Tag: family

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Standard Fair

Summer had to work today but didn’t go in until late morning. I had some cereal for breakfast that I only regretted a little. The girls were to do chores all day to get the house back into shape, and Autumn did pretty well on her own. Eaddie wasn’t having any of it, and required more persuasion.

In the afternoon, Julie had us over for traditional New Year’s fixings. On the way out, I said something to try and correct some misinformation, but ended up just striking a nerve again. More on that later. A little while after we got back to the house, Autumn left with her father to go shopping and get some food. Eaddie didn’t feel like going, so I helped her clean under her bed. Eventually Summer got home from work and took Autumn to the gym with her. I went home to clean up before they followed me over.

Julie offered me the leftover ham bone, so I went to pick it up and she yelled at me some more about how life isn’t fair. It really got me aggravated with the whole family feud to the point that I’m going to have to settle it once and for all with some quick number crunching. It’s easy to cry foul when you’re using imagined statistics.

Back home, the girls arrived with some Tropical Smoothie, and I made some popcorn for the Dark Knight finale. Autumn spent a lot of the movie confused. Summer spent most of it behind her hands. Eaddie and I really loved it. I hated not getting to follow the Robin story line, but at least it was wrapped up in a nice little trilogy.

It’s not your year yet.

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A Stroll Down Memory Frames

It just rained and rained and rained today. Everyone pretty much stayed at the shop since it was just a half day. Somehow we got on the subject of my blog, and Ben started Googling for it. He happened across my old highschool site and the Cow Patty Link of the Week section. A little Wayback Machine later, and we got to experience the early Angelfire web of yore.

I got one more HP lesson done, and then Ben had me run to Staples to get some badge holders. They were a buck a piece for 40, so I ran by Lowe’s instead, and then finally Walmart where I found some for just under two bucks for a dozen.

That got me to the end of the work day, so I went home and waited for Summer to get off, and then we went to Leonard’s to spend a coupon I had been saving. She got a mortar and pestle, which was sold in a set, so I’m still not sure which one is the mortar and which one is the pestle, and at this point I’m too afraid to ask.

I had another coupon for Mulan’s, so we met my parents for a New Year’s Eve dinner. Then I took Summer back to her car so she could go home, and I waited until it was time to get the girls from their friends’ house. Eventually with them in tow, we went up the hill and waited for midnight.

Autumn came into the bedroom and played Monopoly on Stadia with Summer and me. We finished up right in time to not see anything happen, because we don’t pay for live television and we didn’t properly coordinate any kind of streaming service. Somehow, one of the neighbors managed to light a few fireworks in the downpour though, so it wasn’t completely anticlimactic.

Maybe all this rain will help put out this dumpster fire.

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Don’t Quote Me on That

It rained all day long today, but that just kept it from feeling too frigid. Mike and I cleaned up the office some more, then met Greg and Ben at Las Palmas for lunch. Afterward, we started our “training” so we could do HP self maintainer claims.

After work, I had to get home and continue cleaning before my parents came over with the guys from Father and Sons Construction & Remodeling Co. to look at the bathrooms. I felt pretty happy with where I got, and then had a moment to breathe before they got here because they were running behind.

We went from needing six walls hung and tiled, to having both bathrooms completely stripped and remodeled, paint everywhere, new cabinets with sinks and fixtures, and new windows all around the house. It felt very much like a sales pitch at first, and I quickly became very agitated. Finally looking at some of their previous work, I feel more confident that I could do the majority of the work and then just hire someone for plumbing and laying tile when I’m ready.

They were here for about an hour and a half before everyone left. Then I waited around for Summer to come over, since the girls were staying the night with their friends. She picked up some food from Spices and we ate, then went to bed.

All this talking is driving me crazy.

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Christmas Bills

With Christmas presents handled the night before, I got up today to all three girls wandering and cleaning house in preparation for some time away. Summer was in the kitchen making her contributions for dinner with the family, and the girls were cleaning up so they could spend some time with their father.

Evidently the turkey was a little slower to cook than expected, so we had plenty of time to get everything done and ready to go by the early afternoon. We headed on to my parents’ house and waited for the main course to arrive. I spent most of my time fighting with the wireless to get a new Chromecast with Google TV to work for them so Mom wouldn’t have to keep using her phone as an unreliable remote. It was more frustrating than dealing with my defective Belkin WeMo light switch a month or two ago.

Julie eventually showed up with the turkey, and Bác Vân and Doug braved the Coronavirus to come see everyone. It was a good time, but I think too much effort was made to keep the conversations with feelings to a minimum. There’s no reason everyone should be walking on eggshells after this long together.

