Flower Power

(3/18) Work and school for us all today. Dad picked up a Thursday shift so had to work this evening. Our excitement for the day was watching the maple tree out front get trimmed and getting an estimate for the house to get painted. Home ownership fun. Woo! We could really piss off the HOA with a new color scheme.  (I kid. At present, I am the HOA)

(3/19) TGIF! Another long week. I worked for six hours on a project and then learned I got to re-work a bunch of it. I was not a happy camper. I will be so glad when this project is done! The kiddos had school, and Dad was off today. 

(3/20) Happy spring!! Dad got up early and took my car up to Rob's to work on the brakes. I didn't expect him up so early and had snuck out to run some errands and ended up at Home Depot buying plants and totally forgetting to grab a trellis for the sweet peas. Whoops! I found one online though, so made it come to me instead of chancing myself around pretty flowers again. I made a succulent pot with all the single plants I have around here, plus a few that I grabbed when I was at the hardware store. I also potted the flowers I couldn't resist. I am growing a bunch from seed, but they're still little and I'm impatient. 

(3/21) Lazy day for us all here. Dad had to work this evening, and we all bummed around the house. I read my book and enjoyed the quiet. Dad made seafood mac and cheese tonight and it was amazing! 

(3/22) Ohmygoodness, my children were at a level 10 today. Every little thing resulted in big emotions. I've been working on a extensive project at work so really needed them to do their own thing, and yeah, nothing was working. 

(3/23) Is it Friday yet? Shew! If I wasn't editing videos and playlists today, I was watching videos and creating questions for our CE course. And on top of that, trying to manage (badly) the children. I can't wait for them to be on spring break ~ I'm going to get so much done! 58 school days remaining. Not that I'm counting.

(3/24) Dad and I both had the day off today, and the boys had an asynchronous day of schooling. C made us fried rice with shrimp and scallops for dinner and it was delish! 

(3/25) Work day for me and school for the kiddos. D was an epic D-saster today. He managed to pull it together enough to go grocery shopping with Dad this afternoon and picked out his prizes for ye olde prize bag that we'll again be dragging out. 

(3/26) Today was a work and school day for the boys and me. I snuck out for a short bit to get vaccine #1. Yahoo! Can't wait to be on the other side of this. 

(3/27) I ended up doing a lot more yard work today than I anticipated. Initially I was just planning to clear the spot to plant the sweet peas and also to transplant the sunflower starts that were outgrowing their space. Then I started in on the raspberry beds and pinching off new runners. I went inside to make lunch and hubby came down and said he wanted to go the hardware store. We grabbed some mulch and I ended up doing the front beds too. Yay spring!

(3/28) I sure am glad I did all the yard work yesterday, because today was windy and cold. It even snowed a little bit. We lost power this evening after Dad left for work. It was only off for an hour or so not too bad.  It gave me more time to read my book, so I wasn't complaining. 

(3/29) Work and school for us all today. The boys have conferences this week and are on half days at school, which was lovely for me because I was done managing school by early afternoon and could actually concentrate on work!  It was beautiful tonight, so while I ran a borrowed item back to Sarah's (and met her darling puppy!), Dad took D for a drive to see all the cherry blossoms. Our neighborhoods are so gorgeous right now! I'm still waiting for the ones at the end of my street to pop. For some reason they seem to lag just a bit behind. 

(3/30) Meeting Tuesday. It was a busy work day for me, and I was thankful the kiddos had a half day and were out of my hair early. I am counting the minutes til spring break and can't wait for a week to work without school interruptions! 

(3/31) I had a pretty busy day for a day off from work and an asynchronous school day. The boys had a  morning Zoom, and then I had their conferences in the afternoon. The twins were assigned a new teacher at the beginning of March, so things went pretty well considering. We made some plans for after spring break. After that I went out in the sunshine to do some yard work and got the front yard all cleaned up and mowed. Dad picked up subs from Jersey Mike's tonight for dinner. They were delicious, but it was quite the hassle because it was JM's Day of Giving so the place was hoppin'. And finally I ran our HOA meeting tonight as de facto president. I met a few of our neighbors, which was nice, and tried my darnedest to recruit them to the board. No bites, but I tried. 

(4/1) Oh boy, April Fools. J thought it was hilarious to leave chairs for his brothers to crash into as they left their rooms. I didn't have it in me to pull any pranks this year. Sorry, guys... Maybe next year. D loves to go grocery shopping with Dad, so they did that after Dad was up for the day. It's really cute--he goes through the cupboards and helps me update the list.  

(4/2) Yay, yay, yay! I don't know if I'm more excited for a week off school, or if the kids are. I think everyone was feeling it, and my work peeps decided it was definitely a FriYAY kind of day. Dad sent up a G&T, which I have to say, pairs lovely with the end of a work week! 

(4/3) We decided to do Easter dinner today since Dad was supposed to be off, but then our company cancelled and Dad got scheduled to work. We still made up some ham and did up potato salad for dinner, as well as shared a cheesecake. We also colored some eggs for a little Easter fun. 

(4/4) Happy Easter! The bunny left the kids some jelly bean filled eggs, a chocolate rabbit, and their own mani pedi kits so they stop stealing mine. J said he was disappointed that there weren't any eggs to hunt, but that also he wouldn't hunt for eggs that weren't stuffed. This year the bunny was just not up to all that, and left their eggs in their baskets and called it good. I instructed the boys on the art of making spicy (deviled) eggs this morning, and J made up a bunch for us all to share. We had a pretty quiet day otherwise.

