Tag: parenting

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Center for the Farts

I took Summer’s car to work today so she could keep mine in town. Casey’s had a free Reign Storm (ha), so I picked one up on the way to work and just accepted that I’d squeeze in a little bit late. It was more or less pretty quiet, with just a small group of kids doing some makeup testing in our office, followed by the usual lunch shenanigans. I was pretty scattered again, so it was a lot of meaningless accomplishments and nothing of any consequence was fixed.

Summer went home early with a headache, and got some new messages about reduced power and acceleration in my car, so we’ll tow it to Tulsa for a replacement high voltage battery. I guess I should be happy to rewind a year of degradation, but it doesn’t make me feel really great about the longevity of my car. I noticed Summer had a little dent in the back of hers when I got back home, apparently from trying to open the trunk while the garage door was shut. I almost made the same mistake once, so I couldn’t be too mad at her.

I fed the fish and picked up some tacos to take home for us. Then we went to the high school for Eaddie’s Christmas concert. Autumn spotted us as soon as we walked in and came over to our seats to talk at us. It was super awkward, and I imagined it was a little bit like how she still hangs out around the high school where others can’t just walk away from her.

The concert band was pretty bad, but it wasn’t until the symphonic band played that I realized how spoiled I was from listening to Eaddie’s elective concerts. It really is the difference between a group of really passionate, or at least dedicated musicians, and a public school band. There’s simply no comparison.

Eaddie went out with friends afterward, so Summer and I came home so she could go to bed. I was up a while, in part to try and get the old refrigerator running. I’m afraid the compressor may have finally bit the dust, which is frustrating to have happened after we finally got it situated in the laundry room. Oh well.

It’s obviously the product of favoritism, and not at all hard work.

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It’s Electric

The workday went by in a flash. We had a few people in and out of the office, but I mostly kept my head down and read a bunch of Microsoft documentation. Eventually I’ll have to turn that learning into practice, but for now I’m enjoying the peace.

I went straight home after work and unboxed my Onewheel to get it charging before we went to Conway for Eaddie’s concert at UCA. It was a really small crowd in a fairly small auditorium. They didn’t turn the house lights down at all, so everyone just sat there in the bright light the entire time. The music was great though, and the clinician seemed really cool. It was over and done with in no time.

Eaddie rode the bus home since they had already eaten, so Summer and I drove across town to try LongHorn Steakhouse. Their online reservation system said it may be a 45-55 minute wait, but we were queued for about an hour before they called us in. We just sat in the car until then. They were crowded inside, and the hostess that sat us was really awkward. The service was fine, and the food was decent, though a little bland. It would have been a fine meal for no wait, but I couldn’t imagine why anyone would wait more than ten minutes for a table.

We made it back home and I rode the Onewheel around the house for just a couple minutes before everyone went to bed. I was up a while longer just because I kept getting distracted. Hopefully we can get the sink fixed tomorrow.

ThreeEV

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Big, Bad, Meanie

The carpet was still really wet today, so I didn’t even bother starting in the other room. I guess I’ll just have to get that later. I made corned beef hash, eggs, and hashbrowns for breakfast, and then Eaddie asked to take her flute to the shop because it was leaking air. When she didn’t come back home, I got on to her for going to Eli’s house without asking, and she fussed at me over being parented.

I had a shower and went to the old house to clean up anything I could fit into the car. I got two subwoofers, the receiver, and the speaker cables loaded up before Mom called for help finishing up the shrimp soup. I went to eat, and then made it home to unload everything.

Summer got home from another long day at work, and she was stressed over how awful people are. I don’t know how she can still act surprised after all this time. I continued picking up around the house, and when Eaddie got home, we cleaned the chairs in the dining room.

Eaddie came to the office and watched some of Tech’s concert on YouTube with me before bed. I finished cleaning up a few things, and eventually made it to bed late again.

It’s a condition.

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I Woke up on a Farm

I slept fairly well last night. The little space heater kept us plenty warm in the tiny guest house. I woke up a few times from a fairly light sleep overall, but I was comfortable. Summer said she didn’t sleep well for some reason. We slept longer than I originally thought, because it was the end of Daylight Saving Time. I got Summer around, and we packed up and headed back to the house to see the others. The kids were getting ready to go off to church with their grandparents, and Josh looked a little more ready to face the day than Alice. Summer decided we should skip breakfast with them and head on home in time for Eaddie’s concert with the Tech band.

The drive home wasn’t bad since I took the back roads to Plumerville. Eaddie’s phone was dead so we couldn’t reach her on the drive, but she was up when we got there. We unloaded and then went to the new Old South for breakfast. They were closed, so Summer decided she wanted IHOP. The parking lot was packed from the church crowd, and I expected poor service anyway, but we were actually seated in a really short amount of time. The food was probably the best I’d ever had from an IHOP, and the service wasn’t bad either. It made the $50 bill a lot more bearable.

