so I headed home to spend some time there for the first time in what felt like forever. Bác Vân had called last night with TV remote trouble, so I went next door and re-paired the remotes to her cable boxes. After a little while, I started going through laundry and washed a whole bunch of shirts.

I pretty much spent the rest of my down time on YouTube all night, watching videos on music theory, science, and anything else the algorithm thought I would be interested in watching.

Split the load.

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At Leased We Know

I had to ride the Grom to work today in order to complete the set. I was almost out of gas though, so I stopped at Casey’s on the way in. When I got to work, we had a relatively relaxed meeting before splitting off. We didn’t have many projects, but they thought we might have some stuff to set up or move upstairs. The room was still empty though, so it was back to my office.

I helped some others as they came through, and hung the Christmas lights that Ben left me on his way out. Kyle came back to my office around lunch time, and as we often do, we suggested Ridgewood Brothers. Everyone agreed on account of the weather, though we still brought the food back to the shop to eat. The garlic beef sausage that Gary let me have was super garlicy.

After we ate, I helped Zach scan through some old Chromebooks to try and find some we had lost. We were pretty spot on with what we expected from the summer, but evidently Dell was just going to charge us into perpetuity instead of sending a final bill for the cost of buying out any devices we didn’t return.

The last part of the afternoon was pretty slow, but we walked out a couple minutes early. I went to Casey’s for some free SweeTARTS, then went home until Autumn called me for a ride. We stopped by Oakland to get Eaddie, then went to their house for the evening.

Eaddie went with her grandmother for the night, and Autumn wanted to stay home instead of go to my house, so the girls went down for an early bedtime while I stayed up and pondered homeownership.

Very poor value.

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Ye Olde Parade

I took the R1 to work today, and it was pretty frosty on the way in, but it was very close to perfect in the afternoon. I got distracted helping others in the morning until lunch time. Brody has been wanting to go to Nonna Bella’s for a while, so five of us went there and discovered that they have pretty good lunch specials. When we finished there, I went by Oakland and plugged a bunch of things back into a surge protector. It’s the silly things that really keep me going.

On the subject of silly things, I got TWO compliments on my mass emails today after sending out the meeting minutes in medieval English. It wasn’t a long email, which made it that much better that people cared enough to notice and write back.

We left work early so we could get out of the way of the parade. I went by Casey’s to try and score a free water, but they were out. From there, I went home to get dinner ready for the girls. Summer brought them over before they had to be back to school, and we had leftover burgers and hot dogs. Then she took Eaddie to the junior high while I took Autumn to the high school.

We met back up at Big Poppa’s since there was still room to park for the parade. I brought a couple camp chairs, and we sat at the edge of the road to talk until they officially closed the side street. Then we moved our chairs up into the street to watch the parade.

The parade itself was really spread out, and we were just on the tail end of where the bands stopped playing. We didn’t even hear them play further down the road, so we didn’t get to see either of the girls do anything cool. We ended up leaving early, and I went home to wait for Autumn to finish at the high school.

When we finally got up to Summer’s, she was already in bed. I stayed up late to help Eaddie with her math homework. I could really relate to how frustrated she was getting, but at least it was geometry, which is a subject I could really visualize.

On your guard, knave!

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Hot Doggin

After two days of taking Eaddie to school, I was on my own this morning and didn’t get in until five minutes after eight. I wanted to take a bike to work since the high was a little over 70, and I guess eenie-miney-mo took a little longer than it should have. I ended up on the Shadow, behind someone that clearly was not in a rush to get anywhere.

I had a CPPC meeting in the morning, which was super short. We went over some duplicate policies and laughed at how poorly they had all been organized over the years. It’s an embarrassment for all those that came before, really. It’s basically taking a full time employee to fix it all.

I didn’t get into much else, partially because I kept working on the meeting minutes, and partially because I just couldn’t focus on anything. I rode to Brangus for lunch with Thomas, Gary, and Brody. Then the afternoon was pretty quiet as well. I had to run by Oakland to turn a computer off and back on again, but otherwise I didn’t accomplish much.

After work, I went home for a little bit and had a leftover kielbasa on a hot dog bun for dinner. I thought I was doing well by going relatively light in quantity, but it left me hurting a bit later in the evening. Eventually I had to get out to pick Autumn up from a Quiz Bowl trip, so I stopped by Casey’s first for a free drink, then took pictures of the tacky lights on the front of the Gardner building.

I had to wait in the parking lot for Autumn because they were later than I was expecting. Then we stopped by Walgreens to pick up an order, and finally headed up to their house. Eaddie was stuck doing homework in her room all night, so I laid with Summer for a little bit before finishing up my own routine and going to bed.

Nothing noble about these gases.

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Beautiful Day to Waste

I narrowly got Eaddie to school this morning and made it in to work. I thought it was going to be closer than it was, but just like winning – whether you’re early by one minute or one hour, early’s early.

It was another quiet day downstairs. I went to Oakland before lunch again and took care of a few new things. I did my best to kill the time just because there wasn’t much going on. Gary said we were meeting Dale at Taco John’s for lunch, but Brody asked me to pick him up after dropping his truck off at a tint shop. I didn’t realize he was going to one halfway to Dardanelle.

We had to spread out at Taco John’s, so Josh and Greg sat behind us. Dale seemed to be doing well. The Marine talk between him and Brody must have been similar to what they hear when we talk nerdy. I was surprised that Thomas didn’t show up, but he’s sporadic at best anyway.

