Pancakes on Pancakes

Summer took Autumn to Stoby’s this morning so she could prep for their Explorers fundraiser. Then the rest of us got up and headed down for all-you-can-eat pancakes. The food was simple, but filling. We didn’t stay long since Noah had to go to work. We stopped by Amanda’s so I could bring some packages in for her, and then went to my house until Autumn was done.

Summer took him to work while I showered, and then we watched some Glee. The breakfast lasted until around 2, so we went to Walmart to kill some more time until Autumn finished. Then we picked her up and headed home. I kept fussing at her that I was hungry, and that she should make us dinner after having worked for half a day. Unsurprisingly she passed on the opportunity. We watched some more Glee until dinner time, then I grilled some more burritos.

After we ate, Summer wanted to play some Catan, but we quit at 7 points since the kids were fussy and needed to go to bed anyway.

I will trade you one random lumber card for five lumber.

Lumpday

I was pretty scattered today, like the rest of the week. It rained pretty heavily most of the day, and somehow I kept finding myself out in it. At least my waterproof shoes worked perfectly. I wasn’t very hungry by the time lunch snuck up on me, but Allen texted me last-minute to go to KFC. I just had a famous bowl, which still filled me up plenty, and I only paid about half of what he paid for his buffet.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly too, as I continued to pick at more things around the office. I went home and played a little Overwatch by myself in the cold until Summer got home. Then I went by Casey’s for their free rewards item. There was a little cat pacing and meowing around the front door, so I stopped to boop it a little on the way out. Then I got a snack from Taco Bell, gas from Shell, and headed up to Summer’s for the evening. Everyone there was pretty much off to bed, so I got on and played some more Overwatch with Clint, Johnny, and Jack until bed.

C-can you hear that music?

No Phasing Them

We got up this morning and picked at some leftover breakfast from last week. I eventually made it home to clean up after the cat and hang out for a while. I played a bit of Overwatch and took a shower with my nice new bath towels. They’re almost too plush, but I assume that will wash down a bit. One of the hand towels frayed on one side, but I couldn’t find any way to contact the manufacturer. I guess I could contact J. C. Penney and pursue a refund that way, but that sounds horrible. I might as well just keep the stupid thing.

Summer made fajitas for dinner and had Nick’s son Zach over to hang out with the girls. I stopped by Casey’s on the way over to convert some old box tops into virtual credits, and the lady had to do it three times before she figured out what was going wrong. Eventually she seemed satisfied with her process and sent me on my way. Dinner was great, and we played some Phase 10 and Mario Kart until Zach went home and everyone went to bed.

Hey Google, play some music, here, in this house, where we are currently located.

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.

Hamburger Visage

Today was boring. I picked at a few things at work, but bored myself avoiding all the usual things. Nobody said anything about lunch, so I mixed up some powdered Soylent. I only made a 200kcal serving, which will usually hold me over in a pre-made bottle of v2.0. Instead, I just felt super hungry all afternoon. I couldn’t stop thinking about hamburgers, and I could never shake that the rest of the day.

Ben stopped by in the afternoon and did a little work in my office, but vanished again while I had left to work on something else. I went home after work expecting something fun from UPS, but it ended up being my toaster for work. While I was there, I decided to finally mount the shim behind my doorbell so the camera would be a little more centered. Then I went to my parents’ for some more fish soup.

After digging through some more old crap from my childhood, I hit up Shell for some cheap gas and then headed to Summer’s. She wanted to keep my new toaster, so now I have a brand new, used toaster for work. I sat on the couch and played some more Tomb Raider on Stadia, and eventually everyone went to bed.

Isn’t it peculiar how everything is perfectly fine while you’re brushing our teeth, but as soon as you spit a big wad of toothpaste out and accidentally hit your toothbrush, it becomes super gross?

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!

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…

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!

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.

Talk Down Lock Down

Summer felt a bit off this morning and took a slow ride downhill all day. We got up and munched on a bit of breakfast and then she laid back down for a while. Eventually she tried to get the kids up to take care of some chores and Autumn seemed to be in some sort of mood that earned a stearn parenting moment. I wasted most of my time playing Oxygen Not Included or Lumino City. Summer had a nice pork chop dinner planned and eventually got up to execute that. I put on the National Geographic documentary Science Fair so the kids would have something perhaps a little less mind numbing to watch, and it seemed to grab their attention pretty well, but I wish it had been a little more educational.

When I finally made it home for the evening, I got started on some laundry and cleaned up house a bit. I even managed to frame a poster I’ve been meaning to hang for a few years, but I’ll have to find my way to the wall in order to actually hang it.

Parenting is way easier when you’ve never been one before.