After we ate, we went back to the house to wait for Eaddie’s concert. She left early for that while Summer and I cleaned up at home. When it was time for the concert, my parents met us at Witherspoon. It was a pretty quick concert again, and then we tried going to Peter’s to look at some furniture for their 80th anniversary, but they were closed.

My parents went on home to prepare some spring rolls for dinner while Summer and I went to my house to get a few things. Then we picked up Eaddie at the house and went to my parents’. Dinner was good, but we didn’t stick around long since I had to do some laundry for my week-long conference.

Summer went to bed at a fairly usual time while I did my laundry. Eaddie went to bed pretty early, and I somehow managed to get to bed before midnight.

That’s quite enough “Halcyon Hearts” for me.

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This Guy Fawkes

Summer had a race in Conway this morning, and Eaddie had to get to the high school to take a bus to Conway for her orchestra concert. I got up pretty early myself and took a bath before Summer got back home. Then we packed up for a night at Alice’s.

We left Eaddie with the Model Y and took the Murano to Conway, which was awful after living on Autopilot for the past year. My arms were constantly tired, and all of my muscle memories were wrong. Our first stop was the liquor store in Morrilton, and then the China Town buffet in Conway for lunch. We finished up there just in time to make it across town to the Conway High School for Eaddie’s concert.

Both bands were pretty good, but I think my absolute favorite song was Eaddie’s last one. The concert was pretty short with only three songs from each of two bands, and then we headed straight to Alice’s place, only making a brief stop at a Dollar General for some energy drinks.

It was a small party this year. Alice and Josh were there, and Josh had one other friend come by. I took Summer, Alice, and the kids to the guest house to check things out, and then to see her in-laws next door briefly before going back to the house. They had some snacks there, but the girls mostly just chatted in the kitchen while the guys went down to start the fire. By the time we made it down the hill, it had mostly died down.

It was a great night of chatting by the fire though, and then we got to retire to a guest house instead of making the drive home after midnight. The guest house was a really cool, two-level house with everything we could have needed. Summer crashed pretty quickly while watching an episode of Fear Factor, which appeared to be on repeat. I wrapped up pretty quickly myself so I wouldn’t sleep too late.

That’s enough 90s television.

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Cash Cow

I was a little bit behind this morning, and the rain made everyone stupid and slow, and there was gravel all over the roads, but I made it to work on time. There wasn’t much exciting going on. Lunch was some pretty gross spaghetti that oddly was super light on noodles. It felt a little bit like eating mouthfuls of marinara with hamburger meat in it.

As I was leaving, John texted wanting payment for the electrical work. I had completely forgotten that we still owed him half, so I raced home to feed the fish and hit up the bank before meeting him at the new house. While he was there, he showed me where the first guy messed up and drilled a hole through the ceiling on the first day, but said the “free” outlets he installed in the garage made up for it. The funny thing is that the hole was from when they were installing those outlets, and he had already promised “free” outlets beforehand. I was just happy to have one house project done though.

After that, I went to my parents’ house for some leftover phở. Then when I got back to the house, the girls were looking up food for Eaddie. She also needed gas, so the two of us went out to get her some Zaxby’s. We sat and chatted for quite a while, and then got gas from Casey’s on the way home.

It was a pretty early night for everyone after that. I got to bed a little bit early to make up for earlier in the week. Time is just flying by, so we’re going to have to kick it into gear this weekend.

Watch your tone diacritical.

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March On

I finally got my request submitted to attend this year’s Arkansas Conference of Technology, and Blake came into the office to ask me to commit to staying for the rest of the school year. I understand that the budget for this year was made, and I know that I haven’t had long to prove myself, but I also feel like my department has really been set back from the direction I wanted to go. I told him honestly that it’s not my intention to leave, but that I was still kicking myself for not taking the $70,000 offer I got earlier in the year. I’m even more upset that I didn’t join Brody at Clarksville. This year is full of regrets, and there’s no confusion about how I feel toward my new school. There is a lot of work to be done, and they’re barely paying me enough to submit tickets to DIS to let them handle it. In the end, he said he would get me a PO, so I’ll be going for both days of the main conference, as well as both pre-conference days. It’s an investment in me, and I feel I’ve earned it whether I stay or go.

