Tag: family

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Nice to See Yule

It was pretty cold this morning, but the afternoon turned out pretty nice. I made it in to work and picked at a few things in the morning until I had to leave for my contact refitting. I’m not sure what brand they had me try first, but they were always dry and scratchy, and just generally fit really poorly. The ACUVUE OASYS they gave me today were immediately way better, though still felt a bit scratchier than the CooperVision Proclear lenses from my existing prescription. They also give me some sort of aberration that I mostly noticed in my upper left peripheral vision, but that may become less noticeable with time.

When I finished with that appointment, I went by Taco John’s and picked up some lunch to surprise Summer. We ate quickly, and then I went to the shop to check in since I didn’t do that yesterday after our week break. I mingled and chatted there for quite a while before heading back to the high school to finish the day. I wrapped up by tinkering with my tiny Christmas tree to get it all properly lit, then headed to my parents’ house for dinner. Mom made some fish soup out of the turkey broth Dad made. Then I picked through another bag of old nostalgic crap that Dad was trying to throw away before going to get the girls from karate.

We headed to their house for the evening, and I played on Stadia for a bit. Farming Simulator 19 seemed about as complicated as I expected. Then I switched to Tomb Raider, another December freebie. It played pretty well, but there was one particular moment where I definitely blamed my repeated deaths on input lag.

Can’t forget Hog Wild Wednesday for 10¢ off at Shell tomorrow!

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Blurry Work Day

It was really tough getting to work today. I mostly sat quietly in my office all day, not even leaving for lunch. I was wearing my trial contacts, and as the day progressed I just hated them more and more. One or the other of my eyes was pretty much always blurry, and probably dry. I finally called the clinic and scheduled an appointment to try another pair tomorrow.

I got one stubborn deployment made for Heather, and had two thirds of a Soylent for lunch, and then went to my parents’ house for dinner. I was able to clean up a bunch of leftovers from Thanksgiving, and then Dad and I went through some more old stuff from my old bedroom. Eventually I had to head home to clean up, and then did some more deal hunting before bed.

We’re entering the package delivery zone. Brace for impact!

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I’ll Never Forget About Larry

Summer had to work this morning, which allowed for me to sleep in a while. With Thanksgiving break nearly over, I let myself get a pretty slow start to the day. I had to get the girls from their friend’s house, but first I stopped by the Ridgewood Brothers to try and snag some brisket. Grant handed me a cube of it out the window as I approached, and it just melted in my mouth. I picked up a couple pounds along with some sides, picked up the girls, and took them home.

Summer got home just a bit after us, we ate, and then left the girls to clean house while we went shopping. My first stop was Bath & Body Works, where I dragged her around the store sniffing soaps. I had a coupon, a need for fancy foaming soaps, and a complete lack of shame for being the one that wanted to go shopping there.

Next we stopped at my house for just a moment before heading to Walmart for groceries and other shopping list things I needed. I ended up grabbing one of those Black Friday pressure washers that Julie was going on about, since they had a pallet of them left over. I wish we could have spent a little more time looking, but we had to get back before Harry got to the house.

When we got there, the girls were inside giggling about how he was driving up and down the road trying to find their house, rather than trying to help direct him to the place. Summer started cooking most of the meal, and I changed the oil for some sweet potato fries. The kids played the Switch a bit before wandering back through the house. Dinner was simple and good, though I was still pretty full from the late BBQ lunch.

We played a couple quick rounds of Stuff Happens and Uno before the girls settled in to watch The Conjuring. Eaddie was probably the most excited to watch a scary movie, but I knew the game. Harry ended up having to leave before the movie was over, so Autumn went to her room for the night while I helped Eaddie finish the movie. Once that was over, she beat me in some Mario Kart before awkwardly snuggling to some Luke Cage. She started to fall asleep in the middle of the second episode, so that was the end of the day.

Just trying to make up for lost time…

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Thanksgiving for Days

Summer had to work today, and both of the girls were up before me. Once I got up, I nudged them to clean up with some success before we went to my parents’ house for some leftovers. It was a late lunch, but they both wanted to spend the night at a friend’s house, so they had to at least get chores started first.

When we finished eating, I dropped them off and then took Summer some leftovers as well. Then I went home and got cleaned up myself. Summer came over once she finished up at work and the gym, and we went back to my parents’ house again for even more leftovers.

On the way back home, Julie called about my expired Amazon Prime account, so I had Jack gift me a subscription to save 12 bucks. Then I perused the last of the Black Friday deals online until bed.

I’ve got a bit of the retail jitters.

