Tag: family

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Captaining 101

We skipped the shop this morning and got Autumn straight into imaging laptops. It took me a little bit to get any traction with any particular task, but I got a few miscellaneous things accomplished throughout the day.

Allen called for lunch, so Autumn and I picked up some Arby’s and took it back to the shop for him. The fast food deals have been pretty rockin’ since Coronavirus came to town. As long as it’s only a looming fear and doesn’t kill anyone I particularly care about, it can stay around as long as it dadgum wants, man.

It was a short afternoon with more of the same. Then I had to take Autumn to physical therapy again. While she was there, I stopped in to Mark’s office to take care of a failed email import task. That didn’t take long, then I got Autumn and we went to see Summer at work.

I needed an oil change, so we made Autumn pull my car into the bay under much duress. We couldn’t figure out why she was so adamant that she wasn’t going do what we told her, but Summer didn’t take any guff. She did slightly run over an employee, but he lived.

From there, we spent a little time at my house with the cat, then went up the hill to start making dinner. I cleaned the grill and cooked some chicken breasts for salads. Autumn, always having to be different, made a little wrap instead. While I was grilling, I made her come outside so I could talk at her about her feelings earlier in the day, and I think she ultimately appreciated the gesture. The chicken also turned out great, and the salads were awesome. Afterward, Summer watched a little bit of Moana with Autumn, then went to bed. I wasn’t terribly far behind.

At least someone accomplished something today.

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Docked Out Till We Clocked Out

I woke up this morning with a knot on my head, and no idea how it got there. I didn’t remember hitting my head last night, but I did hit it pretty hard a couple weeks ago when we were unpacking student laptops. I couldn’t imagine why it would start throbbing and grow into a lump again today after all that time, but there it was.

Autumn tried to stay home today, but I refused to let her. We went by the shop first thing to see if we could take Kyle with us again. Then we let him image student devices while we swapped docking stations. We left him just before lunch to meet the others at the shop. Then Allen joined us for Cici’s.

After lunch, we got some additional new-hire paperwork signed for Autumn, then went back to the high school to continue with docks. Kyle needed a break from that monotony, so I traded him for Autumn and let her image laptops while Kyle and I finished docking stations.

We got almost all of them finished, but had a couple that were checked out to inverted room numbers, and I think a couple that I will have to swap out tomorrow. We got a little bit lost in some of the older parts of the building, and even locked ourselves out once, so we had to walk around the safe room to get back in.

Autumn and I finished up with one last dock at the indoor practice facility, then went to my house for a while so I could put some ice on my head. The knot just sort of swelled up and hurt worse throughout the course of the evening. We stopped by Walmart so she could get some bath stuff and some chicken to cook for dinner, and then we headed up to their house for the evening.

Summer got home in the middle of Autumn making her chicken pasta. It didn’t take too long for us to eat and split up again. Summer and I chatted for a while and watched some more car reviews before bed.

Ahoy hoy, Captain!

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Work Permitted

Autumn and I got up to go to work this morning, and did our best to find a groove. She started imaging student laptops while I put out a few fires. There was a power transformer issue over the weekend that left our main switch closet downstairs without power, but that was an easy fix by the time I got there. Kayla was in and out to bring me returned teacher laptops.

We met at the shop for lunch, and went with Zach and Greg to Las Palmas to eat. Afterward, we stopped by central office so Autumn could sign her tax paperwork, but Cindy had just stepped out for lunch. Instead, we shipped back off to high school to accomplish as much as we could. Autumn replaced a couple laptop LCD panels, which I thought was a good break from imaging laptops, and wasn’t as scary for her as it might have seemed without any prior experience.

Kyle was supposed to come by to help, but only showed up just as Autumn and I were leaving for her physical therapy appointment. It was nice to be able to give a quick 20-second rundown of how to image devices and then leave without having to explain things in more detail. I dropped Autumn off and went back to the shop to get Autumn’s paperwork, but she’ll still have to sign it in the morning.