(4/5) The kids are on spring break this week, so Sarah and I postponed our normal early-o'clock walk for one at noon. We went for coffee, which I don't think we've done since before the pandemic started. It certainly hit the spot! Dad barbecued because it was so nice out this evening. After dinner, the twins and I took Toffee and big brother Cass for a walk down to the park.

(4/6) Meetings, meetings, meetings. Must be Tuesday! It was a productive one for me. It's been so nice not having to manage school this week too! Just me and a pretty quiet house. I'm loving it! 

(4/7) I had the day off today and slept in. We ended up selling our pop-up camper to Rob, so were busy this afternoon rearranging the garage now that there's a whole bunch of space! J spotted his bike and decided to give it another go, and figured it out!  Yay, J! D was royally ticked that I couldn't both be at the little park helping J learn to ride and down at the park with the swings at the same time. Sorry, dude! 

(4/8) Today was a work day for me, and Dad had the day off. He scored a vaccination appointment this afternoon, and since it's the one and done, he'll be through his two weeks before I can even get my second shot. Lucky! 

(4/9) Poor Dad felt pretty rotten today, so just took it easy. He felt better this evening luckily. We tried a meal service where they provide the recipe and food for three meals. Tonight's meal was penne with sausage and it was very tasty. C helped cook tonight's meal, D will do tomorrow, and J on Sunday. It'll be a good way to get the kiddos involved! 

(4/10) We listed a bunch of stuff on our local Buy Nothing group and got a bunch of takers. The garage is really shaping up. It was beautiful out today, and the boys and I spent the bulk of it outside. We're in for a stretch of good weather, and maybe it'll warm up a tad. 

(4/11) Today was gorgeous! We had Got Junk come out and haul away some old shelves that the previous occupants of our house left, as well as lots of stuff from the garage. I went and got a new bin so now all the holiday stuff has its own and is all stacked away. I pressure washed the back patio and worked in the yard too. All and all a good day! 

(4/12) Ermahgerd! J couldn't find his stupid stress ball last night, and didn't sleep well as a result. The boys started back at (remote) school, and when he found the stupid stress ball, he played with it so hard that it exploded everywhere. There were so many tears and much ado. That set the mood for the day and it didn't really improve. 

(4/13) Meeting Tuesday was a bear. I kept having to interrupt my meetings to make angry consonants at the children. Is it Friday yet? 

(4/14) I had the day off today, and the boys had school like normal, and then all the boys had dentist appointments. Everybody had good check-ups, so I took them out to spoil their clean teef at Baskin & Robbins.

(4/15) They taped over the windows in preparation for painting today and I felt like I was working in a cave. We had to send Noodle and Cass upstairs because they couldn't quit borking at the crew. Thankfully we were down one borker since Miss Toffee went in for her spay this morning. Poor girl was looking pretty blitzed when she got home.

(4/16) They finished up painting today and we're so pleased with the result! I have next week off, and tried to get as much as I could done today, but have a feeling I'll still be putting in some time next week. The first week back into routine is always a doozy, and man was I ready to hang it up tonight! 

Before

After

(4/17) Dad woke up early and C cooked our planned dinner for lunch. He made pineapple pork tacos and they were amazing! We then piled in the car and headed toward the mountains and ended up at one of our favorite haunts, Beckler River. We rock-hounded for a while and packed up to head home around 4, hitting Zeke's just perfectly to miss the crowd. Dinner was delish! It was so nice to get outta dodge for a bit.

(4/18) D requested that we take some chairs and "go sit by the lake" today. I just knew that they'd end up swimming, so sent them off to find their suits. The lake was pretty busy, and my dash said 80° when we left. I bribed the boys with Slurpees, and we left when it got too crowded.

(4/19) I'm on vacation this week. It'll be a stay-cation, and the boys still have school to monitor, but it's still vacation! I received the sad news that my aunt passed away last night. I have so many fun memories of her, and spent my day looking back through old emails. It was beautiful this evening (and should be all week), so we grilled and picnicked outside for dinner. 

(4/20) I'm loving the weather today, and all the flowers! The tulips are all up, and my front flower beds are gorgeous! The boys had school today, and I read a bit in between wrangling them.

(4/21) The boys had an asynchronous day of school so were done with Zooms early. I got my second covid vaccine today and am glad to be done with that! Dad had to work tonight, and after I was finished putting the twins to bed, I found C downstairs making sure that I wasn't watching our show and skipping ahead. I know better!

(4/22) I'm feeling pretty okay today, but had preemptively cancelled my morning walk and took it easy. I did go out and pinch back the raspberries again and whack the dandelions in the back yard so the low rider doesn't get quite so distracted and wet. 😂

(4/23) TGIF! Ermahgerd, remote schooling is not fun. Today's assignment involved writing a main idea sentence and then details to match. HOOOOOOURS later were we finally done because apparently it's too hard to ask for help and Mom knows 0% of anything. I may have left the house, and sat in my car to read my book with a Mountain Dew and M&Ms because eff that. Dad had a fun activity for us tonight. He ordered some sapphire dirt so we mined for sapphires at our table.

(4/24) We declared today Date Day! We started off with sushi for two, then headed to Sky Nursery and I bought a bunch of new plants. It was rainy today, but I still planted half of them when I got home. C made dinner for us tonight, and we had a comedy show which we watched in the evening. It was a great day!

(4/25) Lazy Sunday for the boys and me. I planted the rest of my plants, and our dandelion eater is afraid of the salvia 😂 J is on tap to make dinner tonight. He's making spiced chickpea basmati bowls, which is an adventurous pick, especially for him. We'll see how it goes!