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Thanksgiving Time Warp

Summer had a 5k this morning, so I slept in as long as I could before getting up to cook for Thanksgiving. I decided to make the broccoli, rice, and cheese casserole in the instant pot just by using the sauté function for most of the cooking, and it went pretty well except for the moment where I sealed the boiling broccoli. I think I ended up adding too much rice too, but I was afraid it was too saucy. Summer mashed some potatoes and made her fruit salad, and we rounded up the girls to head to my parents’ house.

We beat everyone else there, but Bác Vân and Doug weren’t far behind. Julie brought way more food than I realized, because I guess she hasn’t been satisfied with our traditional offerings. While we were waiting on everyone to get there, the kids and I dumped out a bunch of old boxes of toys that Dad had been gathering with the hopes of a purge. It was a blast from the past for sure, and I even found some McDonald’s toys that I had just been thinking about last week.

The food was great, and we all stuffed ourselves before continuing to dig through all the old toys and stuff. We laid around the living room and generally had one of the most peaceful Thanksgivings we’ve ever experienced, even after Julie tried convincing Bác Vân to grow marijuana in her back yard. The girls decorated some cupcakes, then spent a little time trying to learn the piano up until the time we left.

When we got back to their house, I tinkered with Destiny 2 on Stadia for a bit more while the girls went quietly to their rooms. Summer was pretty pooped and went to bed early, but I wasn’t terribly far behind.

Toys were better before all the movie franchises took over.

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Chillin’ with Esna

I got up today and had some leftovers for breakfast. Eaddie slept until nearly noon when I finally went into her room and shook her around a bit. Eventually she got up and we played some Mario Kart, and I fried her some chicken strips for lunch.

Dad called Roto-Rooter to come ream out the house, so I had to head home and let them in. There, I waited until Summer got off of work so we could shop for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Just before she was ready, I ran to McDonald’s to get a corrected Happy Meal for the one they shorted me a couple nuggets on yesterday. Then I met her in the parking lot and we braved the crowd inside. It really wasn’t too bad, perhaps because of the time of day.

I ran home to get her a couple more things, then met back up at her house for dinner. I heated the leftover rotisserie chicken and some buffalo wings for Eaddie, then we watched some Parks and Recreation before Summer went to bed. Eaddie and I started the second episode of Luke Cage, but she gave up almost partway in and left me to finish it myself.

It’s like a colon cleanse for your house!

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Demolition Derpy

I got up and started picking up around the house this morning until Dad came over to start tearing down my master bathroom tile. I haven’t used that bathroom in years because the water ate through the tile and into the evidently unprotected drywall. He chipped away at the tile while I shuttled trash out to the curb, and then he got the back wall down with some effort.

Once we got to that stopping point, I cleaned up to go to Summer’s for the evening. She had a pretty terrible day at the shop, so I stopped by McDonald’s for a couple Happy Meals. I used to do that occasionally if I had a rough day, and it helped me feel better. Then we watched some Jeopardy! on Netflix with Eaddie until bedtime.

Impendingiving Day!

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Super Ridgewood Bros.

I couldn’t sleep in this morning for all the light pouring into the house. Summer had to work, so it was just the girls and me all morning. Eaddie came out and played some Mario Kart and Ultimate Alliance 3 with me for a bit. Eventually I headed home to clean up, then went to pick up some food from Grant and Robert. Evidently Felix helps out there occasionally as well, and then Ray stopped in and chatted with me for a bit while I waited. Grant came around and handed me a big sack of meat that I took to the shop for Summer, along with some rolls and chips from the Neighborhood Market. The ribs were thick and meaty, and some of the best we’d ever had. At first I thought the sauce was a bit overpowered by apple cider vinegar, but it really grew on me as I continued eating.

Once we were stuffed from that, I finally stopped by Walgreens to fill my prescription. Then I headed home to try out Destiny 2 on Stadia. The game ran great, and though I absolutely despised playing it on a controller, I felt like it helped the input latency feel less significant. Overall I was very impressed with how well it ran, and also pretty overwhelmed by the unnecessarily complicated nature of the game. Hopefully Stadia will be great for some racing games though.

After a while I got really cold in the house, so I decided to warm things up by doing a little cleaning. I got all the dishes done and cleaned up a bit of space in the kitchen before Summer got here. The girls spent the night with their father since the Splash company Thanksgiving event happens tomorrow evening, and we can have a good day in Little Rock until then. Once she did get here, I showed her a bit of Stadia and how much anxiety I have about how much is going on in that game. We were going to watch Battlestar Galactica: Razor, but ended up watching a few Tesla videos instead until we were both too tired to stay up any longer.

