Tag: family

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9,000 Miles

It was back to the office today, this time with Ben and Greg. I kind of feel bad that Ben hasn’t really taken any time at home, but maybe he likes to get out of the house away from the kids to get things done. It was a quiet day except for a conference call with the Impero chaps. They all really do have the best accents, because they’re 100% understandable, but they just sound like a more formal version of ourselves. The software demo went well, and they can fill the gaps we’ve had for the past three years, but it’s going to cost us.

Greg and I ran to Wendy’s for a quick lunch, and then the afternoon was pretty relaxed. I actually ended up leaving before the other two just because I didn’t really have anything going on.

I ran by Staples to pick up a little table I ordered, and then went to get Autumn for physical therapy. I had enough time to put the table together before dropping her off, then I ran home to clean up a bit and check on the new aquarium organisms. The guppies seemed to be doing great, but were hungry enough to swarm the food I dropped in. The red root floaters seem to be struggling a bit, but it’s too early to tell really.

When Autumn was done, I loaded up the trolling motor and went to get her, and then we stopped by my parents’ to see them for a minute. Dad and I unboxed the motor to test fitment on the boat, and then we headed back to Summer’s to wait for her to get off.

Once she got home from work, I got to making salads out of leftovers. When everyone went on to do their own things, I pulled Autumn’s failed pizza dough out of the fridge, and tried to make cinnamon bread. It wasn’t awful, but it rose quite a bit more than I expected. While it baked, I cut up the pineapple we bought a while back.

And just like that, I found a stopping point.

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The Villa My Dreams

I really didn’t want to get out of bed today, and when I finally did, I got up with some pretty bad neck pain. It worked itself out pretty quickly though as I got to work. The girls got up and ate, and I set them up with the pressure washer again.

Autumn had physical therapy, so I took her in and then went home to shower. When I picked her up, we decided we would be staying at my house for real tonight, and we’d get Taco Villa for dinner. We went to get Eaddie and packed up a few things to take to my house, and met Summer there when she got off of work.

It took me a little while to get my call into Taco Villa, but when I finally did, the girl said it would only be about five or ten minutes, so I headed out. They had the lobby wide open with a posted limit of six customers at a time. I almost didn’t recognize Chelsea in the back corner waiting for her food. I think I’d seen her maybe twice since graduation. After just a little wait, I boxed up my food and headed home.

The girls kept arguing about what to watch, so I put on an episode of New Girl while we ate. They had never had Taco Villa before, and it seemed to really fill them up. Reviews were about like I expected them to be. It’s not amazing. It’s pretty good. Sometimes you just get a craving.

After we ate, I tried putting on Brightburn, but couldn’t get it to play well. I bounced between a few things and settled on Batman v Superman just in time for everyone to feel sleepy. I put Summer to bed, and Eaddie and I watched an episode of Jessica Jones before I started feeling pretty sleepy and called it a night.

Wrinkles in time, indeed.

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Go Pro or Go Home

Today was undoubtedly the most productive day of the week. I woke up to a little Animal Crossing before taking Autumn on a ride-along to get $1 roast beef sandwiches from Arby’s. We stopped by to feed Summer at work, then went back to their house to eat with Eaddie.

When we finished eating, I set the girls up with the pressure washer out back and had them clean the side of the house and the deck. They didn’t stay outside very long the first time, and Autumn came in complaining about not feeling well. She immediately laid down on the couch and started watching Harry Potter while Eaddie complained that she didn’t want to be outside alone. I gave them a few minutes inside, then made them go back out for over an hour before I’d let them back in. They got a lot more done that time, and the house looked so much better.

I eventually had to run home to clean up, then stopped by Walmart to fill some gaps for dinner. Autumn wanted to try making a copycat Chick-fil-A nuggets recipe along with some homemade macaroni and cheese. Summer got back from work shortly after I got there, and Autumn got to work on dinner. I helped a very minimal amount while Summer and Eaddie went on a run. We ended up deep frying the chicken instead of frying it in a pan, and they came out really great. Everyone was really impressed with dinner, and baking the mac and cheese with some extra cheddar broiled on top was the right decision for everyone’s lives.

Afterward, I finished WALL-E with Autumn, then started an episode of Jessica Jones with Eaddie. We quit after just one episode because we were both really tired, but then she started chatting away, so I sat and talked with her for quite a while.

