Long day plus life update
Aug. 8th, 2011 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
same_skyIt has been a long day. Three was rough, but so far, four is a walk in the park, most days, relatively speaking. Not so much today. She was up late last night, and there was a storm overnight that must have woken her up some too, and then I woke her up at the usual time. I lived to regret that greatly. Majorly whiny, argumentative, crying, fighting, tantrums, tears. She cried about the most bizarre things.. like once, she cried because she didn't like the Phineas and Ferb movie that she watched with M last night (totally untrue). Later, she was laughing breathlessly while telling me that she really really wanted me to watch the Phineas and Ferb movie with her because a certain part was so funny.She kept begging to do a project, but 99% of the time, if I pull out a project when she is in a poor mood, it ends in disaster, or at least with me more upset with her than I was to begin with. Finally, I dug through my craft storage and came up with some paint with water things--the color is already on the page, so you just dip a brush in and spread it around. Low mess, low work, and I sat down to do a few with her (I also found a book with He-Man water painting pictures from when I was a kid! Awesome!) and she actually did relax for a little while... but it was a temporary reprieve. I was so thankful when M came home. Plus, we had a storm this afternoon that knocked out the power, and occasionally when that happens--or rarely, semi-randomly--it blows a breaker in the basement that turns off the cooling function of our A/C. The fan still blows, so it's hard to really notice it... especially if one spends most of the day angry. Just before M came home, it hit me that it was way too stuffy in here for the air to have been running continuously all day. It was eight very significant degrees hotter in here than usual. That didn't help either of us, I'm sure.
But, a bit of good news! My book reader messed up recently, and I have been reading PAPER books. By the way, paper books suck. They're heavy, they're awkward, you can't hold them in one hand and still turn pages, and if they're six thousand pages long and have been read through several times, they get that crease in the middle so that the book feels like it's about to fall apart. So, yes, the book reader died and I decided that it was past time that I started my last pre-release reading of Wheel of Time. I used to do a ritual re-reading before every book release, but when there are THAT MANY of them and they're THAT LONG, it just became impractical, so I stopped. I decided that I'd go to the effort for the last book, though. It just feels like the right thing to do. Anyway, I did some troubleshooting on it when it broke, with no success. I picked it up this morning and hacked away at it again, and put my current book on it and have been reading it all day, and none of the problems I was having before have happened so far. It's not a guarantee that it's fixed, by any means, but I have at least gotten another day out of it. Yay! Maybe it was just a sign from the universe that it was time to stop reading my streak of eighteen consecutive futuristic and bloody murder mysteries and start the WoT thing. (J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts) In Death series. Quite good, very much not my usual preferred style.)
So, anyway. Mostly, we're in recovery, right now, from... everything. Two weeks ago, my niece, W, came down to spend a few days with us. Last year, when we were in Sweden, we came up with the idea of her coming over for a few days every summer. So, she did, and it was fun. It's challenging to entertain a sixteen-year-old AND a four-year-old, but I was determined that we were going to a) stay busy and b) DO stuff and c) have fun. M was at work for most of it, so I was left with the task of orchestrating fun, mostly. I went up to fetch her on a Wednesday. On Thursday, we had Evie's gymnastics in the morning, lunch, and then we went home to begin our first big project. M bought me a tie dye kit for Christmas, and I'd been saving it for W's visit. We did six shirts, two pairs of panties and four pairs of socks. It was a lot of fun and also a lot of stress. (See above re: four-year-old, and yes, yes I did let her use the squirt bottle of dye on stuff.) They turned out really well when we washed them the next day. I had just finished cleaning up the worst of the mess when we had to jump in the car and pick up M and head to Lexington, where we went to BounceU, a bouncy house sort of place. I was nervous, but I really thought that W would have fun and she did. This particular place allows adults to bounce, too, so we were all bouncing like mad. It's hard NOT to keep a constant grin on your face while you are throwing yourself through a giant bouncy obstacle course. She was hesitant at first but she soon got with it, and by the time we left, she actually said that she thought it was just what she needed, to see that she could do things that are fun without worrying about what people think of her. (Loved. That.) It's exactly what I've been saying about her--I really don't think she lets herself just have FUN very often. It was a goofy, silly thing to do but we all had SO much fun. We'll be going back for sure.