I went back to the high school so Kyle wouldn’t be sitting there without any other direction, but we didn’t have long left in the day. He took off shortly after quitting time, and I wasn’t terribly far behind. I ran home to change, then met up with Mark again to take care of a few issues they had uncovered.

We finished up right about the time that Summer and the girls were done, so I met them at my parents’ house for bún thang. Summer was pretty bad off with nerve pain again, so we didn’t stick around terribly long. I stayed to chat for just a little longer, then met the girls at their house for the evening.

Time to over-analyze for maximum-output decision making.

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Ruby Steaks

Twoscore ago, my parents made the brilliant choice to hitch up and start a life together. Julie was out of town, but Summer and I thought it would be fun to grill some steaks for them after the letdown of the year yesterday at Logan’s. She left to go to the gym and mow the lawn while I cleaned up a bit at home. The girls would be back in time for dinner, so we had their father drop them off at my parents’ house.

When she was ready, I picked Summer up and we headed to Walmart for a quick run-through for the meats. My parents had everything for mashed potatoes, broccoli salad, and some other vegetables, so we got steaks, kielbasas, some smoked cheddar sausages for Autumn, and then some frozen shrimp at the last minute.

I had a little trouble with the heat on the grill, and I think I overcooked Mom’s strip steaks. The others seemed to come out a nice, pink, medium rare. I had a porterhouse all to myself, and the tenderloin side just melted in my mouth. I knew I ate too much, but I had some making up to do after those sirloin atrocities from yesterday.

We didn’t stick around too long since the kids were exhausted. Summer still felt pretty nauseous, so we headed back to their house where she climbed straight into bed. Eaddie and I stayed up a little while playing more iMessage games, and eventually I headed to bed.

Without you, none of this would have been necessary.

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Wing It

We got up this morning and munched on some leftovers for brunch. The girls would be going with their father for the week, so Summer had them up and into some chores before I left. I went home to try and clean up a bit myself, but I just felt sapped pretty much all day for some reason. I had a little trouble getting to sleep last night, so it’s possible I just wasn’t well rested.

It took me a few trips, but I got everything unloaded from the car. I had to stop and clean up after the cat as soon as I got into the house, so I didn’t really get anything put away properly until later. Instead of getting things properly cleaned like I needed to, I got into tinkering with Plex until it was time to get a shower and meet back up with the girls.

Dad grilled chicken wings for Julie’s birthday party yesterday, so I met the girls over there for dinner. Their father showed up just a few minutes after we got there, so Summer sent them off and then came back in to eat with me. Infinity War was playing on the TV, so we watched the end of it before heading back to my house for the evening.

Just make the decision to be confident, and no one else will be the wiser.

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If the Boat’s a’ Rockin, Don’t Come a’ Dokkin

We only slept in a little this morning before trying to get the kids up and at it. Summer took Autumn to the gym while I went home to clean up. I loaded up some camp chairs and empty bottles for our trip to Magic Springs, then stopped by Lowe’s to pick up an order before making my way back up to the girls.

They were still cleaning up and getting ready to go, and I was too hungry to wait and eat after the drive, so I cooked a whole package of Petit Jean pepper bacon and we all made big bacon salads before we left. We finally hit the road pretty late in the afternoon, but I was determined to get us there.

We made it nearly to Centerville when I realized I didn’t grab our season passes. We probably could have gone through guest services to get in, but I didn’t want to drive all that way and chance it, so we made our way back home to get them, and then drove back down into Hot Springs. We wanted to eat at a phở place we saw last time just outside of Magic Springs, but when we got there it was closed and we didn’t even bother to get out to read the sign.

Summer did a quick search for restaurants and came across a hibachi place we had gone to before without the kids, so we made our way to the Osaka Japanese Steakhouse. I didn’t remember loving it the first time, and I felt like it was pretty overpriced this time, but everyone seemed satisfied enough. The service was a bit slow for me since I was already on edge about leaving late, then having to drive back for our passes.

