Daily Adventures

Jet's first overnight stay elsewhere was a doozy. He was up until 2 am watching Harry Potter movies and then up at 6 because there were kids that went to sleep early that were too excited to stay asleep... and then he swam at Union reservoir and when he came home at 2:30 he had a snack and sat on the couch to tell me about the party and before I even realized it he was fast asleep on the couch.

He got a good hour's nap and we did some stuff together to help him wake up. He said, rather plaintively in the midst of it, "I didn't think our party was today."

( The Party was Today. )

To all those U.S. of A'ers that celebrate.

We had a doozy of a day, with 40+ people coming for a pot luck with plenty of grilled corn and smoked ribs and John's Jerk chicken and lots of salads and desserts that everyone brought and loved. And then, in the midst of it a thunderstorm just poured down rain until the back patio was an inch deep in water, even though it was supposed to be draining through all the slats. Everyone was good about making themselves comfortable in the house, ending up everywhere... on the floor, in the dining room, and even some ended up on our front door stoop, under the overhang there, just talking.

It was great fun, though, and everyone enjoyed themselves.

The six quarts of hand-cranked vanilla ice cream ALL disappeared. THAT was impressive.

( Ice cream recipe, a bit more about today, and a bit about _Princep's_Fury_ by Jim Butcher with spoilers. )

... tired, too. Grumpy at Y!Gallery, but getting better...

Saw the inauguration yesterday and cried through a bunch of it, but, man, I loved the speech and the benediction (LOVE that old language that was also entirely inclusive). Was grumpy at the opening blessing. Growl. But... the speech... I was painting while he was speaking and I had to be careful not to let the tears drop on the paper.

Was sore from the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Marade the day before...

( Read more... )

Well, I was sitting down to paint, yesterday, when five other kids rampaged into the house along with Jet and my recycle pile disappeared in a flurry of grabs. Even my junk calligraphy sheets were snatched up and I was like... what?

*laughs*

And the kids liked one of my throwaways so much I had to take a shot of it... and the other one made my neighbor come all the way up to the office and demand that I paint one of them for him, that didn't have the wrinkles... *laughs* And I asked him, "Do you want the three wings, too, on the top swallow?"

He had the grace to blush.

( The results... uhm... of everything but the swallows against winter branches. )

The weekend was chock full of sunshine and way too many things to do.

The garden is doing the explosive first phase growth, where everything starts at nothing, and then goes BOOM into foot tall plants within the first week and it startles me and amazes me as the start session always does. Later it'll be growing just as fast, but with all the existing growth it won't look like as much. All the tomato plants are flowering spectacularly, and the topsy turvy cherry tomato plants are now twice as big as the planter itself. I suspect the plant will touch the ground even from its 20 foot high perch by the end of summer. We'll see. The bees love the plenty.

There was a finished climbing playset complete with water slide and water cannon, the Boulder Creek Fair, putting in a drip irrigation system, a viewing of MI3 by John and I while Jet was the "Money man" for a Tang and cookies stall with Tanner and Macy, a Jacob's Ladder caused a brush by the Bolder Boulder 10k race, two self-watering planters filled with dirt, water, and plants, lots and lots of sunshine, planted the fourth and final First Lady tomato plant, planted all the Green Zebras, a visit to Flat Irons Mall where the boys got Crocs in addition to what we'd gone there for, donuts, lots of coffee, a trip to Shuttles, Skeins, and Spindles, a graduation party for a neighbor of ours that went until 1 am, a BBQ, a skip on church for the first time in a while, a breakfast at Village Inn that was surprisingly good, a homemade baked pancake bigger than my head, a Costco run with resultant artichokes, and waaaay too much Lego Star Wars video game. Jet kept saying, "One more level, Mom, one more level!" and we got through all three Episodes, no problem, and I'm now going back to Be Perfect.

Uhm... not in exactly that order. :-)

What amuses me is that with that much going on I still feel overwhelmed at work even after all that at home.

( A few things of note... )

Last night, the neighbor called as she was in a mild bind.  She either needed kid care from us or was going to have to send the kids out into the rain with their dad.  So I said, sure, send 'em over, and they came and it was... ( instructive. )

I'm thankful for my family, for my financial situation, for the food we eat, the air I can actually breath, and for not being sick for a while. I am thankful that I have the job I have, for all its stresses, it's not the soul-killing work I was doing with the previous group. I'm thankful for being able to give and help others. I'm thankful for my friends and all their support and good wishes. I'm thankful for the strength of my body and my mind and with having the freedom and the will to do what I feel needs to be done.

We had a good Thanksgiving with neighbors. It reminded me of the old Chinese potlucks my family used to have with all the other Chinese families in our town in Indiana, just not quite as big. All the parents would do their thing, all the kids would go off and do theirs, we'd meet for food and then wander our seperate ways again. It was good.

Yesterday was quiet. We went off to Denver for lunch with Bob and Mai and it was a great little Chinese restaurant that was in a bad neighborhood, so the prices were great and the food was wonderful.

This morning we did a lot of shopping to catch some of the Big Sales, not so much for other people's presents as for John's birthday and our needs. A free USB memory stick of 256 M wasn't to be sneezed at by me. I can now carry a book around with me as needed. Plus the photo paper deals were so good I couldn't resist. After buying all our ink at Costco, it's the paper that was the expensive part. Now I really do owe Tonya her pictures.

After lunch we went to Macy's birthday party and it was at the indoor soccer arena that Peter owns. It was fun. I smashed my left big toe right after it had halfway healed from Bromley. oops. So it's all purple again. I just hadn't tightened my shoes and their treads caught and my foot smashed into the front and it was a big owie. Oops. Ah well. It was astonishing, though, to play a little soccer after nearly seven years without. My knee felt weird. My feet and ankles hurt, and it was funny to be doing some things on instinct that were fairly complex items. Wierd but good, too. I especially liked harrassing the bigger boys that were hogging the ball. Old defenders' reflexes are always useful. John laughed when I started the kid-adult game by standing in front of him as he was in goal. "You'll be my sweeper! Man, it's been a while since we've done this..."

The party was fun. Jet went from hiding in the upstairs food room to coming down to the sidelines and walking the bleachers to finally going out on the field and kicking things around with the tiny kids. I was impressed that he finally went down on the field and then proceeded to have fun. That's the whole point, anyway, I'm thinking...

I'm still tired. Less crispy than I was at the start of this eight day break, but still pretty molten. I'll be glad for the Christmas break, too. I have some shopping to do, and darned quick, but it should be fun anyway.

We're having cedar plank salmon tonight, noticed the $8 cedar planks at the grocery store. Yeesh. We bought an untreated cedar fence picket at Home Depot for $2 and sawed it into four slabs, and the first one is still in use and still does a great job of lending smokey, cedar flavor to the fish. Yummy. No turkey for us this time around. I am kind of tired of the frozen $3 16 pounders they have here. The last couple I cooked had no drippings to speak of and it just made me blink. I'm too cheap go to organic, but with a chicken I could... We did have turkey for Thanksgiving, but Peter did the cooking and all the cleaning up afterwards, and I was quite thankful for that. It's always the week of leftovers, afterwards, that keeps me up at night. :-) But we, as the guests, did quite a job on cleaning up their leftovers, so that was good.

I'm thinking about a duck or a goose, but we'll see...