Earlier in the evening, Julie started asking for my opinion on a waterproof case for her phone. I suggested a purpose-built camera instead, arguing for hours that spending more on camera was a better value than spending less to protect a phone that also has a camera on it. In reality, the resulting photos or videos will probably be seen half a dozen times before they’re forgotten in the great digital cloud vault. Such is the nature of our instantly reminiscent age. She even ended up calling me after she got tired of texting, but in the end I won because I am so smart.

So, so smart.

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Frosty’s Kind of a Jerk

I got up this morning to discover our tomatoes had wilted in some frost last night. I didn’t realize it was going to get that cold, otherwise I would have brought them inside. It looks like a few will survive, but I’m guessing most of them are dead now.

The girls hid in their rooms all day while I answered emails and helped a handful of people start working from home for seemingly the very first time since this whole quarantine thing started. It was pretty dull, and felt pretty pointless, and I just wished I could be out on an island somewhere instead. Homesteading in the tropics would be easy, because there’s no frost.

Summer came home to get Autumn for her driving test, then took her to physical therapy. I picked her up afterward and took her with me to feed the cat. We wanted to come back for the evening, but Summer came home with a headache again. We stopped by Davis for some butane, but they were out of feeder fish. Then we headed back up the hill to start dinner.

Autumn found a recipe for something like Hamburger Helper and whipped it together all on her own, and it was pretty good. I put Summer to bed, and then Eaddie and I binged the last half of the first season of The Punisher. It was more of a military show than I would normally care to watch, but the Marvel banner made it a must-watch that I’m glad I didn’t miss. I just wish there could have been more crossover.

It’s all about the Nook Miles, baby!

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They Say It’s Only Tuesday

I got up a little earlier today, but focus was still a huge struggle. I just didn’t want to do anything. It’s been a little cooler with the rain the past couple days, and it just made me want to lay around and do nothing.

The only thing I really managed to accomplish today was pull a bunch of moss out out of the bathroom aquarium because it had gotten way out of hand, and choked out all my other plants. Hopefully the others take off again, but I had no idea how bad it had gotten.

Summer came home with a headache and was in bed by the time I got back. Autumn threw together some hamburgers super fast, and I got them grilled and fried up some fries. While I was finishing up the cooking, Kevin called just to catch up. I don’t think he’s ever reached out first, so it was a bit of a surprise. I may see if he wants to give us the tour of the Old Post bike trail when Eaddie’s ready to go up there.

After dinner, Autumn went straight to bed while the rest of us laid in bed watching TV for a bit. Then when Summer fell asleep, Eaddie and I continued with The Punisher. We’re only about halfway through the season, but the past couple episodes made it feel like we were nearing a conclusion. I wanted to watch more, but we were both tired and decided to turn in early.

Penny and dime.

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Reluctant Day

With a surprising exception of Autumn, nobody wanted to get around to doing much of anything today. She started a few chores early in the morning and then wanted to sit in her room the rest of the day. I rolled around first thing and tried my hand at day trading, but ultimately only saved myself from losing about 50 cents. Then I spent the rest of the day working between breaks in Animal Crossing. A part of me really hates the grind in that game, but another part of me feels satisfied enough with the progression that I keep going back for more.

The girls went outside for a while in the afternoon and tried cleaning up their weird nightmaremobile that’s been parked under the back porch for as long as I’ve known them. Eventually Summer came home from work and demanded dinner in the way that a working spouse would.

I baked some chicken thighs and legs in some Buffalo sauce and tried my hand at frying some sliced potatoes and onions. Summer warmed up a can of peas to round out the meal, and the girls all seemed pretty happy with it all. After dinner, Autumn wanted to watch WALL-E with us and Eaddie absolutely refused on account of hating wonderful things.

In the end, Autumn couldn’t even finish the 103-minute movie, so she and Summer went to bed. Eaddie and I stayed up for too many episodes of The Punisher. It’s been moving quite a bit faster than some of the others in the franchise, so it’s kept us hooked.

One batch, two batch…

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Rabbit Seeds

BUTT STUFF

Summer and Autumn made biscuits and gravy with eggs for brunch this morning. Then we all colored some eggs for Easter. It didn’t take long because we only had around 20 eggs between the four of us. I guess we could have made more. I think Dad used to make a few dozen for us when we were growing up, so we always had gallon ice cream buckets of eggs for weeks after Easter.