I’m actually only feeding two, but one of them is me!

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Ramping up for Break

We met at the shop this morning but didn’t have any projects, so I ended up walking around vo-tech with Ben and some guys that were going to quote a cell dialer for our fire panels. Afterward, I went inside and did a couple little work orders before heading back to the shop for lunch. Allen was the only one at the shop, so he and I left to meet Gary, Zach, and Jason at Brangus for lunch. My beef spud was particularly good today.

After lunch I got a bit of an ocular migraine and had to sit down for a while. Gary came into Zach’s office with me since Zach left for a lockdown drill, and we chatted about what life is like being surrounded by girls. Nearing the end of the day, we started to look at my PowerShell script again, but ultimately left without learning much even after Ben joined in.

I ran home to get my delivered Stadia package inside, then went to Russellville Eye Clinic for my appointment. I had to fill out some new patient paperwork and waited just a little while before they called me back. Then they set me up at a machine with a little farm house inside it, and it wiggled around until it had my approximate prescription. Most of my time in the back was spent giving them information about my past prescriptions, but at one point they brought the insurance lady back to talk to me, and it was my old classmate Brian’s mother Donna that recognized my name and came back to chat briefly.

Overall, my experience at the clinic was wonderful, and everyone I dealt with was super friendly. I guess nobody really went way out of their way to do anything necessarily, and the girl that helped me initially seemed pretty new, but nothing about my visit was deserving of any of the 1-star reviews the place has on Google Maps. Once I complete my contact fitting and get new glasses or whatever, I’ll have to add my own comments.

When I got back home, I set up my Stadia and tried to load up Destiny 2, but encountered an error. Clint said the game servers crashed earlier today, which made me feel better about it not being a Stadia issue, but I still didn’t get a chance to play anything before I had to run to Summer’s to get the girls. Autumn had a date to go bowling, and the rest of the family chaperoned. The boy seemed nice, though awkward and possibly a bit outwardly immature for a 17-year-old. It was a good time though, and a couple girls I knew came up and bowled next to us. Taylor mentioned their annual Halloween party and said she would have to make sure I got the invite next year, and before they left I had to point Alex out to Summer because she didn’t really recognize me as the one who bought their Grom.

The girls went to bed pretty quickly once we got home. I sat down to re-skin my Pixel 2 XL, and got the new screen protector on as well. Then I lost myself in Zenni Optical for a while before heading to sleep.

I had forgotten how beautiful this bare phone is.

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Tying up Loose Ends (To Throw Them out to Sea)

It was a little warmer this morning, and I should have taken the bike. We finally started testing, and I immediately got called down to the opposite end of the campus for a non-issue that was resolved before I got there. I had a bagel for breakfast and couldn’t find a toaster anywhere. Asking around didn’t turn up a lot of suggestions, and ultimately Lee seemed to really want to go for a walk down to home ec, so we busted right into a full classroom and I bashfully asked to borrow theirs. Then I spent a bit of the morning catching up on some things that needed catching. Being an excellent multitasker, I was able to make a few calls while I was working so I could verify my benefits for next year, get back into my old retirement 401(k), and even get bounced around to a third and fourth customer service contact for Summer’s failing ONN TV that I got from Walmart.

I wanted to go to Ruby Tuesday for another $5 salad, and I should have just gone by myself, but Brice, Allen, and Jason all wanted to go to Long John Silver’s for a $5 meal coupon they sent out today. I was nervous when we encountered a sign on the front door asking customers to call a number to report if the restaurant was not open during its posted business hours. The guy inside even seemed a bit sketchier than usual, but we all made it out in the end with free drinks and an extra side of fries for Allen.

Jason wanted to come work with me at the high school in the afternoon, so after milling around the shop for a bit, we headed up to my office. I had him hunt down some Adobe stuff for Macs while I poked at another issue I was having. Then we took the trip across the campus to install Daniel’s software and set up Tina’s new computer. Jason had to leave just as school let out, and I kept tripping over myself trying to reconfigure the switch that Tina’s computer was plugged into, but at the end of the day Gary was able to save the day. I stuck around late trying to figure out why my test software deployment kept failing, and finally gave up so I could make it up to Summer’s for dinner.

She had stayed home sick today, and made spaghetti mac(?) since she didn’t have proper spaghetti noodles. It turned out really yummy though, and then we watched an episode of Parks and Rec with Eaddie before I headed home for the night.

Don’t you know what happened to the little boy who cried, “wolf!”