The next day, we went to a bourbon distillery, which Evie was NOT happy about but she was wonderfully well-behaved for all of that, had Thai for lunch and then off to see The Smurfs. On opening day! Do you even realize how long it's been since I saw a movie on the day of its release? I'm thinking Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, maybe. What was that, ten years ago? A long time, anyway. I guess it doesn't really count for much when it's the Smurfs, though. :) It was pretty cute though. The next day was supposed to be the star of the weekend, but it fell through. We were going ice skating, but the INDOOR skating rink was closed due to extreme heat. They did not put this information on their website, or on their phone system, and we drove to Louisville to find their doors locked. I'd bought a groupon-type deal in preparation for this weeks earlier. I was really disappointed, as were my girls. They didn't know where we were going until we were there, at least. We ended up taking her to the mall, to Forever 21, which she had been dying to go to for months, but there isn't one locally for her. Oh good gravy, if I never walk in those doors again, it will be too soon. Anyway, it was a good week/weekend, but I was exhausted when it was over.
Also, my car started behaving badly while we were doing all this driving, and suddenly, we found ourselves at my grandfather's house on Sunday, coming up with a plan to sell our car before investing a new transmission in it. We now have one of my parents' cars, and my dad is trying to sell my car for me. (He excels at selling things.) So, apparently we are buying a car? It was all very sudden.
Anyway, I was still trying to rest from that when last week, M's boss brought a moving truck over with four pallets full of... stuff. He had talked to M about the yard sales that we have, and offered to give him a bunch of stuff to sell. We had no idea what kind of stuff it would end up being, but we agreed to take it. Hey, cash is money. The boss has no desire to have a yard sale, and I guess he was getting tired of having all of this stuff clutterng up one of his warehouses. It turned out to be a pile of random household stuff--mostly clothes and toys, but also including two televisions, a twin bed and a pressure washer. So, our garage and sunroom have basically turned into a war zone full of bags and boxes. We've made a lot of progress but there's plenty more to go. It's really nice stuff, most of it. We desperately need to have a yard sale now, and hope that we can get rid of some of this before we have to store it all winter. We're hoping for at least two more yard sales this season.
I've already written too much to get into the next bloggy summer camp question. You realize I'll still be doing these at Christmas, right? :)
But, a bit of good news! My book reader messed up recently, and I have been reading PAPER books. By the way, paper books suck. They're heavy, they're awkward, you can't hold them in one hand and still turn pages, and if they're six thousand pages long and have been read through several times, they get that crease in the middle so that the book feels like it's about to fall apart. So, yes, the book reader died and I decided that it was past time that I started my last pre-release reading of Wheel of Time. I used to do a ritual re-reading before every book release, but when there are THAT MANY of them and they're THAT LONG, it just became impractical, so I stopped. I decided that I'd go to the effort for the last book, though. It just feels like the right thing to do. Anyway, I did some troubleshooting on it when it broke, with no success. I picked it up this morning and hacked away at it again, and put my current book on it and have been reading it all day, and none of the problems I was having before have happened so far. It's not a guarantee that it's fixed, by any means, but I have at least gotten another day out of it. Yay! Maybe it was just a sign from the universe that it was time to stop reading my streak of eighteen consecutive futuristic and bloody murder mysteries and start the WoT thing. (J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts) In Death series. Quite good, very much not my usual preferred style.)
