Tag: family

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Meet the Cosmonaut

Summer made pancakes, eggs, and bacon for breakfast for us this morning. Eaddie wanted to go visit her father, so she started doing her chores after breakfast while Summer and I watched some Glee. A little while after she left, Autumn was returned home by her grandparents and made to do chores as well. Eventually we had to make something of the day, so Summer got up to start cleaning. I milled around a bit until she was ready to take Autumn back to her grandparents’ for the Superbowl. Then I headed home to clean up a bit myself.

I bought some marimo balls at Petco, so my first order of business was to get them out of the package and into some water. I decided not to throw them directly into any of my tanks for fear of them being eaten up, so I finally set up a little jar I had bought years and years ago for this very purpose. I filled it with shrimp water to try and help it cycle a bit, and noticed a tiny little baby shrimplet near the top of the tank. He went straight into the jar as well, and I figure I’ll finally take it to work with me. While I was doing all of this, I noticed one of my plants pearling with oxygen for the very first time, so I guess conditions are still pretty great in that tank. I just wish the algae would get under control, and the worms have become a real nuisance.

I ended the evening with a shower and a load of laundry.

Why is my house playing country music???

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Running Around Conway

Summer had a Freezin’ for a Reason 10k in Conway this morning, so I got up about 45 minutes earlier than I do during the work week and picked her and Eaddie up. It was super foggy for a good portion of the drive, but it cleared up as the sun came out. We made it with plenty of time to spare for registration, and then the race started late as well. Eaddie and I sat in the car for most of it, and I accidentally burned through a bunch of data on my phone. We caught Summer at the finish line and watched the first part of the awards before taking off to find some lunch.

Don Pepe’s across the street wasn’t open yet, so we ran by the nearby Neighborhood market to kill some time while Summer got changed. By the time they were ready to go eat, they decided they wanted sushi instead, so we went to China Town. I like a lot of the things they have that aren’t available at any of the restaurants in town, but a part of me is starting to get a little bored of it. When we finished eating, we headed across town to do some shopping.

We spent the most time in Kohl’s, where I had to pick up an online order from the beginning of the week. I picked up some super cheap clothes as well. Then it was Target, Sam’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, and finally Petco. Target and Sam’s were both ridiculously busy for some reason. BBB wasn’t bad, but also didn’t have any remarkable deals at all. The overall winner of the day was Petco, where I had a $10 off $30 coupon, and I picked up some fish food that rang up for a penny.

Eaddie had gotten sick of shopping after about three minutes, and she passed out in the back seat long before we started for home. When we did finally get home, we spent the rest of the evening watching a bunch of Glee.

Do you know what goes down in Lima Heights Adjacent? Bad things!

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Meeting the New Doctor

I had to go in for my 6-month checkup today, and my old nurse Stephanie had left some time ago. They actually scheduled me with Doctor Carter, whom I’d never once met. I got to sleep in a little, then went straight to the clinic where they got me back behind the door in record time. I still had to wait a while for the doctor to see me, and once he got there he basically went on a 20-minute rant about how I can’t eat starchy, fried foods. Both times in my life that I’ve had to meet a new primary care physician, that’s all I get. This time was probably the worst with assumptions about the kind of diet I have. Just tell me to exercise and move on with it.

When I finished up with that mandatory meeting, I went to Superfast for an oil change and to convince Summer to go to lunch with me before I had to go to work. I wasn’t sure if it was because I had left my car idling in line for a while, but after the oil change I had to get a jump start to get moving again. We stowed my car in the back bay for a charge, then took hers to Denny’s for a couple free Beyond Burgers.

Steven and his coworker were there for lunch as well, and they seemed to be having a better time. Summer seemed genuinely surprised that our service was horrible, but I’ve only very rarely had a good experience there. The food is always fine, but it’s always incredibly slow. It took us half an hour to get our drinks, and mine wasn’t even what I ordered. Our waitress actually brought them out with our food, so we just scarfed everything down at once. The burger was decent, but they were definitely disguising it with a fancy bun. The bun was great, but it was about three times the size of the burger patty. The patty itself tasted okay, but was a bit too tender.

With lunch out of the way, we headed back to the shop so I could go to work. Alex evidently tightened my battery terminal, so I didn’t have any trouble the rest of the day. I went by a nearly empty shop for a little while, then went to the high school and spent a good hour walking back and forth, getting in my steps, to work on the sign. I still couldn’t get the radio to talk, so I gave up again. The rest of the afternoon went by super fast as I did mostly things for which I did not have a proper work order.

After work, I went home to change and then ran by Superfast again for a tire rotation. Then I went to AutoZone to have them check my battery. I thought Alex had just adjusted the charger earlier in the day, but Summer said he actually moved the connector down the terminal, so the tester at AutoZone read my battery as low, but healthy.

