News

Saturday was a busy day of hanging out with the kids and doing last minute preparation for Christmas, which got postponed because of the snow storm. Aaron took M10 to Target and D13 to the Mall of America on Christmas Eve. IL4 helped me wrap Aaron’s gifts while he was gone. They ended up with a lot of extra paper and tape.

Christmas was equal parts fun and chaotic. We let M10 not be grounded for Christmas, which meant he could hang out in the living room with us. They unwrapped SO many toys. Many of IL4’s included marbles and puzzle pieces, so those got scattered everywhere – especially after D13 unfathomably decided to take the cellophane off all IL4’s puzzles at once. Now I’ll have to put about 4 puzzles together with pieces that are all mixed together. Yay. But at least they’re 4yo puzzles. I was at my wits’ end by the end of the day, so I exited the room and tried to go to sleep. IL4 (of course) followed me into the bedroom, but he settled down playing a game on the phone. Aaron and the older two kids put together their first Christmas puzzle.

I didn’t read to IL4 (though we worked on a puzzle), and Malcolm continued reading the first How to Train Your Dragon.

On Monday, everyone was home because it was Christmas Day observed. It was mainly a day of relaxation – I got some reading and organizing done – but I had to cook our Christmas feast because on Christmas itself I couldn’t find my beef broth and therefore couldn’t cook the feast. M10 finished the 2nd How to Train Your Dragon and started the 8th Ga’Hoole book. I read If You Give a Moose a Muffin to IL4.

Tuesday was supposed to be a family day. It started out with us going to the Mall of America and getting pictures of us all dressed as Vikings. D13 started feeling sick towards the end, and IL4 and I started feeling sick when we got home. D13 had a fever, IL4 threw up, and I was simply very tired. I watched a couple movies on my phone, and generally relaxed. M10 continued reading Book 8 of the Guardians of Ga’Hoole. I read Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes (2 times), Gruffalo, and Frog on a Log? to IL4.

Wednesday was a fairly successful day besides my car not starting in the morning. I had to call AAA, but when they jumped it, the car ran just fine. That only took 2 hours of my life. 🤷‍♀️

After that, I took IL4 to his first OT since I was in the car accident on November 11. He loves OT because of the gym. 😊 But he ate nothing for his therapist, which was his reason for being there.

M10 lost his last canine tooth – leaving him without any canines at all. He’d be a miserable vampire.

M10 finished the 8th Guardians of Ga’Haoole book and D13 is still reading the 9th Keepers of the Lost Cities book.

Thursday, I worked for a bit, and then had a few margaritas. It was a fun day.

M10 was reading BFG. I read Grumpy Monkey Oh No, Christmas, The Bad Seed, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons, and Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes to IL4.

Friday was a good day. I helped a friend move after IL4’s speech therapy. D13 and M10 were visiting their grandpa with their mom, so it was a quiet day.

Wrote

• 1 letter Virginia Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Michigan Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Pennsylvania Department of Corrections

Week’s Photos

Media Partaken In

Games Played

Puzzles

News

Saturday was a good day. We had session 1 of our D&D. It was Escape the Underdark. After D&D, I watched an episode of Lucifer and D13, Aaron, and I watched an episode of X-files.

Sunday was a relaxing day. I spent a good amount of it catching up on some simple things in life, like my blog and shopping. Then I watched a few episodes of Lucifer.

Monday was a fantastic day. I got so much done with catching up on my life. I decided to set aside restarting my exercise goal till the new year in order to reduce anxiety and leave time for other things that need to be caught up on after my injury-followed-by-burnout.

Tuesday was a busy day of running errands and sorting and wrapping presents. I lost my present to Aaron, bought 2 more for delivery on Saturday, then promptly found the original present. So he gets 3 of them. I still have quite a few presents to wrap.