So, anyway. Mostly, we're in recovery, right now, from... everything. Two weeks ago, my niece, W, came down to spend a few days with us. Last year, when we were in Sweden, we came up with the idea of her coming over for a few days every summer. So, she did, and it was fun. It's challenging to entertain a sixteen-year-old AND a four-year-old, but I was determined that we were going to a) stay busy and b) DO stuff and c) have fun. M was at work for most of it, so I was left with the task of orchestrating fun, mostly. I went up to fetch her on a Wednesday. On Thursday, we had Evie's gymnastics in the morning, lunch, and then we went home to begin our first big project. M bought me a tie dye kit for Christmas, and I'd been saving it for W's visit. We did six shirts, two pairs of panties and four pairs of socks. It was a lot of fun and also a lot of stress. (See above re: four-year-old, and yes, yes I did let her use the squirt bottle of dye on stuff.) They turned out really well when we washed them the next day. I had just finished cleaning up the worst of the mess when we had to jump in the car and pick up M and head to Lexington, where we went to BounceU, a bouncy house sort of place. I was nervous, but I really thought that W would have fun and she did. This particular place allows adults to bounce, too, so we were all bouncing like mad. It's hard NOT to keep a constant grin on your face while you are throwing yourself through a giant bouncy obstacle course. She was hesitant at first but she soon got with it, and by the time we left, she actually said that she thought it was just what she needed, to see that she could do things that are fun without worrying about what people think of her. (Loved. That.) It's exactly what I've been saying about her--I really don't think she lets herself just have FUN very often. It was a goofy, silly thing to do but we all had SO much fun. We'll be going back for sure.
The next day, we went to a bourbon distillery, which Evie was NOT happy about but she was wonderfully well-behaved for all of that, had Thai for lunch and then off to see The Smurfs. On opening day! Do you even realize how long it's been since I saw a movie on the day of its release? I'm thinking Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, maybe. What was that, ten years ago? A long time, anyway. I guess it doesn't really count for much when it's the Smurfs, though. :) It was pretty cute though. The next day was supposed to be the star of the weekend, but it fell through. We were going ice skating, but the INDOOR skating rink was closed due to extreme heat. They did not put this information on their website, or on their phone system, and we drove to Louisville to find their doors locked. I'd bought a groupon-type deal in preparation for this weeks earlier. I was really disappointed, as were my girls. They didn't know where we were going until we were there, at least. We ended up taking her to the mall, to Forever 21, which she had been dying to go to for months, but there isn't one locally for her. Oh good gravy, if I never walk in those doors again, it will be too soon. Anyway, it was a good week/weekend, but I was exhausted when it was over.
Also, my car started behaving badly while we were doing all this driving, and suddenly, we found ourselves at my grandfather's house on Sunday, coming up with a plan to sell our car before investing a new transmission in it. We now have one of my parents' cars, and my dad is trying to sell my car for me. (He excels at selling things.) So, apparently we are buying a car? It was all very sudden.
Anyway, I was still trying to rest from that when last week, M's boss brought a moving truck over with four pallets full of... stuff. He had talked to M about the yard sales that we have, and offered to give him a bunch of stuff to sell. We had no idea what kind of stuff it would end up being, but we agreed to take it. Hey, cash is money. The boss has no desire to have a yard sale, and I guess he was getting tired of having all of this stuff clutterng up one of his warehouses. It turned out to be a pile of random household stuff--mostly clothes and toys, but also including two televisions, a twin bed and a pressure washer. So, our garage and sunroom have basically turned into a war zone full of bags and boxes. We've made a lot of progress but there's plenty more to go. It's really nice stuff, most of it. We desperately need to have a yard sale now, and hope that we can get rid of some of this before we have to store it all winter. We're hoping for at least two more yard sales this season.
I've already written too much to get into the next bloggy summer camp question. You realize I'll still be doing these at Christmas, right? :)
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Date: 2011-08-11 02:20 am (UTC)I have no idea what kind of car we'll get. Something that fits the budget, I suppose. We don't do new cars or anything. This is M's job because I care little about cars, except that I want to like them. I have instructed M to take over this researching task, as always, with the caveat that I do not wish to hear details until he actually has prospects. He loves cars and would happily give me running commentary on every for-sale vehicle in four states if I'd let him. :) He DOES that when we're not even looking at cars, actually. hehe.