Tag: family

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Two Cool for School

Just as I was about to walk out the door this morning, I got a call from the Lowe’s delivery Hispanics saying they would be at my house in 30 to 45 minutes. It took them a little longer than that, but it gave me plenty of time to clear a path since Summer didn’t show up until they were waddling the thing through the front door. The whole process went through without incident, though they wouldn’t hook up my water line for me, so I just had to leave my unstoppable, dripping line hanging over a bucket until I could look at it after work. Summer went back to work, and I quickly wiped down the inside surfaces before going to work myself.

It was quiet downstairs, but Jacob came into my office as soon as I got there and needed help stopping his junior high kids from downloading Roblox from the Microsoft Store. I got that figured out, but accidentally broke the calculator and other Windows apps in the process.

I kind of worked through lunch, though most everyone ate there anyway, which made me feel a little guilty for not actually taking time off for showing up late. I brought the leftover breakfast sandwich and snacked on apples throughout the afternoon. I figure I still had days worth of comp time that I never cashed in anyway, so it’ll all come out in the wash.

I had to go by Oakland a couple of times, but otherwise it really was quiet. I ended the day there, and took Eaddie home with me at quitting time. She didn’t stay long though, because she wanted to go to a dinner gathering with the tennis team. Summer picked her up and left me to finish setting up the new refrigerator. Dad came to the rescue with some parts to help me hook up the water line, since I couldn’t get it to quit leaking.

Doug came knocking on the door a little while later and wanted me to come next door to work on Bác Vân’s sewing machine. I had concerns about how much time it would take, and I wasn’t wrong. In the end, I got the new gear in place, but couldn’t get the timing right so the needle would pick up the bobbin on the downswing. I might be able to figure it out with some research time, but she seemed to be in enough of a rush to get a professional on the task.

I ended the night moving some food around, and got the freezer and the door of the refrigerator loaded up. The main body of the refrigerator is mostly full of junk, so that will take some sorting tomorrow. For now, I just hope it keeps everything properly frozen. Then as soon as it stops raining this week, we’ll get the old fridge up to Summer’s house.

Here’s hoping for heavy sleep.

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Scheduled for 2022

I got up this morning and got the okay to make breakfast, so I got the grill out and started heating up the griddle. I’ve been wanting to cook breakfast on it for so long just to try cooking on a flat-top to see how I would like it. The cast iron was a new adventure too, but I thought it turned out pretty well. I had some garlic and herb French bread in the freezer that I threw onto the top rack to heat up while I cooked a bunch of bacon. The bacon cooked a bit slower than I expected, but I think bacon always does. I’m so used to just cooking an entire package in a pot now that I forget what it’s like cooking a single layer. After that was done, I could set it on the grill grate to drain, and then fry up some eggs.

Summer enjoyed her sandwich, but Eaddie took one bite of hers and complained that the bread was too hard, and then said she was leaving to go out to eat with her father. He showed up moments later to pick her up, so I just sat in a computer chair with my ghetto fan box as a table, and ate by myself after Summer ate in bed.

We laid around for a while, and I kept trying to drift back to sleep, but couldn’t without my CPAP. I finally got up with a pretty bad headache when it was time for Summer to leave for her employee’s baby shower. I got around to clean up a bit, and missed a delivery confirmation call from Lowe’s while I was in the shower. We’ll finally get our new refrigerator tomorrow.

Summer and Eaddie came back over in the evening so we could go to my parents’ house for Mom’s birthday. I loaded up my old Denon receiver to set up for them since they haven’t been able to use the speakers I brought them after their receiver blew a component. On the drive over, I got another call from Lowe’s. This time it was an automated call confirming my delivery was scheduled for between 10AM and 2PM on Monday, April 11th, 2022. At this point I was just glad it wasn’t going to be 2023.

When we got to my parents’ house, we chatted for a while about housing. I explained my plan to build a workshop to house everything while we renovate, and finally got some traction. For some reason, Mom still thinks it’ll be cheaper to buy land and build somewhere, but that just sounds like too much for me. I would literally spend the rest of my entire life trying to plan out the perfect layout, and would never build anything. I can handle a simple workshop. What I can’t handle is my need to over-design and wire a custom home with too many custom rooms with a fully climate-controlled data closet, solar, house batteries, home theater wiring, storage, and anything else I think up along the way.

