After my last post, I was so sure that I would write regularly again (not daily, but at least a couple of times a week). However, the more time passes, the more overwhelming it feels. To keep things simple in this post, I think I’ll just write bullet points – short snippets of what’s been happening lately. In fact, I really miss writing!
**Eli bought a new (used) car. And when I say used, I mean a Dodge Neon! I think they stopped making them in the early 2000s. I actually had a 1995 Dodge Neon when I was in college and loved it. Eli has really liked cars, like Noah, and chose this one because of the «mods» (I don’t understand anything about cars, they don’t interest me at all).
It is very interesting, however, that both Noah and Eli have met people thanks to their cars. On more than a few occasions, car enthusiasts have stopped in the parking lots behind them to ask about their cars. I never knew it, but there is a whole community like this; my kids have even gone to car «meetings.» Anyway, I took over Eli’s Volvo – it’s a 2008 model and has 317,000 miles! Hopefully it will last until car interest rates drop, but I’ll drive it until I die. It has a CD player and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to listen to some old CDs from high school. I have no idea why I kept them, but I’m glad I did!
**My weight has increased about five pounds. Honestly, I feel lucky it’s not more! I know my biggest problem is snacking at night. I don’t know why it’s so hard to control it. If I could stop snacking before bed, I know it would make a big difference in my weight. All I can do is keep trying I guess!
**One of the reasons I hesitated to write is because of a comment someone left on my last post (I didn’t post it). This person has been hate-reading my blog for probably over 10 years, and I was a little scared that he mentioned something very specific about my kids. There are some things I’ve always kept private on my blog, usually for security reasons. (For example, the name of my kids’ schools…yes, someone could get that information if they really wanted to, but I didn’t want it to be easily accessible on my blog.)
Seeing something so specific in the comment, something I had deliberately left out of the blog, was a little creepy. I was used to degrading comments (she loves to make me feel bad about everything: my terrible upbringing, being a bad wife, being a lazy housewife, doing all the projects wrong and making them look like shit, my food looks disgusting , my house is ugly, whatever!); but this was new. Lately I’ve valued privacy more and more (now with cameras *everywhere*, I hate feeling watched all the time). So the fact that this person would seek out this information about my family was disturbing. Anyway, I don’t understand why people hate reading; My time means too much to me to waste it in such a negative way.
**My Asian pear tree has fruit!!! I only planted it in the fall and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw real fruit there. I waited probably over 10 years for the other «Asian pear tree» to bear fruit, only to discover that the tree was just an invasive species that would never bear fruit. Hopefully I can eat some Asian pears off the tree this fall!
**Jerry and I were browsing Instagram one day when we saw the «old man’s challenge»: you have to stand on one foot and put on your sock and shoe (while maintaining your balance and not putting your foot down or holding on to anything). , then change legs and put on the other sock and shoe. We tried it and had fun doing it, so we looked for some more challenges. There was one that I thought was ridiculously impossible, but we tried it for a laugh. And we discovered that it wasn’t actually that bad: it seems a lot harder than it is! This is just a screenshot from a video right before we crashed to the ground.
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| Date Night Shenanigans |
Ideally, both people should be able to balance horizontally. We never got the balance to the point where we could hold the position for a long time, but then we realized that the person on top has to stay flat (this is hard to describe; if you look at the picture, Jerry should stay flat) . lying down more, which helps control balance). Anyway, we laugh a lot and have some funny videos of us falling.
We also did a challenge to see who could draw the best circle without looking. Mine is white and Jerry’s is red. Basically, you stand with your shoulder close to the wall, looking straight ahead so you can’t see the board. Then you use your arm to make a large circle and see how close the start and end are to touching each other. Mine was really good! Jerry needed some work haha.
Luke and Riley came over and I asked them to try it too. Luke was very funny. Luke’s was off about an inch at first, so he switched to his left hand and it was almost perfect. He’s the only person I know who is truly ambidextrous: sometimes he writes with his right hand, sometimes with his left, whatever he feels like. The same goes for things like throwing a ball and even playing Jenga.
**While Luke and Riley were here, I played Tapple with them; is the game I wrote about before, where there is a category and you have to take turns canceling the things that are in that category, starting with a unique letter each. time, until all the letters are used or someone can’t think of one before the timer goes off (you get 10 seconds each). The category was «things found in a house» and we looked at things like couch, table, dresser, pets, etc. There were only a few letters left and «i» was one of them. Riley said, «Residents!» I was stunned and couldn’t help but laugh. He’s only five years old! That was impressive.
**When Jerry and I went to Minnesota, we spent a lot of time at Becky’s parents’ house. Becky’s mom is a very talented quilter (she was the one who quilted the top of my racing jersey). Since I love to sew, I was fascinated by her sewing room and all her quilts. This one blew my mind: he pieced it all together BY HAND with a needle and thread! He told me how many pieces there are, but I don’t remember.
The hexagons are incredibly small and he had to make a lot of «fussy cuts», which basically means that instead of cutting the fabric in any direction, he chose to cut the hexagons with the fabric polka dots in the center and the stripes going in private addresses. I wish I had the patience to quilt, but I prefer smaller projects (probably because I’m an instant gratification person, ha).
**Do you remember when I took the 23&Me test in December? I did it solely for the medical part, but towards the end of January I decided to look at the ancestry part. I thought it would be incredibly boring, but I discovered something incredible. I wish I could go into details, but I have to keep this kind of vague. I saw someone who was listed as a first cousin (he shared a set of grandparents with me) and I didn’t recognize the name. I asked my parents and they didn’t know either. (Each of my parents has five siblings, so there were many possibilities.)
I contacted this cousin (I’ll call him gender-neutral «Sam») and found out they were adopted immediately after birth. They didn’t know who their birth parents were because of a closed adoption, but they had a little information from the adoption agency. Based on this, I was able to find out who Sam’s biological father is. Sam had been searching for this information for decades! The biological father chooses to remain anonymous, and due to the closed adoption, Sam respects his wishes. I really hope that one day this will change, but for now, all I can do is meet my cousin, and chatting with her has been great! We hope to meet later this year.
**We purchased more luxury vinyl planks and are going to put them in the bedrooms. Eli’s room and my craft room still have carpet, which desperately needs replacing, so we are excited about this project. I hope Jerry installs it next weekend. While I did most of the work in remodeling the house, Jerry did the floors and I’m glad I didn’t have to do them! But I’m definitely going to paint the craft room. Maybe I’ll do it this weekend, in fact.
I’m going to end this post now. I know I have more to write, I really need to keep a list, so I hope to write another post soon! Thank you for the love and for keeping an eye on me. I really appreciate it, more than I can express.