M10 and I went to a late night showing of Wakanda Forever. We had completely empty theater. He was upset because of something that happened involving strong women, and I had to listen to him complain about it. You’d think he’d like strong women.🙄

Wednesday we had a bit of a snowstorm. We were supposed to get 5-10 inches, and it was closer to 5. I had been going to take IL4 to occupational therapy – a 45 minute drive each direction on a good day. The therapist called and told me not to come, so IL4 and I hung out for the rest of the day.

Thursday all three kids were home due to -34F windchill and blizzard warning. The blizzard was pretty unobtrusive, it was a beautiful clear day. All. Day. Long. It’s best IL4 was home, because the furnace broke at the daycare and they had to evacuate to the bank next door. 😱

M10 read 2 hours of the 7th Legend of Ga’Hoole book in order to earn 4 hours of tablet time. He said “It was a rollercoaster of emotions.”  Despite those 6 hours of occupation, he still drove me crazy by riling up IL4: running around the house smacking him with a stuffed toy while IL4 chased him with a gigantic dinosaur balloon. (May that thing pop soon. It takes up so much space.)

D13 spent a good chunk of the day hiding in her room, the other chunk saying she was lonely. She was most likely reading book 9 of “Keepers of the Lost Cities” down there. She made Chicken and Andouille sausage Jambalaya with me – recipe compliment of my LibraryThing friend Darryl. It was so yummy that even D13 liked it. (Obviously there was no question of M10 or IL4 trying it – both having extreme pickiness to the point of health concerns.)

IL4 was a peach (sarcasm). I think he was unwell and uncomfortable.  IL4 peed on the floor and when I said “Did  you pee on the floor?” he answered: “No silly mommy, that’s water.” Like I said, I think he was experiencing some discomfort and that’s why the embarrassing (to him) accident happened, so I let it pass. He also apologized a couple of times while I was cleaning it up, and I told him it was ok, just use the toilet next time. It’s his first pee accident in quite a while. He also baked chocolate chip cookies for Santa. I read “When You Give a Moose a Muffin” (2 times) and “Grumpy Monkey Oh No! Christmas” to him.

Aaron gave me the most appreciated of assistance and wrapped the rest of the presents.

Friday was another uneventful blizzard day. We holed up in the house and didn’t do a lot. M10 ended up grounded for the rest of vacation for sneaking his school iPad downstairs and staying up all night watching YouTube. We’ve decided to change our wifi password and he just has to walk to the library if he needs to do homework. This way, we’ve taken away the problem so we can avoid further stress by constantly grounding him. 🤷‍♀️

In the meantime he can earn 1 hour of non-grounded YouTube time for every hour he reads.  He enjoys reading, so it’s all good. He finished up the 7th Ga’Hoole book and started the first How to Train Your Dragon book while waiting for his hold on the 8th Ga’Hoole book to deliver.

I read If You Give a Moose a Muffin and half of Simon and Chester Super Sleepover (graphic novel) to IL4.

Wrote

• 1 letter Michigan Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Virginia Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Maine Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Maine
• 1 letter Virginia
• 38 Christmas cards

Week’s Photos

Media Partaken In

Posts

• Escape the Underdark, Session 1 – We are Banished (Monday)

Games Played

I am Obsidian, a young earth genasi who wanders the lands searching for my soul mates. Recently, I met Faia, a Ki-Rin of intense majestic beauty. Realizing instantly that she was a soul mate, I bound myself to her. This is how I became a warlock. Since then, I have traveled the lands, picking up quests and missions to earn money, searching for more beings to bond me with their love.

While I resided in the city of Waterdeep, the Harper’s Guild asked me to steal a golden and amber bracelet from Xanathar, a powerful beholder whose lair was in the caverns beneath Waterdeep. I was teamed up with 4 companions: Adalene, a changeling ranger; Chelle, a half-orc barbarian; Grok, a half-orc fighter; and Zepher, an air genasi rogue.

We descended a steep staircase below Waterdeep, and arrived in a looming, dark cavern. The walls were covered with eyes, staring menacingly into our souls. Statues surrounded us, their faces contorted in terror, disgust, awe, anger, and bewilderment. Some reached out as if defending themselves from an oncoming attack.