We finished up pretty quickly and headed to Magic Springs to try and catch the main attraction. The park had closed down all the rides, and the openers had already finished their portion of the concert by the time we got down to the amphitheater. Fortunately the pandemic had most of the crowd gone, so we had our pick of where to sit.

I didn’t recognize a single song of theirs, but fortunately Summer did. At least she enjoyed it if no one else did. It wasn’t too hot and miserable out, so I enjoyed just going to a concert at all, but I still would have liked to have some more time in town.

There was hardly any traffic on the way out since attendance was so low. We made our way to the spring water fountain to fill up my bottles, and then hit the road. Summer started having nerve pains again, but she would have gone straight to bed regardless of that. Everyone but Eaddie was pretty tired since she was the only one to really sleep in late.

Wait… the lyric is “lucky!”

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Training Costs Extra

Autumn was able to finish imaging the teacher devices this morning, and then got most of my power adapters counted and boxed up for shipment. I arranged for pickup of all the depot claims I had ready to go out, and even helped a couple fussy people with their technology woes.

We took a late lunch at Cici’s, and it seemed like right as we sat down, Autumn started acting like she wasn’t feeling great. She ate a little bit, but wanted to go home for the afternoon, so I dropped her off at her house before going back to work.

Ben came over, and we had another conference call with Impero, which went only slightly better than yesterday. It turns out we’ve got a lot of work to do to get Clever to play nicely with their software, and exactly zero of us has any free time to dedicate to it.

I spent the rest of the afternoon straightening up a bit more before heading home to change, and then off to get Mark and his team switched over to G Suite. It turns out he had already initiated a trial but needed to confirm ownership of the domain, so the affiliate link was out, but the discount code still seemed to work. He kept wanting to do things for himself, which was both endearing and frustrating because I love getting to teach people new things, but it takes significantly longer to get things done because I’ve spent most of my life learning how to do what he’s hired me to do. There’s some combination of feeling like I’m burning time on the clock, and worry that the value of my time is being vastly underestimated. Most of my time was spent waiting for his old Outlook data to export, and we ended up having to put off importing it until the next day.

I headed up to Summer’s to meet them for dinner, where Autumn seemed to be feeling a little worse but still wanted to go back to my house for the evening “because her quilt was there.” I didn’t need an excuse to go back home, so after we ate, the girls started to get cleaned up and I went back home to wait for them.

Just as I got there, Summer called and said Autumn was having leg cramps and feeling extremely sick, so I went back up the hill instead. It seemed to me like another case of bad babysitting because she just simply didn’t take care of her body. It’s one of the most aggravating things to me because I want her to be healthy, but I can’t be bothered to micromanage every ounce of anything going into her body. If she hasn’t learned proper hydration and nutrition by the age of 15, then I don’t have the patience to rein her in now, nor the sympathy to put up with her declining health. I’m certainly not going to give her any attention in the hospital.

Once we got her a regimen of fluids for the evening, Summer and I sat down for an episode of Master of None before stopping to talk about our feelings for a bit. Then it was off to bed.

Yes. Turned out great. This is fine. Everything is fine.

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A Hot Day for Company

We got up this morning and the girls finished cleaning up for company. I found enough stuff in the refrigerator to make some chicken tacos for brunch, then ran home to clean up before Summer’s friend came over with her family.

I got back and helped patty hamburgers, but had to run to Walmart for some lettuce just as they arrived. When I got back, I took over grilling so everyone else could go catch up. The corn on the cob was taking a bit longer to cook, but then the whole grill caught on fire with all of the grease in the bottom. That would have to be a chore for another day, but the corn came out great.

The girls played a bit of Switch, then Autumn put on The Lorax. I think everyone had gotten pretty tired, and there wasn’t a whole lot of conversation. Autumn spent most of her time with the toddler.