By the time I finished there, Summer was on her way home with the girls. I stopped by Dollar General to kill a little time and ended up buying a rake. I joked with the cashier that this is why I’m normally not allowed out of the house. Then we had huge salads for dinner and watched The Matrix Revolutions.

Illusions, Mr. Anderson. Vagaries of perception. The temporary constructs of a feeble human intellect trying desperately to justify an existence that is without meaning or purpose.

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Eat Your Damn Eggs

I got up this morning and cut up some fresh tomatoes and serrano peppers to scramble into some chopped bacon and eggs. Mom used to make something like that, but I’ve always just cheated and used a can of Rotel. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but after cooking off all the liquid, I thought it was perfect. We barely had enough rice for everyone, but Autumn initially refused to touch it anyway. She came into the kitchen and got really quiet when she saw me cooking, which was a good indication that it was about to get dramatic. Summer turned on her Mom Voice™ and made her sit at the table until she ate the bowl I fixed her. A bunch of yelling later, and Autumn called out to me that she actually liked it as we all let out a collective eye roll.

We spent the rest of the day watching TV. The girls each spent a bit of time cleaning up house, and I pulled all the literal trash out of the junk drawers. We sobbed through a bunch more Glee, and had leftovers for dinner. I wanted to be more productive, but I guess it was my own fault for not just getting up and going home.

Who started this tagline tradition anyway?

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Just a Formality

I couldn’t sleep in much today because of how bright it was in my room, so I spent most of the day pretty tired after my long night. Summer took Eaddie home, so I got straight to cleaning up for the day. After my shower, I finally tested out my new faucet and found that it leaked pretty badly at the drain. After mopping up all the water under the sink, I spent a little while tightening up all the connections until it didn’t really seem to leak any more. I’ll have to test it some more later, but I think it will probably be good enough when used normally and not pumping water into the bowl as fast as I can.

I had to go to my parents’ house to get some red envelopes for the kids, but Bác Vân came over and asked to borrow a bunch of money on my way out. I typically don’t have instant access to that much cash on a weekend without any notice, so I wished her good luck and many learned lessons. When I got to my parents’ house, Dad was recovering from feinting a bit after his surgery. I didn’t have time to stick around for very long because Summer had lunch ready, so I grabbed some envelopes and headed up to their house.

Summer’s mom was there finishing up Autumn’s dress, so I had lunch and just sat around with the kids. When she left and after we had all eaten, Summer and I went to Walmart for some stuff for dinner. Once she had that going, we watched some TV until Autumn’s date for the formal arrived. We missed the really good lighting, so I just did the best I could with what we had. Then we settled in and watched Glee until the dance was over.

Suzanne was in town and stopped by for just a little while to watch one episode with us. Then we chatted for just a little bit more before she left. Autumn eventually made it home, and the girls all crashed. I played some Overwatch with Clint, Josh, and one of his friends, then went to bed myself.

Well, you’ve missed the golden hour, so you get the tasteful yellow glow of a porch light.

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Sink Some Time Into Something

Jason started us off with a pretty lazy morning. I didn’t hear it, but I was assigned to pull some cable with Allen at Sequoyah. The line was supposed to already be there, but needed to be re-routed through the cafeteria. We found the coiled up cable without too much trouble, but the ceilings were high and even our longest ladder from the shop wasn’t tall enough to be of any use at all. To get started, I attached the tone generator on the end we had, then went to the closet to find the other end. I spent 10 or 15 minutes going through the nest of cables coming into that tiny switch closet, but couldn’t find it. When I went back to the other end, Allen had unhooked the tone generator and started trying to route the cable. He said he thought I went to the bathroom, even though he watched me hook up the tone generator and test that we had a tone coming through the line.

Once we got the tone generator back on the line, both of us went back to the closet and still couldn’t find a tone, so I started poking around in the ceiling and ultimately found where the line had been cut just inside the hallway, less than 20 feet from where we needed it to be. Allen wanted to run an extension from another drop in a nearby closet, but I refused. I traced the line back to see what else I could do, and then we took everything back to the shop for lunch.

Gary, Heather, Zach, and I walked to Smackin’ Wings and Things for the Philly cheesesteak fries. It took them half an hour to get our food to us, which was pretty typical. I didn’t really care much for the special, and it didn’t feel quite as loaded as anything I’ve had there before. I finished it just because it wouldn’t have been any better reheated, but I walked out filled with more regret than fries.

After lunch, I stayed at the shop and re-imaged the four computers Jason imaged for me because he used the 2016 LTSB version instead of the newer 2019 LTSC. I guess maybe he had forgotten that none of our Adobe licenses are compatible with the 2016 release, but he got really snippy and ridiculous when I told him what I was doing. As soon as I told him I’d just deliver them myself, he and Allen disappeared as if by magic, to I know not where.