I joked that the girls would have to play Russian roulette to find a single raw egg I had hidden in the batch. Just seconds later, Autumn accidentally cracked one that completely fell apart with a raw yolk, and we discovered that the eggs hadn’t cooked all the way through for some reason. We had a couple different sizes of eggs all mixed together, but didn’t figure that made all the difference. A week or two ago we had frozen eggs because the refrigerator was too cold, so maybe that was the problem. In any case, I ended up boiling them again to make sure they were all done, and the colors all faded to a uniform pink.

We thought briefly about going to my house for the night, but in the end we left the kids home and Summer went with me for a workout while I took care of the cat and cleaned up at home. She was surprised by how much of a workout she got from doing the P90X yoga video.

When we got back to their house, I made a big “everything” French loaf sandwich that everyone devoured, and then played some Animal Crossing until bed.

The wind is always better on the hilltop.

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Caught in the Shower

We slept in a bit today before getting up and ready to venture into town. Summer warmed up a pizza while I cleaned out the deep freezer. Then after we ate, we went to Walmart for supplies for dinner. On the way out of the store we got caught in a rain storm, but it blew over pretty quickly.

Summer made a really good lemon pepper shrimp linguine with some Brussels sprouts, and we had a bit of an early dinner. Then we were going to go to my house for the evening, but I caved and picked up Animal Crossing with a leftover game voucher I had. With no major titles coming out before it would expire, I figured the girls might really enjoy it while they’re stuck at home.

Eventually Eaddie started bugging us to watch some Glee. By the time we finished, everyone decided it was too late to leave. Summer went to bed, and Eaddie and I stayed up to start The Punisher on Netflix. As usual, the first episode was kind of dull for me, but it picked up quickly.

I’ve always loved spring thunderstorms.

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Into the Unknown

I spent all morning learning Wikitext to actually start entering articles for work. The translation took a while because even with a visual editor, the markup text made things look way cleaner. I still didn’t even finish publishing my first article, but at least what I have so far looks nice.

Ben got a Fat Daddy’s gift card for doing some work for someone, so he bought us lunch today. I brought prawn chips to fry since I still had the deep fryer there too. It was a really light lunch for me to choose ribs, but it was pretty good. I think I would’ve been happier with one of my usual orders though.

Ben wanted me to go try to break a touch panel before I left, so I went to the high school to a classroom with known issues. On the way, I had to deliver six iPads to the PAC. They had everyone using the main entrance with a sign-in sheet, but I just snuck in with my Technology superpowers before continuing on to the classroom. I could never get the touch to quit working, but I got so frustrated with how bad the SMART Ink was. I could draw in Paint and it would be flawless, but the SMART software lagged so hard. I hated it.

Autumn called when I forgot about her therapy appointment, so I ran home to drop off some things and then got her to therapy about 20 minutes late. Then I stopped by my parents’ house to wish Mom a happy birthday and chatted with them a little bit. She was outside power washing, and Dad was up on the roof cleaning gutters. I didn’t stick around too long though, and let them get back to work.

When I got home, I cleaned up and played a little bit of Overwatch until Summer and Eaddie came over. Then we rode bikes around the neighborhood, stopping by Allen’s, then going over to the high school. Eaddie wanted to take me to the trail that she and Noah found, so we did that. I tried riding over to Julie’s house too, but the field was so long and rugged with too many back yards that I didn’t want to disturb. We headed back around the new practice facility, then made it back to my house.

The girls headed home and I followed a little later. Autumn had some leftover fish sticks out, so I got the deep fryer going again for some of those, some more prawn chips, and some sweet potato fries for Summer. Then Autumn wanted to watch a movie with Summer, so Eaddie and I went to the bedroom to finish The Defenders. The end escalated pretty quickly, but we were happy with it.

Next up: Jessica Jones

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WikiWhat

I spent all day today getting the wiki going at work. What I thought were relatively straight forward steps ended up not working in the end, and Ben had to help modify their code to make it work. Lunch was leftovers from yesterday, and not much else happened beyond that. It was a slow, somewhat frustrating, yet ultimately successful day.

It was beautiful outside after work, but I just felt drained and wanted to stay in. I ended up jumping into some Overwatch to get a couple daily loot boxes. Then I headed up to Summer’s for the evening. I got her oscillating fan fixed with some WD-40 while she girls were all watching The Voice. Then when Summer went to bed, Eaddie and I watched a couple more episodes of The Defenders.

Only eight episodes makes for a depressingly short team-up season.