Update February 7, 2026

News

Saturday

Saturday was busy. I did get some reading, writing, and cross-stitch in. But I also cleaned IL7’s room with the help of IL7 and Aaron. M13 read manga. Then, IL7 bought a new game. M13 spent an hour going through a tutorial, and I spent 2 hours going through a second tutorial. Then I read to IL7.

Sunday

Sunday was busy, too. I was going to make baked beans, but realized I had no ham. I’d already started cooking bacon by the time I realized, though. M13, IL7, and I went out to Olive Garden with my friend Liz and her nephew. Then IL7 and I played on the Switch, and he did some math workbooks.

After swim lessons and dinner, the family played D&D.

Monday

Monday I took IL7 to an appointment, then dad to the gym. I stayed on the treadmill for 60 minutes. There were several errands. I read to D16 in the evening. M13 had Boy Scouts.

Tuesday

Tuesday I took D16 to an appointment, made some onerous calls, and took Hero to the vet. My friend Liz came over, and we watched the Mario movie so that IL7 was prepared to watch the new movie coming out in April.

Wednesday

Wednesday was crazy. It started as a pain in the ass with registration for summer day care. It opened at 7am, and I used a half hour of free-time at work to try to get IL7 registered, but the website was really confusing. I couldn’t figure it out, then had to try again at noon. The way the system was set up, you had to add each day of the summer as an individual item to your cart, and each day took 20-30s to load. After 48 minutes, I got all the days loaded except the first week (didn’t exist in the system), the last two weeks (were full) and a random day in June (it didn’t exist in the system). I know it was 48 minutes, because they would have emptied my cart in another 12 minutes. It’s genius programming that might empty your cart before you can feasibly get it filled.

Between my two attempts at the registration, I took dad to an appointment. The doctor had switched locations to somewhere much further away and very confusing. But with a little trial and error of building approach, we made it.

Then, Aaron and I dealt with a guy who came for an estimate of a duct cleaning. I left from there to an appointment. Afterwards, I drove back home to pile IL7 in the car to take him to another appointment.

Meanwhile, Aaron was moving everything out of the way of our vents. We were both exhausted .

Thursday

Thursday I woke feeling sick. It was a struggle to stay awake all day. IL7 and M13 had no school. I took Dad to physical therapy. While I was there, the men came to clean out our ducts. In the evening, Aaron and I went to IL7’s and M13’s parent-teacher conferences. They are both performing as expected. No surprises. Then I played D&D.

Friday

Friday, all three kids were home from school. IL7 and I played Scribblebots for a while, then I took him to an appointment. Otherwise, it was a calm day.

Reading to myself

Dread Nation, by Justina Ireland
The Week: License to Kill
The House in the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune
History of the Ancient World, by Susan Wise Bauer
His Last Bow, by Arthur Conan Doyle
The House on the Cerulean Sea, by TJ Klune
Systematic Theology, by Wayne Grudem
Nightfall, by Shannon Messenger
Gulag Archipelago Part 3, by Aleksandr Solzhenitzyn
Mr Ballen Podcast
Systematic Theology, by Wayne Grudem
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

Reading to IL7

Cat Kid Comic Club on Purpose, by Dav Pilkey
Any Fin is Possible, by Mo O’Hara
Night of the Zombie Zookeeper, by Andres Miedoso
Cat Kid Comic Club Collaborations, by Dav Pilkey
Cat Kid Comic Club Influencers, by Dav Pilkey

D16 reading

Hunger of the Gods, by John Gwynne

Media Completed

In History of the Ancient World, Bauer uses epic stories as if they are reliable sources for history. She does not use archeological evidence, and does not seem to use the bulk of other historians’ accepted ideas of what happened in her book. Sometimes, I know she’s stating juicy tidbits that weren’t included in, say, the Bible as if they are accepted truths. It read like historical fiction with no overall plot. But it wasn’t boring.