Robin had her tumbling class and was invited to join the advanced class, which apparently is empty except for her. I think she likes the sense of recognition she’s getting from the coaches. It’s so nice to be at a gym that reinforces her instead of tearing her down. She also made white chicken chili for dinner, which was delicious. Not a bad day for Robin.
Author: peanut7312
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June 3
Long, busy day with a lot of meetings and a lot of talking. I had four hours of training calls at work and then a 2 1/2 hour NAMI meeting afterwards. Also this morning Robin came with me to the gym. I haven’t been in weeks, so it was nice to be there and also nice to share the time with her. She hated every second but finished smiling. I’ll take it.
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June 2
Today was recital dress rehearsal marathon day. We left the house at 1:45 and didn’t get home until 9:20. Long afternoon. Luckily after a few years, I know to go prepared, so it was tolerable. I played with my new camera so much that I used up the battery by the time they were halfway through. I even have two spare batteries, but I left them at home because I never expected I’d use one up like that! Now I know. I’ll have to look at the photos on my laptop tomorrow or Thursday to see how it did. The photos looked a little blurry in the low light, but I’m hoping some came out ok. I had fun playing around – I just wish I had more shots of Christina’s dances and not everyone else’s.
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June 1
Robin finished this Lego project tonight that we bought when we were in New York over spring break. It was a long labor of love and parts of it were tedious with all the little tiny pieces that had to go together perfectly. But she really did it herself – I only had to help twice (three times if you count the $13 replacement piece I bought for her). I’m impressed! And proud. It’s a really cool piece, lots of moving, working parts. Nicely done.
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May 31
Phase 2 of the patio project is done. Next weekend I’ll spread my first layer of gravel and then I’ll be ready to start compacting. Once that’s done, I start laying pavers and the whole thing will start looking real. I think at this point I’m looking at Labor Day to be totally finished, decorating and all. That’s kind of perfect timing. I’m pretty proud of what I’ve already accomplished. I’ve come further than I thought I could and I’m still enjoying it. Other than this, Robin got her hair cut, we went food shopping, and I did laundry. I don’t really want to go back to work tomorrow, but so it goes.
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May 30
We went to an escape room today and we missed it by about THREE MINUTES. We had even figured out the clue but just kept typing in the answer wrong. We are so bummed! We did a lot better than the last time, and honestly that made it more fun. It also helped that we didn’t have to share the game with people we didn’t know. I so want to go and do another one and manage to escape. We were just so close! It was a good time and nice to go out and do something together. We’ll have to go again.
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May 29
We played the National Parks board game, which I thoroughly enjoyed even though I lost. Even Robin played without pouting. It was nice to do something together as a family that we don’t normally do. We haven’t done anything like that in a long time. Too many other things going on. Christina beat us all very handily. Guess she will be our tour guide at Yellowstone.
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May 28
Today was the kids’ last day of school. Christina walked home wearing her bacon costume and got honked at a lot. We went out to eat to celebrate and then Robin asked to go to Barnes & Noble afterwards. We bought a few books. And by a few I mean too many. Luckily we have some long flights ahead of us, so maybe we can make a dent in the stack. I ended up skipping this evening’s race – a blue jean mile to benefit NAMI. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was 83 degrees, 91% humidity, and 50% chance of rain. It had actually just stopped raining when I would have had to leave. I feel like a wimp for backing out, but my regret is minimal. I donated a good amount of money, so it was not a total loss. I wonder how many people did show up. I’ll never know.