Autumn got off work a little late, and we had her pick up some Pizza Hut on the way over. We ate, and then she took Eaddie home. Summer was stuck with me while I set up the home theater receiver again. The power and input controls never work like I want them to, but I think I got it set up well enough for Mom to figure out. We headed back to my house after that, and Summer helped me move some stuff before she left. Then I did some last minute cleaning before the big delivery day.

Taxes, taxes, taxes. Taxes are next.

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Virtually Unbusy

At last, I made it to work a bit early. I probably slept for about nine hours last night, but still awoke begrudgingly to my alarm. Greg drew the short straw and got the lion’s share of the Brody calls all day, which left me to do a bit of cleanup on some old tasks I had been neglecting.

I convinced Gary, Zach, and Greg to let me drive them to La Huerta instead of La Chiquita for lunch, which was a treat for me. Greg complained about still being hungry after his meal, and Gary didn’t even take a swing when I tried to flirt with the cashier, who had her opposite arm in a sling, on his behalf. Otherwise I thought it was a super fast and tasty lunch.

When we got back, Gary wanted to show Greg and me his process for upgrading VMware on four of our physical servers. That took the rest of the afternoon until eventually Zach and Thomas came to the back and we had a relaxing sendoff for the day.

Just after I got home, Summer asked me to get Eaddie from tennis practice at the high school. Her phone was allegedly delivered, but after trying five neighbors, she was unable to locate a package and came over to my house empty handed. Eaddie had to work a band event, so Summer took her to that while I chatted with Fi support to report the missing package.

I spent the rest of the night cleaning up in the kitchen, and then looking around on Zillow for anything new. I thought about it some more today, and felt like maybe building a workshop/garage out back would be a better first step so I could have somewhere to offload some things before doing the rest of the renovation. With Summer’s loans nearly paid off and both of us fighting for better pay, more of this feels within reach than ever.

It won’t cost much. Just your voice.

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Market Price

I was out of step again this morning, and a few minutes late into work. I felt like I was on track, so I guess it’s just that time of year when I need to roll my alarm back a bit. I had a CPPC meeting pretty early, so I didn’t get up to a whole lot before that. I also didn’t have a whole lot planned for the meeting, so it was a relatively short one.

Without any donuts at the meeting, it was a struggle to make it to lunch. I forgot to bring any apples to snack on, and everyone else brought food, so I just went home and ate the last hamburger from the other night. On the way back, I stopped by Oakland for a little while. Then I was at the shop for the rest of the afternoon to work on my meeting minutes.

Immediately after work, Summer and Eaddie came by to pick me up, and we went to look at a house. Alisha and another lady met us there, and my parents showed up shortly thereafter. Parts of it were really cute, and other parts were really old. It ticked a lot of boxes for us, but ultimately the high price and a fear of the cost of upkeep were predictably too much for us to be serious about it. It looked like it might have been Judy’s parents or grandparents that lived there though, because there were pictures of her family on every single flat surface in the place.

Summer dropped me back off at my car and I headed home. After looking at a new place, I found a familiar comfort pulling back into my own driveway where I’ve lived for nearly two decades. It’s not perfect, but I think I can make it better. I finished up the corned beef for dinner, but my head continued to feel a little bit worse, hour by hour, as the night carried on. I was up late last night, so I figure I’m due for an early bedtime.

You’re not listening.

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Whims

I’m not sure what happened, but I did not make it to work on time this morning. I felt like I was in step with my routine, but something got out of whack. It was pretty quiet though, which was fortunate because I was charged with answering the phones while everyone in the front of the office had a top secret meeting. Gary was out after being aggravated yesterday, but the meeting continued. Greg was there with me at first, but had to leave for a while, which left me to my own devices. Luckily we only ever got one phone call that I had to answer, and it was an easy one.

As lunch time approached, Zach informed me that our meetup with Dale had been postponed. This was after I had invited Allen to meet us as well, so I had to see if he wanted to wait or come out today. He chose today, so I invited Thomas, and then found Greg as he was walking back to the office from across the street. We had a good lunch though, with just a dash of awkwardness as only Allen could provide.

When I dropped the other two off after lunch, I went to Oakland for a little while to take care of something and then just to hang out for a bit before going back to my office. It was quiet all afternoon until quitting time when I went by my parents’ house to drop off a letter I printed for Dad. He had gone to pick up Mom from work, so I had to wait a bit for them to show up. Then Eaddie called and needed me to let her in after riding her bike.