Once they left and everything was cleaned up, I headed home to finally start my taxes. Summer dropped Eaddie off with her parents for a few days, then brought Autumn over for the evening. They watched TV while I scrambled around the house looking for my tax documents, and then I caught the end of Cool Runnings with them before bed.

Image party tomorrow!

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Rather Be Napping

Summer and I got up this morning and put together a big “everything” Italian loaf egg sandwich for breakfast. Autumn protested the eggs, but I convinced her to eat everything else by reminding her how many times she had gotten her way with food all week long.

As soon as we finished, I made Eaddie go outside to mow the lawn before it got any hotter. She didn’t do a great job of listening, and had to split the sweaty job with both Autumn and Summer, but I was glad to see Autumn volunteer. I got some bills paid and was going to go home to start on taxes, but just cleaned up a bit instead since I thought the girls would be staying the night.

I brought Summer’s string trimmer back with me and trimmed a little bit of the fence line before they all got back from shopping. They ended up making a pretty big supply run for her guests tomorrow. We all picked at some leftovers for dinner, and then Summer prepped some things for that while I put on Firefly.

Autumn went bowling with a girlfriend and her family, and I had to go pick her up when they finished. By the time we got back and settled in, it was too late to really go down to my house. Eaddie had already been asleep in bed for a while, but I bribed her out with an ice cream run.

We went to Sonic first, but were turned away because their ice cream machine was down. Then we went to Dairy Queen and spent even more on a couple Blizzards. Everyone was off to bed when we got back, and I spent a little time snoozing while Summer watched TV before we finally went to bed.

Nervous poops?

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Aye Captain

I dropped Autumn off with Summer this morning so she could do something besides sit around the house while I got ready for work. Summer ended up needing the help anyway, so it worked out at the expense of running late myself.

We had our work cut out for us today, to a much greater extent than I expected. I started out having Autumn file warranty claims while I bounced between servicing other devices and troubleshooting my task sequence for faculty devices.

Just before lunch, Zach called and said they were getting kicked out of the kitchen area and the other half of the cafeteria at Gardner, so they had to bring me the rest of my teacher devices. I didn’t really have room for them either, but we did our best to carve out a hole. I still have a bunch of new monitors sitting in the hallway for Ethan’s eight additional lab computers.

Obama’s been gone so long that
America’s all out of change.

As soon as we finished there, we went to Popeye’s to pick up some chicken for lunch. We got to Summer just before a huge storm hit, and we ate with her. Ronda showed up for an oil change on our way out, so we stopped to talk with her a bit, then made it back to the high school. We ran into a shotgun pattern of warranty expiration dates when filing claims, which had me super stressed. In the end, they’re all just extra devices anyway, so I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s all garbage, and I don’t really care if it fails because I know it’s not any fault of ours.

We worked pretty late, and I still never got a functioning faculty image made, but I think I may have figured out why. I won’t know until I get to try my new media tomorrow morning. It’s Friday though, and everyone has chosen to work at 8am. I took off last Friday, so tomorrow is my first full scheduled eight hour day since before the pandemic started. I’ve actually worked plenty longer than that by choice, but somehow actually being scheduled for it feels worse.

Summer got off early and went to the gym, so Autumn and I ran by the graveyard to quickly check for any treasure. Then we went home so I could quickly change before going to Walmart for dinner supplies. They had a ton of Petit Jean pepper bacon marked down pretty significantly, so of course I bought all of it.

When we got back to their house, Summer and Eaddie were up in arms about all the things Eaddie hadn’t done at home all day. It took us a while to get our rotisserie chicken wraps going because I had to get in Eaddie’s face about it. I couldn’t fathom rebutting not completing any chores because I had nothing to do all day. That was just stupid, and she knew it.

Dinner was great, and at least felt healthy. Autumn went to her room and passed right out, and Eaddie turned her attitude around to get some things done in her room. She even seemed to be in a good mood about it.

I guess sometimes you’ve just gotta take a hollering.