When everyone left, I delivered my computers to the high school and headed home. My new bathroom faucets came in, so I decided to be handy and start on the replacement project since the one in my master bathroom had gotten to leaking quite badly. I had just barely gotten started when Summer arrived with Eaddie. Autumn was staying with her grandmother so she could finish her dress for the dance tomorrow. The remaining three of us headed to Lowe’s for some supply hoses and silicone. I ended up spending about three times as much on hoses as I wanted, but they didn’t have anything cheaper than the stainless steel braided lines.

We ended the evening with a late dinner at New China, and then headed home where I continued my work in the bathroom. The girls seemed pretty tired and passed out kind of early, but it took me a few more hours to break out all the old corroded faucets. I managed to get everything in place though, and I didn’t appear to have any water leaks. The silicone needs 12 hours to cure, so I won’t get to actually test the faucets until tomorrow. At least the spare bathroom won’t be as difficult since it already has new supply lines that aren’t rigid copper.

The more I tear apart, the less mystical it all seems. I may fix my bathroom yet…

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Cool Winter Drizzle

I really didn’t want to wake up today, but the bells, they were a’ringing. Zach stopped by my office pretty early in the day, and spent quite a while at the high school. Ben showed up just moments later, so I made them some popcorn while I worked on laptops. Ben left, and Gary came to us so the three of us could go to lunch together. We met our new guy, Greg, at Morelos and he and Zach spent most of the time going on about duck hunting.

The afternoon went by pretty slowly as I milled around working on different things. I felt like I’d lost a little bit of direction, and just wanted to go home when I started to get really sleepy. When I did finally get home, I noticed I’d lost at least two or three adult shrimp over the past few days, so I bumped up my thermostat a few degrees assuming it as the cold. The tiny heater in that tank doesn’t seem to work, so I may have to get a new one.

Eventually I left the house to run some things by my parents’ house. They were out shopping, but I had to get the girls from karate anyway. We headed up to their house for some leftover chili before bed.

$4700 in lighting?!?

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Black Holiday

I took a personal day to hang out with Eaddie since school was out for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Summer had to work. It was quiet when I got up, so I had a pancake and started watching Luke Cage. Ronda messaged me on Marco Polo to say that Long John Silver’s had a for-lease sign up, which made me pretty sad. When Eaddie eventually came out of her room, she watched a bit of TV with me. She didn’t want to leave the house at all, so I left her to her chores while I went home to shower.

I hadn’t been there in a while, so the inside temperature had actually dropped super low. I had to give it some time to warm up before I could do much of anything. Eventually I had my bath and then had to head back out for dinner. I decided to make shredded beef street tacos with chipotles in adobo sauce so we could eat the aging cilantro and sour cream in the fridge.

I got everything loaded into the Instant Pot and sat down to a couple more episodes of Luke Cage while we waited for Summer to get home. Autumn was dropped off with McDonald’s for her and Eaddie, which aggravated me beyond having the already super late dinner. I thought the tacos were pretty good, but I forgot to get the veggie mix out of the fridge again for some reason.

I hate that this whole weekend was just another bust. It was a long one, too.

This is worse than a lack of motivation.

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Gleekout

Today was a day of leftovers and television. The kids got a proper yellin’ after showing some attitude, and fixed it surprisingly quickly. Summer had them clean up house a bit after taking Autumn to the gym. Later she took her to her parents’ house so her mother could make Autumn a formal dress.

I warmed up some more leftovers for dinner, and the three of us watched a bunch more Glee until bedtime.

So you like show tunes. It doesn’t mean you’re gay. It just means you’re awful.

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Dear Journal,

Summer took Autumn to pick up the breakfast pizza I ordered, then took both girls to their all-region band event. She was still feeling sick and came back to nap in the floor while I watched some more renovation YouTube videos. Eventually she had to go take the girls home for lunch and to clean up before their concert.

I cleaned up and took a bath for a while, and eventually left to get stuff for dinner. I stopped by Harbor Freight first to return my broken fireman’s axe that didn’t even make it through one log. Then I went to Walmart for beans and veggies to throw in the InstantPot. Summer wanted a coffee, but Starbucks had a line coiled around the building like a constrictor, so I went back towards McDonald’s instead. She liked the hot mocha just as well, and it probably cost less than half as much.

I started chopping up onions, celery, and carrots to throw in with our old ham bone, then threw it all in the pressure cooker. Clint stopped by while I was prepping, just briefly enough to pick up some network cable and then hit the road again. A couple hours later, we had a pretty decent soup made. I thought it was a bit bland and lacked inspiration, but I was in a little bit of a rush anyway.

Summer, Eaddie, and I binged on several episodes of Glee until we couldn’t take it any more. It was well after all of our bedtimes anyway, and even I felt weepy tired.

Once again, I’ve won!