Shaking ourselves with dreaded resolve, we continued through some tunnels till we reached an underground chamber filled with treasure. In the center of the room, there was a table upon which perched a glass bowl and a goldfish swimming within.

As Chell tentatively approached the goldfish, a roar echoed through the chamber. Xanathar appeared. He was a floating ball of flesh – deep blue in color, with 10 wriggling eye-stocks reaching out of his head. In the center of his body, was a large wicked eye.

Chell turned from the goldfish in horrified shock, but too late. Her feet had started to change to stone. As the stone crept up her body towards her head, she reached out to each of her companions in turn. As she turned entirely to stone, I realized that the other statues must also be travelers.

Behind Xanathar emerged a pale, thin wizard with a black plait tied in back. He bellowed “Now, Xanathar, you will see what I am useful for!” And he pointed at us travelers, who were frozen in our spots. Everything went black.

When we awakened, we were in a dark cavern surrounded by skeletons clothed as peasants. Before we had gotten our bearings, a gnome entered the chamber, exclaimed in fear, and disappeared down a tunnel.

He soon returned with his steam powered bunny, whom he called Bunbun. I felt an immediate bond to Bunbun, and saw that he was not happy with the gnome. While I tried to coax the bunny to me, the others questioned the gnome, whom they called Gerald the Corpse Eater, since he would not say his name.

Corpse Eater grumpily told them that we were in the deepest depths if the Underdark, and that there was no way out, except down the bottomless pit. When Corpse Eater realized that “his Bunbun” had grown fond of me, he grabbed the bunny and ran.

We gave chase, and Groc headed him off down a tunnel, whapping the gnome non-lethaly with his longsword. I called out “Come to me, Bouncy Inferno!” The bunny, delighted with its new name, clunkity-bounced to me.

Feeling sorry for Corpse Eater, I performed Healing Light on him. Then the others bound him and questioned him some more. They determined that there was an underground city nearby, and decided we should go there.

With Groc carrying Corpse Eater, we traversed the tunnels, eventually coming to a lake of acid. Corpse Eater indicated that the city was on the other side of the lake. We coerced him into admitting there was another path we could follow. Down that path lay a few rivers to cross – Groc and Zepher jumped across, I spider climbed, and Adalene water-walked.

We had to fight quite a few stirges – an interesting form of mosquito-bat that Bouncy Inferno found quite delicious once drained of blood. Bouncy Inferno did his share of battling the stirges by jumping in the air and flaring his coals. Sadly, the stirges killed Corpse Eater.

Finally, we arrived in a cavern filled with crystals and, bafflingly, shrubberies. We saw a campsite with a fire across the way, but saw no clear path to it. We decided we wanted to see who was there.

News

I’d like to say Saturday was decompression day from the crazy end of last week. It started at work, had D&D session 0 (character creation) following that. I decided to be a Warlock Earth Genesai named Obsidian. We followed up by watching Black Panther with M10, and then going out to eat. After a short break, I went back to work. Sounds relaxing, but I was almost in tears at work from burnout.

Sunday, I postponed a movie I had planned with M10. I tried to cancel a high school play (Seussical the Musical) that I had with D13, but she didn’t get my hints, so she, IL4 and I went to a nearby high school to watch the play. IL4 was mildly well-behaved for the first 15 minutes. Then he and I stood in the lobby for 15 minutes. Then he sat in the audience for 15 minutes. After intermission, he and I hung out in the lobby for the last hour. After that, I went to bed because I was coming down with a stomach bug that Aaron had had the day before.

Monday morning, I discovered IL4 had head lice. That meant we had to keep him home. I cancelled all my plans for the day, and tried to clean up the linens. (He cosleeps with Aaron and me because we’re too lazy to fight the good fight and make him sleep in his room, which he’s afraid of.) Unfortunately, I was still feeling sick and that, plus burnout, plus lice was too much. Aaron came home early from work and helped out.

