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I’m Not Your Bud, Guy!

I took the Shadow to work today since it was supposed to be at least a little bit nice out. I spent all day at the high school with Mike, and we closed out a few things. The work there was definitely more difficult than the screw turning I’d been doing at the junior high. I’ll have more to do tomorrow as well, and then lots of claims to finish before the end of the summer.

I met several of the guys at Bocadillos for lunch, and the service was extra good today. Then I finished up at the high school before running home to get the car so I could take the girls to karate.

Summer had their gear, so we stopped by the shop to get that first. Then I dropped them off and went to my parents’ house to visit for a little while. Summer had a long day at work and didn’t want to get back out, so I took the girls home, and it was an early night to bed.

The moon, you say?

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More Work?

This morning started out pretty cold, but the afternoon got up around 70. I spent all day with Brody again, and we just about finished up everything at the junior high. We both tore down some student devices all the way to the motherboards, and even that was easier than I thought, so we have loads of parts to make good laptops now.

Zach wanted to go to Quiznos for lunch. I tried to convince the crew to go somewhere else, but Brody left the office to go straight to Quiznos, and by the time Zach, Gary, and I got there, he had already taken his food back to the junior high.

After work, I went by Summer’s shop again until she closed, then went to Zaxby’s to pick up a quick dinner. Then I finally took my car in for a wash before settling in for the night.

Help! Help! I’m being repressed!

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Orientation Days

It was back to work today after another super long break. With all the new blood coming in, Ben went over our new team structure, and I’ll be stepping back from the buildings in favor of more systems stuff, which is good. Hopefully we can offload more of the actual device repairs to the lab aides to free us up for other things.

I spent all day with Brody at the junior high, where we closed a few tickets and then stripped down a few laptops. We took a long lunch break at Linh’s with some of the worst service we’ve ever had, because the new guy was having to train an even newer girl. She just hasn’t been able to keep servers there for anything, and it’s suffering a lot because of it.

After work, I stopped by the shop to see Summer, then ran home to clean up before heading to their house. Zach took Autumn to her Explorers meeting and brought Eaddie dinner, so Summer and I just ate some leftover spaghetti. Then I picked Autumn up and we all settled in for the night.

I should invest in submarines with all this diving.

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Vaguely Babysitting

Summer got up and made a big breakfast for all of us this morning. A couple of the girls had stayed up super late, but fortunately nobody was to groggy. Summer and I ended up back in bed after breakfast to finish Firefly. Eventually the girls all wanted to go shopping before their friends had to go home, so I took them to the Valley Park Center to wander through some shops while Summer went to the gym. Our last stop was Walmart, and Summer came to get them so I could run home for a bit.

When I got back up to their house, I reheated the leftover turkey soup for dinner. The girls both broke out some schoolwork, so it was a pretty quiet night. I did my best to go to sleep early for my return to work.

I don’t understand why things can’t just stay like this forever.

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Short Binge

Summer woke up craving Chinese, so we went to New China for lunch. Their steamers must not have been up to temperature yet, because a lot of the food was cold right off of the bar. It wasn’t awful, but it could have been a lot better. Once we were stuffed, we came back to her house and watched most of Drive, an old Fox show that they cancelled after only a couple episodes.

Eventually I went to get the girls and their friends, and brought them over for the evening. Summer ordered Domino’s, and then we played a couple card games with the girls. Afterward, we finished Drive before continuing with Firefly. We hadn’t really watched it since our trip to New Orleans, but Summer enjoyed both shows. We’ll probably finish it tomorrow while the girls are still here.

Let’s open up a beach-flavored snow cone stand on the side of the road!

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The Great Kitchen Cleanout

Summer went back to work today, so it was up to me to get the girls on chores. Autumn was up early and obviously wanted to go to their friends’ house, so she kept busy. Eaddie, on the other hand, woke up late and mostly lazed around as she showered and got ready for the day. I stripped most everything out of the kitchen cabinets and did some reorganizing. Not everything had a home in the end, so there was a lot left out on the counters by the time Summer got home.

I had pulled out the turkey stock I made from our Thanksgiving turkey carcass, and whipped up a noodle and vegetable soup out of them. Summer took the girls to their friends, then went to the gym before coming back home to eat. Then we watched Stardust and gawked at the list of stars cast.