It was otherwise a pretty quiet day. I made plans to meet with John at the house after work to sign an invoice, for which he was expecting half of the payment before I actually knew what that payment would be. That was on him. After I met with him at the house, I took my car to the old house to charge and then took the Shadow to the high school for the marching assessment. It got cold fast, and I was pretty much immediately ready to leave, but it wasn’t awful. Mark and Laura actually came up and sat by us, and we chatted very briefly. She evidently knew my name from my own firing, and Mark laughed saying, “me too!” It’s harder to find a good lawyer at Technician pay though.

After the marching assessment, I went to the house to pay some bills before finally heading to the new house for the evening.

Actually, I thought there’d be more fire.

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Regrounding

I slept reasonably well last night in the new house, but it was still a hassle to go home in the morning. I was reasonably early for work, and the cafeteria lunch menu didn’t sound very appealing for most of the week, so I stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast. Nothing remarkable happened at work, and things were mostly pretty quiet. I still kind of feel like a temporary guest there most of the time, and I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing.

The electrician finally made it out to the house, so I had Summer meet him there to test charging. The breaker never tripped, but evidently he tightened some ground wires while he was there. I’ll have to get my tools from the new house to see if that fixed the floating ground issue I had elsewhere in the house.

After work, I met Summer at the high school for parent-teacher conferences. The atmosphere there seemed to be about what I expected with the current regime. I’d love to take a survey to see if anyone has anything nice to say.

When we finished, I got tacos and went home. Summer didn’t want to get back out to help me with bulk item pickup after she got to the new house, so I just ended up staying home for the night.

Disapproval Ratings

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What a Miserable Wretch

I was incredibly sore again today after cleaning carpets for so long last night. Summer took some stuff to the new house and then brought Eaddie back with some lunch. Eaddie had a band thing in the afternoon in Cabot, so they loaded up some more stuff to take while I waited at the house for Autumn to come get the rest of her crap that she never took when we kicked her out.

Summer came back, and Autumn eventually showed up quite a bit later than she told Summer, which already aggravated us. Then she came in and had the audacity to ask for help, when all Summer has done for the past month is move her own stuff to the new house. When she finished, Summer asked her to take some old clothes she didn’t want to keep to Goodwill, and she refused and started yelling that we couldn’t tell her what to do any more. I kicked her out again, and hopefully that will just be the last we hear from her for a very long time.

Summer and I had another load ready to go, so we went to the new house and unloaded. I wanted nothing more than a shower, but then I decided to redo the caulk in the shower instead. I also caulked the tub since Summer had scrubbed around the tile. I got better over time, but it took nearly the entire tube. I was really glad I didn’t buy the small squeeze tube.

Summer went home while I did that, and then I finally went home for a shower. By the time I made it up to her house, she was dead asleep. I cleaned up a bunch of leftovers to get them out of the fridge, and then it was off to bed.

I guess we can blame inflation for the “Freshman 50.”

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All About the Little Wins

Kim didn’t show up to work today, and texted about an hour late that she probably wasn’t going to make it. That instantly made my day more productive in certain areas. It certainly made things quieter, at least in part because I simply closed people out during lunch.

Harry came to fetch me early in the morning because he couldn’t get into his computer. Shortly after that, Toby came to ask me about another request from Dean to move his touch panel. I was confused, on account of my conversation with Blake, so I shot off an email to confirm. He totally had my back, so I denied the request again with the blessing of both supers.

I missed out on lunch, but powered right on through. The kids set off my car alarm again while they were playing foursquare, but it didn’t look like they hurt anything. I just kept feeling like maybe the idiot sitting in the rocking chair should move the kids somewhere away from staff vehicles.

After work, I headed home until I heard from Eaddie. She took the Model S to school, but forgot her phone. She called me when she got home, and then came over to charge while we went to eat. Ben called before she got there, and I ended up on the phone with him for a little while. I had Eaddie drive us to The Gunslingin’ Burger, but they were closed for the day. We crossed the street to wash my car, and then I took us to Sam’s Southern Eatery.

I can’t even say we had poor service, because we simply had no service. They took our order, delivered our food, and then we never saw anyone ever again. Eaddie really enjoyed the food though, and we had a really long, great talk. Afterward, we made our way to their old house to get a few more things for the night. Then we went back to my house for the Model S and possibly a mattress for me to stay the night.

It didn’t take long for us to decide it was too late to be moving that much bedding to the new house just to sleep in the floor, so she helped me clean out my bedroom instead. Then we went to the new house so I could help her unload and check out how she arranged her room. I checked on my carpet experiment and found no difference between presoaking and just using the machine with detergent, so I figure I’ll just stick with what I was doing before, but limit myself to smaller areas to concentrate the detergent.

I finally headed back home with the Model S, trusting her to go to school in the Model 3. I called Summer to catch up with her after a long day out of town, and then made it to sleep as quickly as I could.

This house is haunted, it’s so pathetic.