Apr 17, 2020

Chillaxin'

Back in February when life was normal, my nine-year-old was playing Minecraft with the girl who lives next door and I heard him say:

"Pretend we like to chillax all day."

It makes sense that his idea of make believe is pretending to"chillax". I've made his life pretty difficult. I make him pick up his toys. I make him clean up his bedroom. I'm like a demented prison warden, just heaping on the torture.

It gets worse. I have recently starting making my kids help clean up after dinner. I know. I know. You would never do this. No sane, loving mother would do it. But I have a mean streak a mile wide and they are gonna help me one way or another.

The other night I laid down the law. Harrison had to clear the table, and Colin had to help me load the dishwasher. Don't report me, okay?

Colin had had enough. The tyranny just got to be too much for him. And he rebelled.

Eventually, I was standing at the sink loading the dishwasher all alone, while Colin rode his electric dirt bike through the house, sobbing,  "Why don't I ever get to have any fun? Why don't I ever get to do anything I want to do? Why are you ruining my life?"

And I laughed. As we've already established, I am very heartless. I will have to figure out how to stop ruining his life by allowing him to ride his dirt bike in the house while also NOT doing any work. Really, I've got to make some changes.

I only wish I had a picture of him crying on his motorcycle, but, alas, I do not.



Apr 15, 2020

A Short and Rather Useless Book Review - The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge


This book is fun. It's as simple as that. I started off listening to the audiobook, which is FANTASTIC. But there was a problem. This book includes pictures:



The idea is that the pictures kind of contradict the narrative, which is really pretty silly, but helpful to know beforehand, because at first I was a bit confused.


And while I believe the audio book includes a PDF of the pictures, those are pretty hard to look at while you are driving, or gardening, or cleaning out your dungeon. But I fell so much in love with the voices on the audio book that I finally ended up listening to the audio while simultaneously reading the physical book whilst lounging in bed. I had to stop cleaning out the dungeon to do it, but it was worth it.







Apr 12, 2020

Something Good - April 12, 2020

Happy Easter! It's Sunday, which means it is time for more good things!

The first and best thing of the week was that it was Spring Break, which means no school. And since I am now the teacher, that meant more to me this week than it ever has before. No School! For a whole week! Woohoo!!

Last Sunday we had a game night with my family over Zoom. We played, at my request, Star Wars Trivial Pursuit.

It was fun and awesome and wonderful, because not only could I play with my sisters who live in the same town as me, and my mom and nieces who live within driving distance, but also with my sister who lives in Maine, and my niece who lives in Oregon. We're finally getting the band back together!!

The problem was that we tried to use the board. We had one camera aimed constantly at the board, but it was still too small for most people to see what was going on. We'd roll the dice for them (which in this game means bopping R2D2 on the head, and he randomly generates a number) and then move their peice and then ask them the questions. But there were like 8 of us, so it took forever for everyone to take their turn. (the game only comes with 4 movers, so we had to make some out of LEGO minifigs.)


It would have worked much better to do just ask the questions and let anyone who knew the answer shout it out or something, and just skip the board altogether, but live and learn.


Since it was Spring Break and we were going absolutely bonkers trapped at home, we decided to go camping. We found this little canyon in Fountain Green with some really awesome hiking that we had almost totally to ourselves.

The boys spent a lot of time pretending to be lost in the mountains. It was thrilling for them, and they were always within eyesight and there was a small stream burbling by and it was gorgeous.


We hiked through this cool slot canyon, but the walls were unlike anything I've seen before. It wasn't like the red rock you see in Southern Utah. This was more like naturally occurring cement, with smaller rocks all stuck together forming the canyon walls.




This was was far as we got. There was a rope, so we could have tried to climb straight up that waterfall behind us in the picture above, but maybe we'll save that next time.

Later in the week we got a drive-by visit from some family!



And the boys entertained themselves by laughing at their own reflections.



And yesterday I finished reading Cinder, by Marissa Meyer, a Cinderella retelling, wherein Cinderella is a Cyborg. Yep. It was every bit as awesome as it sounds.


It is the first in a series, and is totally incomplete on its own, which usually makes me really mad. Well, it made me mad this time too, but I loved it so much that my only option was to buy the next book on Kindle and start reading it immediately!

And that's all folk! Tune in next week for more good things!

Apr 6, 2020

Something Good - April 5, 2020

I was born an optimist. But something about getting older has sort of changed that. Not that my outlook for the future is grim, it's just that life is hard, and the realities of its struggles tends to take a toll. The prophet, President Russell M. Nelson described it as "The heart wrenching maze of our mortal experience." Which is beautiful and sad and true.

But the world is also full of good things. Some big and huge and wonderful and some small and silly and insignificant. My memory is bad. And what if, ten years from now, I have forgotten all of the small things?

So it is time to write them down. I try to be a diligent journal writer, but it isn't always possible. So here I am, sharing good things with you. Or at at least sharing good things with me, which I appreciate very much. Thanks me. I'm welcome.

GOOD THINGS THIS WEEK

Utah's Current Pandemic Situation is "Stay Home, Stay Safe", (which I think means "We're advising you to stay home, but we aren't going to enforce it.") but I have had my kids under a pretty strict lock down ever since the 12th. We are all pretty bored of staring at each other's faces by this point. We are all pretty bored of never going anywhere.

But the 1st was My Birthday! And one must have fun on one's birthday, even if one is stuck at home with the same silly goobers day after day.

Our tradition is always singing and presents with breakfast. We try to make breakfast kind of big and special, but Richard was feeling overwhelmed so we ordered breakfast from Denny's. They were offering free delivery, and their online ordering system is seriously the best online ordering system I have ever used. 45 minutes later someone left breakfast on our front porch and ran away. Honestly, what else could a girl ask for on her birthday?


And then, Richard gave me The Murderbot Diaries:



I've only read the first one so far. The kindle book is $3.99 I think. But the rest are $10.00, which I just thought was way too much for an e-novella. Turns out the hardbacks are about the same price, which feels better somehow and if my husband wants to give them to me for my birthday, I will happily devour them.

My boys each gave me a clay creation of their own. Introducing Pig and Pear! The crime fighting duo!

They are so cute I can't stand it.

And this kid made me, and I quote: "Something cool, with a hint of Colin." 
He also gave me a small sea shell, so I would have something to put in it.


In other news, yesterday I made THESE cinnamon rolls:
http://tacpaskett.blogspot.com/2014/01/1-hour-cinnamon-rolls.html

They were only supposed to take an hour, but I guess I am slow cuz it took more like 2 1/2 hours.
And the recipe was supposed to make 24 cinnamon rolls, half of which you can see here:


But that is only if you want cinnamon rolls the size of your face.


And, oh, I do. PLUS, I swapped out the oil for applesauce and so that giant thing is only 332 calories! (I am still wondering if I calculated that wrong. Could it really be 332 calories for a sweet roll that size??)

However, I decided that 24 face-sized cinnamon rolls was maybe more than the four of us could eat. So after making those 12 gargantuan cinnamon rolls, I took the other half of the dough and made all of this:


Incidentally, rolls made out of cinnamon roll dough are fine, but I prefer my rolls a little more salty and buttery. 

Lastly, there is this, because pens make me happy. This picture here is like sticking a smiley face on the end of the post. 


The End.