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May 27
The big victory I had at work on Friday ended up being a big flop when the technology failed to cooperate. I’m back to where I was before, which is a “meh” option. Much less flashy and impressive, but technically gets the job done. Maybe I can find a way to dress it up somehow. Otherwise it’s day 2 of training. I successfully overwhelmed the entire class by trying to teach them six things at once this morning, but heard their feedback and pivoted in the second half to get us more or less back on track. I’m both teaching and learning as I go, which is an interesting combination. Tonight was class 4 of my NAMI class. I accidentally ended the class half an hour early without realizing it until 20 minutes after we rushed through the last bit and had already wrapped up. No one said anything, so either everyone else also forgot what time the class is supposed to end, or everyone was glad to finish early so purposely decided not to say anything. Either way, it was an oh well kind of moment. Now watching the Yankees game, but I think I’ll be heading to bed soon. I didn’t sleep well last night and I’m tired now. Nothing puts me to sleep faster than Dave Simms, so I should be in good shape.
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May 26
Billy accidentally bought me such a thoughtful gift. He had suggested that I bring my DSLR with me to Savannah and I told him that I wasn’t going to bring it because it’s bulky and also because I can’t really see the image or the light meter through the viewfinder since I am mostly blind in my right eye. So he found a manual camera with a view screen on it – it’s not an SLR per se, but it does all the things an SLR can do and then some. The purists may scoff, but in my opinion all cameras have their value, and frankly it’s nice that I can take full control of my shots AND see what I’m shooting at the same time. The camera has a Bluetooth setting that connects to a remote on my phone, so I can frame and shoot self portraits without mystery. There is so much to play with and get used to before our trip to Yellowstone. I can’t even express how nice it is to select an aperture and shutter speed without guessing because I can actually see the light meter. It’s like a whole new universe has opened to me. Thank you, Billy.
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May 25
I wanted to wimp out of this morning’s race because it was so hot, but Monica pushed me to go anyway and I’m glad I did. It was already 77 degrees by the time we started at 8am, with 92% humidity. Very soupy run. But I ran it without walking for the second time since coming back to running a year and a half ago and finished in 39:52. Not my best time, but when you factor in the weather, it’s pretty close. Did a lot of other stuff today too. Went to REI to pick up a new tent for our trip to Yellowstone, hemmed Christina’s pants for dance, went food shopping, did the dishes. I’m ready for bed!
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May 24
I thought I finished digging out the patio this morning, but YouTube says I need to dig another six inches around the whole perimeter. Looks like one more week before I get to play with the compactor. Robin went to the mall with her friend Alejandro and Christina and I painted pottery while they wandered around getting lost in Belk. I thought this was a buffalo, Siggi thought it was a yak, Christina says it’s a cow. It’s a yakowalo.
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May 23
We went to see Michael today at Christina’s request. It was actually pretty good. The girls kept poking me and saying, “I know this song!” I always kind of hate when you go to a movie only to find out at the end that the movie is two parts, but this time I was kind of grateful because I think it actually deserves the extra time. It was nice to get out of the house and do something fun.
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May 22
We went to Carmine’s Pie House to celebrate Robin’s 8th grade graduation. We got off to a little bit of a rocky start, but it ended up being a pretty good night. I had a win (or at least the start of a win) at work today, too. I configured a GPT to help build a searchable database of questions and answers for our training site. This is something the team has been asking for for years and we haven’t been able to figure out a good way to do it. I set up a more or less automated system in a couple of hours. I feel like a million dollars. It needs some refinement, but I’m proud of it. I can’t wait to share it with the team. Not a bad day.
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May 21
I had a pretty good day. I accomplished a lot of things at work that have been going on for a while, and that felt good. The day slowly slumped into crap, though. Robin came home from her 8th grade field trip in a good mood, but that got erased when she had to set the table (TWO DAYS IN A ROW). It became even worse when she had to clean up Pinot’s excrement in the dining room. And then Billy was in a bad mood because the poop wasn’t cleaned up, and Christina was in a bad mood because… who even knows. And I tried really hard to stay positive in all this, but even I got sucked into the vortex and ended up royally pissed off and finally decided to call it a night. I went to the bedroom at 9:00 to listen to the Yankees game by myself, which I think also pissed Billy off, but whatever. That’s the trend tonight.