Tuesday, we sent IL4 to school, as we’d treated his head. I started running some important errands. One included shopping at Walmart, where I bought new pants since the ones I was wearing were literally sliding off so that I had to hold them with one hand. Then the preschool called me and said I needed to pick up IL4 because he still had live crawlers on his head. I rushed over there and got him, and tried taking him on my errands – but failed. We went to the post office, where I had something important to do, but IL4 kept wanting to run off in other directions, so I had to hold him. With one hand holding the mail and the other holding IL4, I had to cross my legs to keep my pants from falling off. Aaron also came home early that day and ran the rest of my important errands.

Tuesday night, D13 and I attended her first touring production – Les Miserables. They did a superb job, and she LOVED it. She also learned a valuable lesson about chugging water before a play where there will be a toilet line longer than intermission. lol

Wednesday was hard. It started with an entire jug of spilled milk concurrent with IL4 tp’ing the bathroom. I then dealt with spilled Mountain Dew, spilled sprite, spilled coffee, and water splashed all over. On the few times I was able to sit, IL4 would be jumping up and down on top of me. When D13 got home, I asked if she could watch IL4 while I washed some oil out of my hair (I had put some in to suffocate any lice that the Nix didn’t get). IL4 immediately wanted in to “go potty,” but didn’t ever sit on the toilet. He tried to get in the tub with me 3 times, but the water was too hot. So he pooped on the floor. I was relieved to go to work that night.

We shaved IL4’s head on Wednesday evening. It wasn’t fun for him, but we promised him a gigantic ice cream cone AND McDonald’s if he stayed still, so he stopped struggling. In return, he took the louse-ridden shears, and shaved one side of Aaron’s head.

Thursday there was a snowstorm and I got my little pink car stuck in the driveway upon returning home from work in the morning. I proceeded to make it a well-deserved day of rest. D13 wasn’t very restful, though, she threw up 7 times.

Friday, I took Loki to speech therapy, went to a client’s house and helped her with something, came home and took a really long bath, went to Perkins with the family, and then went to work. So at least I had a restful end of the week.

Wrote

• 1 letter Maine Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Virginia Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Oklahoma
• 1 letter Texas
• 1 letter Pennsylvania
• 15 Christmas cards

Week’s Photos

Media Partaken In

News

Saturday was a good day. We started by Picking up our new Toyota Highlander. We celebrated by all piling into ONE car and going to Perkins for lunch. Then, I cleaned the kitchen with M10’s help (technically it’s his weekly chore, but it was pretty bad so I helped). Afterwards, Aaron and I watched Supernatural while I sorted a month’s worth of laundry for five, which had piled up because I had been exhausted by pain from my tailbone injury.

Sunday was strangly productive despite sleeping very poorly. I got up at 4am and made some gumbo to stew in the crock pot. Then took a nap. I got up again and did my physical therapy. Then took a nap.  My client had a pot luck for her PCAs in the afternoon. Some people found the gumbo too spicy, and others too bland. Lol. One person liked it. So I have lots of leftovers, but that’s cool. I love my gumbo, and so does Aaron. I then ran some errands. I crashed hard at 6pm, and pretty much slept through till 7am.

Tuesday was stressful. I was trying to play catch-up from yesterday’s to-do list, prepare for Wednesday’s duct cleaning, and prepare for IL3’s birthday by making gift baggies for his friends at school. I also went to work for half the day. D13 is the one who reminded me that I was supposed to take IL3 to swim lessons, which were harder than normal because Aaron usually comes to help, but he was taking M10 to Cub Scouts. IL3 desperately wanted to go in the men’s room to change, and my hands were full so I literally had to drag him kicking and screaming into the family room. All this on 2.5 hours’ sleep since IL3_ refused to go to sleep till midnight saying he was scared, then had a really dramatic nightmare at 2:15.

Wednesday was so crazy busy that writing about it two days later is a blur. It was IL4’s birthday, and I had attempted to make goodie bags for his school friends, but the kit I bought was abysmal. I was committed though, so I made an order from Target for better stuff on Tuesday night. At 7:00am sharp Wednesday, I was there picking up my order.