After we ate, Summer dropped the girls off and Julie tried to start Soul. I had to interrupt so we could get food packed and get out of there before too late. As soon as we got back home, I remembered that Amanda asked me to check in on her cats, so I ran back across town to do that before coming home. It’s been a super spendy season, so I had to spendy a bit of time moving the ol’ numbers around, but I think the pandemic has actually cut my living expenses so that I already had more than enough saved up to cover all these amazing deals I keep finding.

Now if only going to work actually paid more than not going, I’d feel a lot better about this.

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Wrap It Up

I slept in pretty late today and woke up with a little bit of anxiety about it. I kept feeling like I had missed something important, but we didn’t have anything going on until the evening. Summer was at work, and the girls were up watching TV. I motivated myself just enough to win a game of Into the Breach before heading home.

I had to get presents wrapped and take a shower before coming back for dinner and gifting with the kids. I’d done better work in the past, but I got pretty good by the last gift. When I got back up to the house, Noah was already there but nobody was hungry. I ate a little, and then we opened presents. It was still a very different process than when I was growing up, but I can’t say I have a preference for either way.

Noah left shortly after gifting and eventually getting some food. Then Summer went to bed and I finished the last season of Jessica Jones with Eaddie. I’m not sure what’s next, but I’m kind of glad that chapter is over after all this time.

Now I can practice before going back to the grind.

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On Time Management

Summer worked again today, which left me on kid duty. We had a fair amount of stuff to get done, but I only knew about a tenth of it before I went home to shower. Sara and Zach invited us over for cards in the evening, so we had to get dinner made so Summer could eat as soon as she got home.

I got a call from someone about my extended leave from work due to COVID while I was in the shower. Summer wanted me to pick up lunch for her, so I couldn’t call back until later. I also had to call the eye clinic to order my contacts so they could put them on this year’s insurance. That was a quick call, and then I grabbed some Burger King for Summer.

As soon as I left there, I had to get Autumn and take her to therapy. On the way out, I got stuck for about 15 minutes by a train before I could get home to make my other call. As soon as that was done, I ran to Walmart to get everything for tonight’s dinner and Christmas.

Of course Walmart was a freaking zoo, and I was stressing pretty hard physically just to get out of there. I kept coughing all over the place, which got me lots of looks from the increasing number of maskless people wandering the aisles. As soon as I could get out, I picked up Autumn and we headed home to cook as quickly as we could.

Autumn wanted to make ratatouille out of some squash and zucchini they got from their friends’ mother. Instead of looking up a recipe that would also use the fresh tomatoes they got, she had me buy a can of tomato paste. She also completely missed the fact that she was supposed to do something with the chicken breasts we thawed out several days ago, so suddenly that was my problem.

Things escalated when she wanted to cut all of the vegetables with a steak knife instead of one of the half dozen chef knives she’s brought home this year. It took her forever to slice anything, and I made an entire chicken casserole and had it in the oven, AND pan fried some leftover chicken that wouldn’t fit in the casserole, all before she even finished slicing her vegetables. I kept giving her instructions that she continued to ignore until I blew up at her and she stormed off to her room.

Once I had all the food at least cooking, we made our apologies. I got some gas while we waited for the food to cook, and then we actually had a really delicious, modified ratatouille with mozzarella instead of mascarpone for dinner. Unfortunately the casserole was too big to have cooked all the way through before we had to go, but it will make a great dinner tomorrow when all the kids are here to open presents.

We got up to Zach and Sara’s place quite a bit later than we wanted, and played a couple games of Unstable Unicorns with them and Gary. Their girls just wandered around harassing the cats most of the night. I know Summer was tired, but Autumn and I at least had a great time, and Eaddie got to eat a bunch of little hot dogs.

As soon as we made it back home, the usual suspects shuffled off to bed. I stayed up until the casserole was cool enough to put in the fridge, and Eaddie came out to watch an episode of Jessica Jones with me. As soon as it was over, it was finally bedtime.

Presentation only matters when time allows, and it turns out you can eat the eggplant skin.

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Food Zombies

We got up early this morning to take Summer to work at the Conway location. Autumn wanted to tag along for some shopping as well. I had to run home to clean up, then pick up my trial contacts, and finally picked up the girls for a drive to Conway. We dropped Summer off, then went to Target for a slow walk around the store.

