I finished The German Girl by Lily Graham. It is about a set of Jewish twins from WWII Germany. It was bittersweet, and a nice little story. According to Goodreads, it’s my 15th book this year. I’m going to try for 25 books this year since I am reading more now. Maybe unrealistic. But I’m trying!
The Book Blogger Hop prompt this week is: Do you use Goodreads as the main website to keep track of what you have read? If not, please share what you use. I use both Goodreads and LibraryThing to keep track of books. To be honest, I’ve found that LibraryThing has a social network preferable to GoodReads. I am in the 75 Book Challenge for 2021 group in LibraryThing, and the Radical Reading group in GoodReads.
Well, our tenant Becki was diagnosed with COVID on Tuesday, Aaron on Friday, and myself (again!?) on Saturday. I wasn’t feeling well on Friday, but have been feeling fine since. Aaron is starting to feel sick on Sunday. Becki was pretty sick from the beginning, but has avoided the hospital. M9 was exposed at school 2 times and once at gymnastics in the past month. D11’s school has 27 confirmed cases in one week. I can’t get them vaccinated until they are no longer closely exposed within 14 days…but how is that supposed to happen? Minnesota is a hotspot at the moment. I guess this is going to be a way of life from now on.
After a pause in logging steps for my virtual Ring Road trip, I started up again. Here is my second postcard.
It snowed and IL2 had a fun time throwing snowballs.
Hi all! I have been so very busy lately. I was sick on and off for a while, but haven’t been sick for weeks. I was working 65 hours a week for a while, but am down to 45. Maybe I should keep it that way. It gives me more time for things like this.
I finished one book since my last post: The Siege of Macindaw, by John Flannagan. It is a book in the middle school series The Ranger’s Apprentice. I highly recommend the series to people who enjoy middle school books. It’s kind of a middle ages type of setting.
Deirdre and her friend got their ears pierced. They were both really brave! It was hard on both because of their anxiety, which makes the fact that they did it a proud moment.
Afterwards, we went axe throwing.
We went apple and pumpkin picking afterwards.
We dyed Deirdre’s hair, and sprayed the boys’ with temporary spray.
We decorated pumpkins.
The kids dressed up for Halloween and trick-or-treated. Deirdre was Marie Antoinette, Malcolm Jason, and Loki a ninja.
Hi all! Good to “see” you. A lot has happened. IL2 started preschool. D11 and M8 are doing well in school and gymnastics. I have been feeling super duper tired on and off due to the post-COVID. According to the internet (though not to my doctor) I now have long COVID.
I will update in pictures again, this time trying some videos, too.
Aaron started LARPing again, and part of hos costume included handcuffs. He checked that the key worked before-hand, and then he put the cuffs on his wrist, when the key stopped working. I wanted to go to the store and buy some bolt cutters, but he insisted on sawing them off. He only broke the kin a little.
Puck actually sat on someone else’s lap.
We got a family photo for Loki’s preschool.
Loki loves this little old dress of Deirdre’s. We didn’t get a good photo of it, though.
My friend Raj and I went axe-throwing.
I gave up on Walk to Mordor, which was a lot of work, for a virtual tour of Ring Road in Iceland. It’s 828 miles. I want to do the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Virtual trails,
The impossible list was invented by Joel Runyon. He wanted not a bucket list of individually easy things to do, but a list of things that felt impossible. My list is probably a little long, but I had Fun with it. I have described my quarterly focus here.
Health & Fitness
Try 25 new recipes in one year
Go without junk food for a year
Switch to “mostly” mediterranean diet
Lose 100lbs
Maintain weight at 140lbs for 5 years
Run a 5k
Walk a marathon
Run a mud race
Do a century ride
Think about posture every day for a year
Complete Zombies, Run!
Virtual Walk Appalachian Trail
Walk take 10k steps a day 260 times in a year
Switch from soda to tea
Go uncaffeinated for one year
Drink 1 gallon of water a day 260 times in one year
Hi! It’s been a while, so I think I will mostly update by pictures:
That’s Myra.
That’s Puck.
That’s Hero.
Good picture of the kids, which Walgreens won’t print because it shows too much skin.
D11 and I had a good time going out on an impromptu date.
IL2 plays fetch.
I made some delicious gumbo.
Aaron finished one of our beds, which we’ve decided will house tulips.
We went to the park, and tired out the boys.
I started writing inmates who either had life sentences without parole or death sentences. I thought maybe they were in more need of solace. About half of them have written back. So I have many pen pals now. I’m getting letters faster than I can write back.
I took some new jobs to get myself over 40 hours a week – mainly asleep shifts. The extra money will help us pay off our new home equity loan, which goes along with our new bathroom. It will also pay for IL2 to go to preschool.
The older kids have enrolled in gymnastics.