D13’s zoom IEP meeting happened at 7:30, and IL4 needed to go to daycare at 8, so I talked about the IEP while stuffing Goodie bags. Aaron then took IL4 and the daycare goodie bags away, and I immediately started prepping for the duct cleaners to come at 8:30 (we needed to create a path to the vents in the nursery, among other things). D13 helped – she’s such a wonderful kid.

When the duct cleaners were situated, D13 had a zoom therapy session starting at 9am. At 10, I took her to school and took IL4’s goodie bags to his special education, which starts at 10:15 and has a whole different set of kids than daycare. Then I came home and paid the duct cleaners, whom I had left with dad.

After that, I ran to Burnsville to drop off a health summary form at the doctor that the preschool has lost twice, and is threatening to kick IL4 out by Friday over. I drove the opposite direction to Farmington to pick up IL4’s cake. Then an entirely new direction to take dad to his 1:30pm appointment. I ate for the first time while he was attending his appointment. THEN we went on a massive Christmas shopping trip at the Mall of America. I ended up carrying the most gigantic bag imaginable of LEGOs around the mall a couple of times, because dad insisted that LEGO Land had to be first.

Returning home, D13 had already started cutting cheese for the mac and cheese we were cooking. But I needed to wrap some presents we had bought for IL4’s birthday. D14 began cooking (under my direction) and decorating for the celebration while I wrapped and fended off M10’s begging over and over and over and over to blow up balloons despite not knowing how to tie them, dad’s hands being too shaky, and D13 and me both multitasking.

But the mac and cheese turned out wonderful, IL4 was thrilled with the cake and decorations, and M10 managed to convince us to tie off a couple of balloons. Aaron forgot IL4’s age and put 3 candles on the cake.

Thursday started out at my client’s house. I went immediately from there to the Children’s hospital in Minneapolis because D13 had a procedure. There, we discovered that the procedure was actually at the Children’s Hospital in Saint Paul. So we went there. D13 fainted and went into convulsions when they put in her IV. (The anesthesiologist informed me that they weren’t convulsions – they were a vasovagal response – but I told him it depends on your definition of “convulsion.” He then informed me it wasn’t a seizure; which I knew – because obviously it was a vasovagal response to get blood to her brain. 🙄🙄🙄)

The procedure went fine, and D13 and I came home and watched Mean Girls and Bring it On. When M10 came home from school, we all watched Brain on Fire.

Friday, I started out helping my client with a doctor’s appointment. I went from that to speech therapy for IL4, and then picked up the form from the doctor that the daycare claimed to have lost. I was so pissed at them having lost it a second time, that I had a whole speech prepared about how precious my time is and if they threatened to kick him out in another 2 months because they’ve lost the form again, bring it on. However, when I got there, the director was giving a tour to a couple. I couldn’t give my speech, but I handed her the form and sternly told her not to lose it. Afterwards, I felt bad for embarrassing her in front of her tour, so I sent her an email to apologize and explain where I was coming from. She asked me to call her, and when I did, she pointed out that my behavior was inappropriate, and I should have given her time to figure out what was going on after being gone on vacation. I felt annoyed that she didn’t admit any fault of her staff in this situation, so when I picked up IL4, I had another chat with her. I tried to tell her that I was still upset because I had admitted my fault and she had admitted no fault. She cheerfully and politely told me that she supported the cautiousness of her staff in telling me to get another form. So I still feel pissed. I owned up to my mistake, but she thinks she’s totally in the right, and that I had no reason to be angry, let alone make my anger obvious in front of that couple. It really makes me NOT regret my behavior. My time is valuable, and I really went out of my way to get that form signed again. Oh, and I forgot to mention – they DID have the form I’d given them two months ago, so the whole trip was useless. I really want to send her an email reaming her out, but it would be kicking a dead horse. She’s not going to admit fault.