The afternoon was absolutely beautiful outside, and I was tempted to leave. Ben wouldn’t have cared if I took a half sick day, but I haven’t quite figured out the new regime yet. I just stayed in, quiet and bored.

After work, Eaddie was having fun on the Oakland playground, so I left her there and went home to change. When she was ready to come home, I brought her back to eat, and then I took both girls home for the night. Summer was back from Little Rock, and we helped Eaddie with some math homework and then had pie before bed.

What the buck?

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That Stinks

I was exhausted this morning, but I managed to send Autumn off to school on her bike, get Eaddie to the junior high on time, and still make it in to work with a couple minutes to spare. It was pretty quiet downstairs, so I went to Oakland early and took care of some new work orders I had gotten over the break. The best one was a surge protector that was just turned off. It’s got to be learned helplessness.

When I got back, Greg, Zach, Thomas, and I went to La Chiquita for lunch. Things never really picked up in the afternoon, and I spent a bunch of time working on a laptop that kept running through a recovery and wouldn’t boot to the network properly. About the time I got it done, Greg was going to help me look at what I thought was an intercom issue at Oakland.

On the way out the door, Thomas came back and wanted to talk, then took me into my own office and shut the door. I didn’t really know what to expect, but then he just asked me not to use my oil diffuser any more because someone had complained about it. I knew Greg gave me crap about it, but I didn’t figure he really cared. He seemed to be playing the whole thing up, so I don’t know if Thomas or I read into that wrong. He didn’t seem to think it was anything he said, but I can’t think of a single other person that ever comes back to my area that would have said anything. It certainly isn’t going through the cinderblock wall.

With that awkward conversation out of the way, I met Greg at Oakland and we went to the back of the building only to discover it wasn’t an intercom issue at all. It was an issue with the in-ceiling sound system. I wiggled the knobs until it sounded better, and then we were off. He stuck around to help me run an HDMI cable in another room, and that got us to quitting time.

I picked Eaddie up a couple blocks away from my house, then went outside to clean up the fire pit and grill. Autumn made it back home on her bike, and then they waited for their brother, Zach, to come get them. That was news to me, but I was mostly concerned that one of them had taken advantage of him to take them out to eat. In any case, I let them go and then went to my parents’ house to pick at leftovers before picking them up from their house where Zach dropped them back off.

When we got back to my house, I had to kick Autumn out of bed to take a shower. Then I helped Eaddie with some homework before watching an episode of House. Time seemed to move faster and faster as the evening went on. I thought I might make it to bed early, but no such luck.

What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?

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A Thankful Hurrah

Summer got up and made pancakes for breakfast this morning. Eaddie stayed in her room most of the day, and I played Firewatch on the TV over my Steam Link for a little while with relatively good results. Autumn finally made it back home, but hadn’t showered since she was last with us. I really just don’t understand how she can go that long carrying her stench so often.

I eventually headed home to start a fire out back, and prep the new grill for dinner. The fire caught pretty nicely and rolled all evening once the girls came over. Summer and I ran to Walmart to get burgers for a quick dinner, and I finally got to cook on the charcoal side of the grill.

I was actually a tiny bit disappointed, because the two halves aren’t connected at all, so there’s really no heat transmission between the charcoal and propane sides. That meant the grilling surface was actually pretty small. I struggled to get all twelve burgers on at once, not to mention the four hot dogs that Autumn didn’t want to cook over the open fire out back. I did like the grates and the general build quality though, so hopefully it lasts a while. I’ll have to get some propane to try out the other half, but that will be convenient for a quick cook.

After we ate, the girls all came outside and we roasted some marshmallows. When we finished, I helped Autumn prep her bicycle for her ride to school in the morning since she still hasn’t earned her right to the car again. Then everyone was off to bed to wrap up our first holiday break for the year.

You are here, and it’s beautiful, and escaping isn’t always something bad.

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House Sitting

Summer took the Murano to Little Rock for the Chenal lube’s soft open, so I was more or less stuck at home with Eaddie all day. She didn’t leave her room until mid afternoon, which left me to poke around the kitchen and tinker with anything that would hold my attention. When Eaddie did finally come out, I had forgotten about the chores she was supposed to do, and we just started watching House.

I took a shower as Summer came back into town and went to the gym. Then we went to my parents’ house for some leftovers from Thanksgiving. Eaddie was supposed to go, but copped an attitude. It’s good to know my PM Sensor works so well, I guess. We ate with Dad, then went to my house for a few minutes so I could pick up some things.

When we got back to Summer’s, she went to bed and worked on her laptop. Eaddie was doing laundry, but after that was done we watched a few more episodes before bed. It won’t be long until we finish the show, so we’ll need to decide what’s next.

Gift Card Juggling for the Holidays

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Giddy Teens

Summer had to work in Little Rock, which left me with Eaddie all day. I kept trying to motivate her to clean house, but that was a struggle. She had already cleaned a bunch yesterday, but wanted everything spick and span for when her boyfriend would be coming over in the afternoon. I didn’t get up to much of anything until later in the evening.

Zane came over and the two of them just hung out in the living room playing the Switch. The two of them went outside for a minute, and then Eaddie came back in and locked the doors. I pondered her fretting over his visit, only to lock him out of the house once he arrived. Summer got home just as he was walking around the house, and let him back in.

I picked up some Papa John’s for dinner, and just sat around until his father came to pick him up. Summer needed to run to Walmart for some more store supplies, so we went there, to get gas, and then to pick up some towels from her shop here. When we got home, she went to bed and Eaddie and I binged some House until bedtime.

No, they were stupid too.