I had a breakthrough case of COVID while Aaron and the older kids were in Oregon on vacation. I had to take care of IL2 alone while I could hardly stay awake.
Aaron and I started going out on dates. He’s also going to start Werewolf LARPing.
The Dixie fire got a mere 3 miles from my late grandmother’s house.
Loki wore clothes.
That’s it! Hopefully I’ll write more frequently now. 🤣😂
Hi all! Things are still moving along here…We’ve been busy. We got someone to come in and look at our dishwasher. The motor was full of debris including a plastic zip-tie and some plaster. It still galls me that the previous owner of our house lied about it working. They’ll come in some time next week to get a new motor installed.
We got an estimate of $18k to bring our electrical wiring up to code. They refused to do the small amount of work we requested until they brought the house “up to code.” I called another electrician who said that it was common for some companies to use scare tactics to get people to pay gigantic bills. He said he’d come look at the house, but it almost certainly wouldn’t be in the tens of thousands range.
We had a home warranty send out a plumber to look at our leaks. He announced that he couldn’t find a leak, so he shook the toilet until water started pouring out. Our basement flooded. The warranty company at first claimed that they had sent the plumber’s report out to approvals. Then several days later claimed they’d never received the plumber’s report, nor the report for the dishwasher. More lies. We got rid of the warranty and called our own plumber and mechanic. We’re getting a new toilet installed next week.
We have been working on improving the back yard this week. There is a rock-filled bed squeezed between the patio and the driveway that has several dead stumps and a few severely cut back cotoneaster, which can grow to 2 meters high. It must have been intended as a privacy hedge.
We are going to move the rocks, pull out the stumps and plants, lay new landscaping cloth, and return the rocks with some hostas.
We had a flood in our basement over this weekend. We had a plumber from our warranty company looking at leaks. He decided to shake the toilet until it was pouring water, and left without turning off the water. Luckily, the water dripped only into our storage room, mostly onto hand-me-down clothes, which could be washed.
D11 decided to go to her first day of school as a goth. She did a good job, except when she came home, she gave a huge smile.
Hi all! Here we are in front of our new house. Yay! This one feels totally mine, whereas with the old one it always felt like “Aaron’s house.” So I’m eager to make it more me as the years pass.
First of all, most of the appliances are either new-but-cheap (the drier), of questionable function (the stove), or simply not working (the dishwasher).
I also hope to redo the shrubbery in front and on the sides of the house. That may be a project for next year, though, because this year we’ve got to unpack and then paint the rooms.
But if you’re interested:
On the right of the porch is a tall Japanese Yew. It’s very pretty, but neither Aaron nor I will want to stand on a ladder to properly prune it. The internet, which is always right, claims that I can severely cut it back, and it’ll be forgiving. So I might try making it short and round.
That’s a severely cut-back yew which is expected to grow back within a couple years. I won’t do that.
To the left of the porch is a Northern White Cedar, being smothered by the bright green Japanese Barberry in front of it. Apparently, Japanese Barberry is bad because it smothers other plants, and changes the soil content to kill other plants. Furthermore, it is a haven for ticks with Lyme Disease (which hopefully isn’t a problem in my front yard). The Japanese Barberry has been chopped down. Now we need to remove the stumps and trim the Northern White Cedar.
To the left of the barberry and cedar is a short and too-wide Japanese Yew, which will stay, but be pruned to be not as wide.
To the left of that, is a Mugo Pine, which I’m not sure if I’ll keep or not. Then, a rather nicely-pruned Japanese Yew. I’ll keep that one.
To the left of the well-groomed Japanese Yew is a beautiful Sweet Mock-Orange, which smells of citrus and has lovely white flowers. It has a volunteer White Ash popping out of it, and there are also some volunteer Norway Maples scattered around. There’s another cute little Japanese Yew with a Japanese Medowsweet there that you can hardly see because of the volunteer trees. Then on the far left, there’s another tall Japanese Yew, which will be severely trimmed back next Spring.
In the left of the house, there’s a completely dead Flower of Stone. It’s not staying. There’s also another Sweet Mock-Orange and some hosta back there.
On the very end, there’s a Ninebark.
And on the right side of the house, there’s a Hairy-Stem Gooseberry. That, too, has been chopped to a stump. It was annoyingly leaning into the driveway.
My two weeks went pretty well, except IL2’s had painful diarrhea on and off that whole time. We did some unpacking and organizing, got a plumber to put a bath spout in our tub, and had an eventful weekend. On Saturday, we THOUGHT IL2’s diarrhea was over, so we drove to Iowa for my aunt and uncle’s 60th wedding anniversary. I took very few pictures, but it was wonderful to see my family.
I’ll post pictures stolen from family:
That’s my aunt, uncle, and all-but-one of their kids.
There’s my dad and aunt Anne.
Aaron and me with my cousin Katie.