We picked up a couple very small things, but nothing of much consequence. Autumn got pretty hungry, so we left there and went to Golden Corral for lunch. The buffet was pretty disappointing, with several duplicated dishes and only hamburgers made with rolls instead of buns from the grill. I still filled up, but I left super unsatisfied.

From there, we went back to Kohl’s to try and find some clearance. Autumn actually did a good job thumbing through the racks and picked up a pair of pants. Still, I didn’t find a whole lot that interested me, so we eventually moved on to Best Buy. We were both feeling super exhausted after a big lunch, and just wanted to nap. Best Buy was really just a time killer for an hour before we could fetch Summer from work.

On the way, I grabbed an iced coffee from McDonald’s that really helped to pep me up. When we got to Summer, she was in the pit training their manager. She wanted to do another oil change with her down there, so she had me pull around and get mine done a bit prematurely. I couldn’t complain, and the oil was still black anyway.

When they finished up, the three of us ran to Sam’s to pick up a few things. I tried to do a bit more deal scouting, but came up dry. We headed home as the sun came down, stopping once in Morrilton for some a-a-a-a-a-a-alcohol. Autumn wanted to make tacos for dinner, so we let her run into Walmart for a couple missing ingredients once we got back into town.

The tacos were simple but tasty enough. Everyone turned in super early after we finished eating. I was exhausted, but had a bunch of email to catch up on before going to bed myself.

This is starting to feel like work.

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Solstice Outing

Summer went back to work today, so I offered Autumn to take her and Eaddie out so they could do some Christmas shopping while I cleaned up at home. I dropped them off at PetSmart, then went home to shower. They finished up about the same time I did, probably because Eaddie was tired of shopping the minute they made it into the first store. I picked them up and we got some Zaxby’s for lunch.

Summer left work early, so we met her at the city park and ate outside. It was a little bit windy and cool, but otherwise a super nice day out. Librado texted and was trying to hunt me down, so they caught up with us there. He made me a surprise record cutout of my sunset cow logo, which was awesome. Traci came over and yapped with the girls a while too.

When we finally left, Summer went to the gym and I took the girls back to my house so Eaddie could ride her bike and I could check out my Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones. They sounded pretty clean, but it’s too early to tell if they were worth the price. I’ll have to compare them next to the super cheap headphones I picked up for Dad a while back.

Autumn napped until Eaddie got back, and then we headed back to their house for the evening. We just barely beat Summer back, and then we watched some TV while Autumn wrapped presents. When we finished that, we started a game of Phase 10 before Summer and Autumn headed to bed. Then Eaddie and I watched a couple more episodes of Jessica Jones before going to sleep.

No, not “all of the planets” aligned. No, it is not the Bethlehem star. It’s just the cosmos, being itself.
Also, Earth only seems flat because of your perspective and how close you are to it.
Also, what the hell are they teaching you in school???

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Oh, Danny Blanket

We got up this morning and finished up some old leftover breakfast pizza, then Summer left for the gym and to start baking a mountain of cookies for the family to decorate later in the evening. I laid back for most of the morning, then took a shower before heading out.

I stopped by Harbor Freight first, just to pick up a couple quick things with a 30% off coupon. The kids were all huddled around the living room TV watching YouTube compilation garbage when I got there, and Summer was trying to finish up the icing for the cookies.

Noah was in a hurry to get out of there, and then the girls wanted to open one present each. Autumn was happy with a wax warmer she picked out, and Eaddie got a blanket that I’m pretty sure sends you straight to Hell. We sat for a little while in the living room just listening to the “winter” playlist I found, and watching the photo slideshow on the TV, featuring up-to-the-minute photos even from decorating cookies tonight.

Eventually Summer went to bed and settled in. I watched a couple episodes of Jessica Jones with Eaddie, mostly just trying to wrap up the final season after all this time.

Why is that kid so weird?

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Sorta Sitting

Summer got up this morning for a hair appointment that kept her out all day, so I was left alone in a house full of teenage girls. They make that sound way more exciting in the short films I watch, but in reality it was me playing video games in bed all day, waiting for Summer to get back. On the bright side, Stadia has been pretty great, even handling buffering issues pretty well when all the girls started streaming other things across the network. Latency isn’t much of an issue in a turn-based game like Into the Breach, but it was still pretty impressive.

That pretty well burned the whole day, so when Summer returned and then left to take the girls home, I went home to shower. Then she came over and we went to Mulan’s for dinner to show off her fancy new hairdo. When we got back home, it was pretty much straight to bed again.

My only regret was that I didn’t have more of that lychee/longan/rambutan flavored jello.