It won’t be much longer before all the snow has melted.

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The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway

Summer really wanted to get out today, so we got up and went to Walmart to look for some salt for her parking lot at work. As I suspected, they were out, but thankfully Sam plowed for them while he was cleaning up their lot next door. I dropped her and Autumn off at the gym, then went home to shower and find something at least a little bit waterproof to wear for later.

As soon as we got back to their house, we all came outside to build a snowman. The girls had a big ball rolled up in no time, and I got at least some of it in a hyperlapse video. We all had a great time since the snow had finally melted just enough to be a little sticky instead of powdery. The snowman didn’t quite make it to life-size, but I think it was probably the biggest I’ve ever helped to make.

When we got back inside, Autumn wanted to grill some brats, so she and I ran back to Walmart for buns since nobody was working at the Dollar General. We got home and I picked through some stuff Eaddie wanted to throw away from cleaning her room, and then we had a nice dinner. Autumn went to bed early as usual. Summer went to bed feeling a bit of a head cold. Eaddie stayed up and played Fortnite on the Switch since her boyfriend was online. I cleaned up their medicine cabinet, and eventually made it to bed myself.

Baby got back!

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Snow Problem

I unintentionally slept in pretty late today. Summer got around to making pancakes for a late breakfast, and eventually we got up the nerve to leave the house. After a week of cooking multiple fresh meals every day, we ran out of a couple essentials, so Summer, Autumn, and I loaded up in her car to get down the hill. Things went pretty smoothly until she got stopped coming up the hill to get onto Weir Road. Luckily a truck stopped and a couple guys got out to help us push her car out of its little rut.

We stopped at my house first, since I was ill-dressed for the weather. I took a quick shower after having filled my boat shoes with dirty snow. Then we went to Walmart for some supplies. They were pretty picked apart, but we didn’t need much. We spent more time looking at clearance deals than anything else, and scored a bunch of smelly-good stuffs.

The trip back up to Summer’s was easy enough until we got to her hill of a driveway. Autumn and I had to back her into the street to get a running start, then push her up over a hump before she could get up to the house. Summer’s spaghetti dinner was great, and then Autumn wanted to play a game of classic Rummy. Afterward, she and Summer went to their rooms and Eaddie and I watched some more House until bed.

CHKNDROP

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White Out Black Out

I’ve been trying not to sleep in too much since the snow days aren’t super predictable. I don’t know when they’ll open schools back up, but the snow is still just as powdery as it was when it first fell. A little bit of it melted, or sublimated away in the sun, but not much. We haven’t even been out of the house since this whole thing started, so we have no idea how the main roads have been. There’s been very little traffic here.

Summer’s been knocking out meals with whatever she’s found in the fridge, and it’s been pretty great. It’ll be nice to get to start fresh with a mostly empty fridge when this all blows over. Eaddie has at least appeared to do some school work whenever I’ve checked on her. Autumn is mostly sleeping or watching shows on one of her too-many devices, claiming that none of her teachers have given her any work. I almost look forward to some hellish punishment when her grades aren’t where they need to be.

We played some more Phase 10, but that’s about as interactive as it’s gotten. Right in the middle of that, the power went out and we had to break out the candles to finish our game. We weren’t sure how long it would last, hoping it was just a temporary, planned outage to help with power shortages elsewhere. Whether or not it was planned, it thankfully came back on almost exactly a half hour later.

The girls all went to bed pretty early, but I stayed up to toy with QR codes. Now I’ve got even more neat ideas to be underutilized.

You can’t click cookies without power!

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Hibernation 101

We woke up this morning and had a great breakfast. Summer scrambled some eggs with veggies and some of the pork Dad smoked for us. Snow piled up for most of the day, stacking high in dry, fluffy peaks. The girls went outside and played in it a little bit more, but none of us really had proper attire for wet, winter weather. Most of our day was killed in front of our TVs or computers.

We did at least take some time to play Monopoly and Phase 10 before bed. Eaddie and I watched some House until she fell asleep on me. School’s out “until further notice” which may extend my vacation to a full three weeks. I’m not complaining. I just hope I remember how to do my job when I get back. I’ve been away from work more than I’ve been at work for the past four months.

The Grandmapocalypse is upon us.