Aaron, me, Loki with my aunt Anne and uncle Darryl.
Sunday, I told the kids we were having a screen-free day. M9 earned allowance by sweeping the maple seeds off the driveway, patio, and sidewalk. Once he realized I didn’t expect perfection, he actually admitted that the chore was satisfying.
D11 earned allowance by preparing some cardboard for the compost bin we plan on creating some time soon. Apparently, if “brown” compost like dead leaves are unavailable, then we are supposed to use wet, shredded cardboard. I just borrowed Let It Rot!, by Stu Campbell from Hoopla. Maybe it’ll give me some tips.
In addition to all that, I finished reading Lakewood, by Megan Giddings. Finally! A finished book!
It was an interesting mix of social commentary and science fiction. The main character, a young black woman who was desperately in need of money, volunteers for a high-paying, mind-bending, abusive “research study.”
This has been a busy few weeks! Biggest of all, we moved into our new house. But the move wasn’t smooth. The day before we were supposed to sign, one of the cats (which one was a mystery) suddenly had really strange smelling pee. The same cat (presumably, and still a mystery) peed on me overnight. I figured that the cat may have an urinary tract infection, since strange peeing habits is a symptom. I figured it might be Puck, because he’d been clumsy lately. So 7am the day of the closing, I hauled Puck into our new vet. Sure enough, he had an UTI.
That day, at 8:30am, we signed for the new house. But when we went there to scope it out, the previous owners were still there. We were finally able to start hauling the stuff from the hotel to the house in the afternoon.
On that Saturday were were supposed to move the stuff from the UBoxes into our home. My friend Liz was there to babysit. My friend Todd and his friend Josh, and Aaron’s friend Katie were there to help us move. But then IL2 awakened with a fever and a cough. Liz and Katie fled. Todd and Josh braved the fever. We did get everything emptied, though. And IL2 did not have COVID.
On Monday, I started to get sick, and boy was I sick. I couldn’t even drive to get my COVID test (negative). Aaron got sick, too, but not as badly. Tuesday, we were supposed to move the stuff we’d stored at dad’s house into our house. We’d rented a truck. That was an utter failure. I tried to help, but I just made myself more sick and crashed completely for the rest of the day. We still have stuff at dad’s house.
Over the past few months, I have been bugging D11 to brush her hair. She just tells me I’m insulting her hair, and gets all grumpy about it. Finally, I asked her “do you know what the back of your head looks like?” She answered no, so I took a picture and showed her. She was horrified. Soon after that, she decided to shave her head if the stylist were unable to get the matt out.
M9 decided to get a mohawk.
IL2 sat still for his very first professional haircut.
M9 had a small birthday party this Sunday. He got a tricycle/scooter/balance bike, some Lego sets, some books, a puzzle, and a gift card to Game Stop. He had 2 friends over, and D11 had one friend over. The party theme was Minecraft.
Hobbies
I made it to the edge of Farmer Maggot’s Field in my Walk to Mordor.
I wrote pen pals in England, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Maine, and Massachusetts
Well, this week was as you can imagine it’s like being cramped in a hotel room with 5 people and 3 cats. But we had a good time on Saturday.
First, I bought a leash for IL-2. He took a while to get used to it. He splatted several times trying to run off that first time at the mall, but now he loves it.
On Saturday, D11, IL2, my friend Todd, and I went to the Mall of America to shop. D11 spent all her money on two adorable outfits, and an overpriced mascara and blush compact. She’s thrilled with her purchases.
The next morning (Mother’s Day) was a mess. IL2 and M8 both awakened after being kept up all night with congestion and a cough. IL2 had a fever. I whisked them to Urgent Care, knowing that D11 wouldn’t be allowed back in school until IL2’s COVID test had come back negative. (IL2’s did. They wouldn’t test M8 since he had COVID last month.) IL2 was diagnosed with an ear infection. M8 with a neck ache and red throat.
After that, IL2, D11, Aaron, and I went to The World’s Largest Candy Store. It was large.
IL2 enjoyed himself, but spent the rest of the day lethargically lying in bed. M8 also slept a lot. At about 5pm, M8 awakened in a whimpering incoherent state. I looked up the symptoms of that inflammatory disease kids get after having COVID (MIS-C). Red throat and neck pain (due to swollen lymph node) were two of them. We rushed him off the the ER. (He doesn’t remember any of this.)
At the ER, he was diagnosed with a swollen lymph node, but normal inflammatory signals in his blood, so MIS-C wasn’t ruled out, but was thought unlikely. They gave him some Tylenol and he eventually perked up enough to take him home. We were given antibiotics.
He still had a fever the next morning, but his temperature was normal by the next day. He seems to be better now.
Hobbies
I wrote pen pal letters to people in Belgium and Massachusetts.
Hibernator's Library 