I stopped by Kroger on the way home to pick up about 16 pounds of cosmic crisp apples. Dad said they were on sale for a buck a pound, and the piece I had at their house was really good. I figured they’d make a good snack at work, and the girls would probably want some as well.

Summer came by after the gym to get Eaddie, and shared the article that Splash was publishing about her in their newsletter. It was really good to see, even if it was a pre-release copy. They left pretty quickly, and I cleaned up a few leftovers before settling in for the night.

It’s the time of year when things get warmer and I get more anxiety about all the projects I want to complete before the attic becomes too hot to bear. I’ve been wanting to move the girls in so we could save money, but this house just needs so much work and I just have so much stuff. There’s simply not enough room for everyone. Another house on Zillow caught my eye, and upon further inspection I noticed my old friend, Alisha, was an agent for the realtor that listed it. I messaged her on Facebook, and we arranged to have a look at it tomorrow, completely on a whim.

As it turns out, without all these expenditures, we’re rich!

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Lessbius

About every other night, I’m up every hour. I still feel exhausted all of the time. I thought I’d get up today and make breakfast, but nobody was hungry. Summer and Eaddie left me for a while, and I started a corned beef in the crock pot, then cleaned up for a matinée. Eaddie wanted to go to the 1:50 show so her boyfriend could come along. His father dropped him off at the theater, and we met him there after I picked up Summer and Eaddie.

I was ready for a letdown after reading some reviews of Morbius. It was pretty bad, but overall I wasn’t upset to have watched it. The action scenes were highly stylized, but mostly garbage aside from that. It was all just blurry, dark, After Effects nonsense. The story wasn’t great either, but I guess I’m used to that from Sony.

After the movie, we had some time to kill before dropping Zane off with his mother, so we went to the park and let them wander around. Summer took a phone call, so we just sat in the car until they got back. Then I dropped him off, followed by the girls, and then went home to add some carrots and cabbage to the crock pot for the last hour.

Autumn worked all day and went straight home afterward to do homework, so just the other two came over for dinner. They ate and watched TV, then went home for the night. I cleaned everything up, and then went to bed as early as I could.

Sony, wat r u doin? Staaahhhhhp.

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Sleep on It

I couldn’t sleep in very late today because of the light and phone noises. The girls all slept in a little while, but Autumn had to wake up for a full shift at work. I had some coffee and split a bagel with Summer, then had a bath while she and Eaddie went out for lunch.

After they got back, I went home to clean up. Summer and Eaddie took apart one of her twin beds and brought the frame over, so Summer helped me clean out a corner in the bedroom for it. Then we left Eaddie at my house while we went to Walmart for food, then back to their house to pick up the mattress and box spring.

The girls got the bed put together and then went home to shower before coming back over for the night. I used my new griddle plate on my grill to cook some bacon, and grilled burgers for dinner while the other two watched TV. Autumn ended up staying home after work since she had to do some laundry.

Eaddie spent most of the night in her room. Summer and I went to bed and watched Jimmy Carr: His Dark Material. By the time that was over, we were both ready to fall asleep. Tomorrow, I’ll try to griddle breakfast.

Recharge

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Brassers

I continued to churn out flash drives today, as though that was my sole purpose in life. Predictably, Jacob was immediately concerned that they would quickly be lost due to their diminutive size. I continued on until lunch, when Gary, Greg, Thomas, and I went to Taco John’s since Taco Tuesday can be both cheap and healthy. I was neither, as I took the rare opportunity to order an actual combo meal instead of squeaking by with three tacos.

After lunch, I spent some time at Oakland and took care of a few things before ending back up at the shop to finish the day. Things got really quiet at the end of the day, and I think I was the last one out. I went home until Eaddie needed me to pick her up from the robotics camp at the high school.

We went to McDonald’s for another Mario Kart Happy Meal, and met Summer back at my house. Earlier in the day, I had gotten a call from Lowe’s that our refrigerator would be pushed back yet another week. Summer wanted to look at our options, but after spending some time shopping, it looked like most everything of interest would be about the same timeframe.

Summer surprised me first thing in the morning, saying she purchased tickets for us to see a group called Dallas Brass at the Center for the Arts. I looked them up and was okay with the idea, but once the show actually started, I thoroughly enjoyed the event. It was a nice, quiet concert compared to the full school bands that we’re used to hearing. They went on for a very entertaining two hours, and even played some pieces with the Tech and high school bands.