Wrote

• 1 letter Virginia Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Texas
• 1 letter Maryland
• 1 letter Maine Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Virginia

Week’s Photos

Media Partaken In

• Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, by Eric Litwin and James Dean

New Books

Yet another awesome Pete the Cat book. In this one, Pete goes to school and stays brave because he’s rocking in his school shoes. I really want to read all of these, my kid loves them.

I love Pete the Cat. He’s so groovy. In this installment, Pete goes walking around in his shoes, stepping in stuff, messing up the color, and loving every minute of it. He’s such a happy cat, and my 4 year old just adores this book.

News

Saturday’s D&D one-shot was nearing 6 hours long. 95% battle scene. I managed to strike the killing blow against the blue dragon. When we finished, Aaron, dad, and I watched the first 3 episodes of Wednesday, despite Aaron’s protestations that the actress can’t hold a candle to Christina Ricci, who (I found out) is his celebrity crush. Sleepy Hallow Christina Ricci, he says….he doesn’t crush on 14yo Ricci.

Anyway, Sunday was a bust, as was Monday. I just felt SO low motivation on Sunday. I watched Loki and TV. I had had very little sleep. Then Sunday night I got very little sleep, too, so I was super unwell Tuesday. I had to triage my to-do list and just do what absolutely HAD to be done. Like appointments and a couple of phone calls.

Tuesday, we had a snow storm. We got about 4 inches. It made the roads pretty messy. But I had already moved M10’s appointment to virtual, so there wasn’t a lot of driving. I had IL10 home for the second half of the day (due to storm), on top of being unmotivated, so I wasn’t very productive. In the evening, D12, M10, and I watched Les Miserables. We all cried. I was trying to convince D12 into going to the theater instead of getting cash for her 13th birthday. She was convinced.

Wednesday M10 tried eating pineapple upside-down cake and maraschino cherries as his palate-expanding foods in therapy. He spat out both after the first bite. Next time is kale, cabbage, and mashed potatoes. D12 and I worked on her book report. Then I went to work.

First on Thursday, I went directly from one job to another job, at which I was supposed to find an assisted living for someone. I found a place on my fourth call that would be able to get her in immediately. And not a bad place, either.

Then, I came home and wrapped presents for D13’s birthday. IL3’s is a few days later, so we had him open presents too. He would otherwise have been upset that he hadn’t gotten any. D13 got a dress and some books. IL3 got some dinosaurs, dinosaur books, and snowshoes (which he wore excitedly in the front yard for all of 3 steps, fell down, and wanted to go inside).

Then we went out to eat at a nearby restaurant. Because we had a 6 person family and one car that seats 4, we had to make two trips each way.

But something weird happened Thursday – I called the insurance adjuster about our claim on the other car, and she said that the people who turned in front of us were claiming the car was stolen. We’re like “but it obviously wasn’t stolen based on the behavior of the other people.” I was in shock, because it seemed a foolish thing to claim when there was a police report. But then the insurance adjuster for the other people called and told us that our insurance adjuster had been mistaken, and she didn’t know where that rumor came from. 🤷‍♀️

Friday was a busy day. After IL3’s speech therapy, I ran some errands and then spent the rest of the day making phone calls that I’d been procrastinating on.

I have a friend who has a tooth ache, and I had a list of places that his insurance covered, but none of them had an endodontist for a root canal. (I called about 12 places.) Finally, I found one that both took his insurance and had an endodontist, but now we’re needing to get the paperwork signed to let them see the x-rays. Meanwhile, my friend is in so much pain he’s nonfunctional.

Wrote

• 1 letter Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Virginia Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Maine Department of Corrections
• 1 letter Djibouti (Any Marine)

Week’s Photos

Media Partaken In

Posts

Review Halt’s Peril, by John Flannagan

Review I Like This Color, by Liz Goulet Dubois

In this adorable and colorful book, Duck and Cluck have an argument about whether orange or pink is the bestest color. The argument accelerates until they hit a “disaster” which turns out to be a blessing. This is a story about listening to people even when they have a different opinion.

This is a wonderful little story, and my 3yo loved it too.