Tag: family

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Spring is Coming

I slept super hard and super long last night, barely waking up before noon. By then it was a beautiful day outside, so we pretty quickly decided to take everyone to my house so they could ride bikes. Noah took Autumn, and Summer, Eaddie, and I went to Little Caesar’s for some pizzas. We quickly ate, and then the kids took off on the bikes for the day. Summer and I went outside to help Bác Vân in the yard, and then I started picking through things in the garage.

Dad came by for a little while and chatted, and eventually Summer left for the gym. When the kids got back, Noah took off right away and I took a shower. Then we headed back up to Summer’s for the evening. She brought home some chicken, and I cooked it with some Rotel in the Instant Pot so we could have tacos.

We wrapped up the day with a couple games of Uno, in which I destroyed all the competition. The girls all went to bed early, while I struggled to do the same after sleeping all day.

You’ve gotta be poopin’ me.

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Pipe Nightmare

I got up this morning and had a leftover pancake. The girls had their own things to do, so I went home to do some laundry and shower. It took me a little bit to notice, but eventually I discovered my bathroom floor had flooded from what I could only assume was a frozen pipe. Then I checked outside and found water all over the garage floor and coming down the driveway. The weird thing was that I had been through part of the garage recently, but never noticed any water.

Dad came over and helped clear a path and pull the cabinet away from the wall. We never saw any dripping from the pipe, but there was a lot of water there. It just didn’t make sense for there to be that much water. It took us a while to find the shutoff valve because the box by the street was flooded and filled with mud and roots. David came over from next door and helped me find it, and we finally got it shut off so we could pull the old faucet.

Once we had everything out, we went to Lowe’s to pick up a new valve. The guy that helped us was friendly enough, but definitely misguided when trying to find the part. Ultimately we got something different that would work, and headed home to finish the repair. It took us the better part of the day, but we got it fixed and I cleaned up the bathroom floor the best I could. At least that’s something I’d been meaning to accomplish lately anyway.

I got my laundry done and took a shower, then headed up to Summer’s for the evening. She made some excellent fish tacos and a cake, then we played Uno with the kids. Noah was over for the night, so he and Eaddie watched TV and I went to bed early.

It’s all just a bunch of wood sitting on top of some concrete.

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38’s Special

I woke up early this morning so I could make it to Starbucks for my free birthday drink. They ran out of venti cups, so they gave me a grande and tall instead. I got to work just barely early, so we jumped right into our meeting. Then Zach and I went to the high school to check out a projector lamp. It had blown and we didn’t have any replacements, so we went back to the shop until lunch.

The guys decided on Mexican and we went to La Chiquita for the first time in a while. Brody called us late to find out where we were, and then went to the wrong restaurant, so he arrived a little late. Otherwise it was uneventful.

Kyle and I had to help Josh with a TV install in the afternoon, which ended up being a bit of a circus act. I don’t know what it is about Josh, but it seems like he just doesn’t take his time with anything, and we ended up spending more time fixing things in the long run. We got the TV up, but it could have gone quite a bit faster.

I spent the last bit of the day helping Mike set up some computers for Ethan. Then I got the girls and we headed to Summer’s shop to see her for a minute. From there we went to my house so I could take care of a couple things before heading up to their house. As soon as Summer got home, we met the rest of my family at Colton’s for dinner.

I was really glad Julie came along, and everyone had a really good time. Even when we were talking. It really was a birthday success.

Eaddie and I watched some House when we got home, because the other two went to bed early. I was pretty exhausted too, but I managed two episodes before heading to bed.

38 is the sum of the squares of the first three primes.

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Libraries Are Loud

It was frosty this morning, but turned out to be a beautiful day. I spent the morning at the high school again, and cleaned up some more random work. Just before lunch, I was in the library jabbering with the girls when our conversation caught the attention of some of the kids in the room. It really got me considering the podcast idea again, but it would be so much work to come up with weekly content. I’d nearly have to mic myself and just go back every day to recover useful content.

I just went home for lunch and ate the leftover Subway sandwich. Then I went to the junior high to get my computer chair. Brody had a couple questions, so I had a look and ended up spending the rest of the afternoon there.

The girls walked from the high school to Oakland, so I picked them up on the way across town. I had to get some gas at a much higher price than I had gotten used to paying. Then we went to Summer’s shop to get their karate gear. Both of them were having fits about different things, but we made Autumn go to karate anyway, and then I took Eaddie with me across town so we could have a chance to talk about her feelings.

Things got better pretty quickly after we all sat down to talk together, but they’ll both need to work on addressing things more immediately. Summer bringing home Zaxby’s probably helped their moods too.

I developed a pretty good sinus headache, so I wasn’t worth much after that. At least I had plenty of time to get to bed early.

When the Teachers Are the Bullies

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New Digs

I went to the high school first thing this morning, but quickly realized that Mike wasn’t coming in again. Evidently he’s decided to get tested, so the next day or so will be an exercise in the “filling in” portion of my job. I felt mildly accomplished after spending too much time remembering how to configure switches, and then I took a break to pick up some Subway.

Summer was at the house after prepping a slow cooker roast, so I brought lunch and we ate there. Then I went back to work at the shop for the rest of the afternoon. I tinkered a bit in my new office while some slower processes churned away. I’ll enjoy being there more, but the soundproofing at the high school was unparallelled. I’ll miss the big tunes.

After work, I made it home just before the girls got there, and then Summer took Eaddie out for a bike ride. I had Autumn drive me to Walgreens in her new car, and then dropped her off for her night class. When I got back home, I finished digging out an old side table I’ve had in the garage forever, and used some furniture polish to bring it back to life.

We ate when the girls got back from their ride, and then I picked Autumn back up. We eventually got around to watching an episode of WandaVision, but Summer shut us down on watching any more for the night. Everyone’s getting up extra early tomorrow, so it’s off to bed early.

Needs more portraits.

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You Have to See It for Yourself

Summer and I got up this morning and went to breakfast at IHOP since I had a free birthday stack of pancakes. Our server was a former student of hers, but that only made us a little nervous. The restaurant was absolutely packed though, mostly from an after-church rush. She barely came by the table at all, but the food was good.

Summer was going to go home afterward, but we ended up hanging out at the house until the girls got home. Then we watched a couple episodes of WandaVision before heading to my parents’ house for fish soup. We chatted for a little while since we hadn’t been around much since Disney. Then we stopped by Summer’s parents’ house to pick up the Toyota Matrix they were giving to Autumn.

The battery was dead, so we had to jump start it in the rain. The dome light was also burned out, which made finding buttons in the car a little difficult too, but we got it going enough for Summer to bring it back to my house. The girls went on home from there, and I spent some time tinkering with my Galaxy Watch3. I’m afraid it’s not doing much to grow on me, but at least the used market for them looks decent.

AGTSMTH

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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.

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