After the show, Summer dropped me off back at home and I rushed to sleep. I was up all night again last night, but hopefully tonight I’ll sleep straight through since I drugged up.

Still not cool.

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Something in the Water

I was up at least every hour last night, much like I have been for the past week or so, and it’s been the absolute pits. On top of feeling like I was wide awake and couldn’t fall back asleep every time I laid back down, we ran into some trouble with the water in our motel. There was a bunch of air in the lines, which I tried to purge by running the bath and sink. The loud glurging sound of course woke the girls, and the water started turning brown with lots of sediment. The tub wouldn’t drain either, and basically started filling up as though I had the plug in it.

We all got up and decided to just check out. My parents still had a good shower across town that I wanted to use, so Autumn and I grabbed a few things from the continental breakfast in the office and made our way out. The lady was super friendly and apologetic about the whole thing, and evidently she discovered a problem with the air pump that feeds their water supply. It might have been fine to go back and shower, but by that time we had already packed up and were ready to go.

The Christ of the Ozarks was just at the end of the road, so we drove through there quickly and got a few pictures at Eaddie’s request. Then as we drove through downtown, the girls decided they wanted to go on and find a coffee shop or something that was open while I went to shower.

Mom was still in bed, but started getting around once I got there. I had a nice shower, then caught up with the girls. I chanced it by parking in front of a broken meter, and walked to a few shops with them. I thought we might spend more time there, but they were over it pretty quickly. Autumn got to see her “working bunnies” and bought a shirt. Summer and I went up some stairs above the park in the middle of it all. We thought we might get lunch with my parents, but Summer, Autumn, and I were the only ones that were very hungry.

Instead, we just decided to stop by McDonald’s on the way out of town. They were super busy and clearly understaffed, so we ended up waiting quite a while for our food. The app also let me order a McRib, which they did not have, so I got a refund for that. The food was otherwise good, and I even got a Mario Kart Happy Meal for Eaddie before we headed out.

The drive back was different for some reason. I just trusted Google to get me home, not particularly caring how. We came through Lamar, then hit the interstate, making fairly good time. Autumn had plenty of time to get ready for her evening shift at Denny’s. Eaddie cleaned up a bit and then fell asleep super early. Summer and I just laid on the couch all evening until we decided to make some ramen and then go to bed. I went home to unpack and clean up, but made a quick night of it.

Collecting ALL the vacations…

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Witchcraft!

We all woke up early to leave for Eureka Springs this morning. I had to stop by Superfast first though, to check my coolant level again. We took a jug of some extra along just in case it got bad later, but I really shouldn’t have, because at the end of the day we found it had leaked all over the trunk.

It was a long and pretty drive, though the trees were all still dead from winter. Eaddie did great in the car, and we didn’t even have to drug her. We got to the Inn of the Ozarks a little before the last lecture let out for lunch, so we picked up Dad, then Mom and went to the top of the hill for lunch at Myrtie Mae’s.

After lunch, we watched the matinée for Dad’s performance. Then the girls had to cut out partway through the closeup show in order to make their zipline appointment. My parents and I got back up to their room just as the girls finished up, so once they walked back across the street, we headed to The Rockin’ Pig Saloon for dinner.

They had a bunch of menu items with Wagyu beef, including an $85 ribeye that made even our server’s eyes go wide. Mom got a non-Wagyu ribeye for less than half that, and the rest of the table got a pretty good mix of things. Somehow Autumn ended up with a pepperoni pizza, and even it was pretty good. I still think the brisket at Ridgewood is more tender though.

We got back to the Inn just in time for the raffle drawings, and then we watched the evening show. It was a good time getting to see everyone again after putting the event off for COVID. As they closed up shop, we left my parents to go find our hotel across town.

The Statue Road Inn was a cute little motel, at least in the dark. There was some confusion with the check-in process, because I was sure that I paid in full online, but I received an email saying I had to make a partial payment at the inn, and the lady at the front desk didn’t have any record of payment at all. She was super friendly though, and unable to find any credit card history, I felt comfortable making the partial payment. After researching some more online, I’m not convinced that I don’t owe the rest of it, but we’ll sort that out later.

The room was kind of cute, but it looked like they had some renovations going on at the other end of the building. This was the second time I’ve had a physical, metal key for a room I’ve stayed in as an adult. Aside from the miserable water pressure that Summer reported, everything seemed to be on the up and up. I guess we won’t know for sure until morning.

Short trip.