Sunny

Swimming in it

After a couple of late night/early morning combos, I was tired and gave myself the morning off. This list kept me company. 

Had a blast at band practice, and then I took myself out for sushi and See's, which I hadn't done for a while - when I worked at Bri*r, it happened much more often. This week was a hard one and I felt deserving. 

Mmmmmm, sushi....

Came home to a postcard from Lori R. Hey Lori! 

Once Hubby was home from work, we went to Costco and I bought a new Shark vacuum with my birthday money from Mom, and spent the evening playing with my new toy. Yay!

No pictures, today.

It was just a hard day.

Of note: R and I made chocolate chip cookies before she and Hubby left for soccer practice. I took care of the babies again. They stayed up late again and cried quite a bit, poor things. Also, I'm officially sick of everything Frozen. "Let it go," indeed. 

The Long Day

This child has a bad case of senioritis. (It probably doesn't help that she's spent about half of her high school years in bed, attending classes via her laptop - that would be the kiss of death for me too.)

At the bookstore: Dan (who tested negative for covid, twice, and got bored at home and came back to work) had a stack of old books and school supplies sitting on his file cabinet, and this one caught my eye. It was published in 1957, so of course I fell immediately in love with it. Dan said he was just getting rid of the stuff and I was welcome to take it. At the end of my shift, I put it in my locker and suddenly it was 1987 again.

Pep Band: Enjoyable as always. Georg, ever the instrument pundit, gave me some good tips on buying new reeds, should I ever be in the market again. My family stocked me up pretty well at Christmastime. 

M's new job: She cleans office buildings in the evenings, and we've been watching the babies while she's gone. They only go to bed well for her, so they were still awake when I got home, the cute tired things.

Tuesday, In Pictures

Finished it!

Playing with her toe beans

ONE MORE APPOINTMENT TILL THEY'RE GONE! Check out this funky rubber band combo they have going on in her mouth for the next two weeks:

Baby R, her cup, and her blocks = serious business

Baby C and a song on Frozen = VERY serious business - musical paralysis serious.

Butterfly postcard from Angie giving me the happy blue and purple vibes, and spring feelings 

Speaking of friendies: Today is my friend Chantell's birthday. I hadn't been in touch with her for a while, but today I texted her and wished her a happy day, and now we're getting together for dinner next week! Yay! 

Just for good measure, I also sent Nick a message. 

BUDWATCH! Things are looking more detailed.

In other news: I met my new shrink today and LOVED her. The old one gave me the feeling I was being, I believe the medical term is, "judged" (probably my perception, it wasn't because of anything she said or did), and I was encouraged by Hubby and Sandy to think about getting a new one. So I did, and she's great. 

And THEN: Hubby and I attended tonight's basketball game and helped with the 50/50 Raffle. What a great game! 

Find R and S (tan pants next to red hair):

Angie was there too!! Hey girl ❤️

After an amazing last-second win, bed was calling my name. 

Evolution

This morning I learned that I'm down five pounds since January 28! Now I'm back to the weight I'd been stuck on since last June. Haha, yay? At least I turned myself around, and I'm happy about that. 

Made some progress at the old gym today. On Saturday, Emily and I were both huffing and puffing after walking up five flights of stairs at the library, which delighted neither of us. With that in mind, I chose the "hills" routine on the treadmill, and WHAT A PERFECT WORKOUT. Can't wait to keep it going. 

At concert band rehearsal I looked around at my bandmates, feeling whole and happy and at peace, and it hit me that I've finally found my new church (back in 2017, the last two bits of self care advice my shrink gave me were "find a job" and "find a new church"). It took a few years and some trial and error, but I've found that group of people who provide the sense of community I lost when I left the original church - a huge missing piece. I love those people. They are warm and kind, and happy to have me there. I missed that more than I can say. 

In other news: Dan asked if I could work today - he's sick, hoping it's just a cold, and will be out all week. To that I say "YIKES, get well soon" and "Thanks for the extra shifts!" I'll be working Wednesday as well.

At work, there was a table of free books, and I picked up this one. I started reading it while waiting to meet Hubby after work and so far I'm not wowed. We'll see how this goes. 

R was in absolute need of a brownie, so I enjoyed a quick trip to Fred's with her to pick up a mix. We came home and ate dinner and I played with the babies for a bit. 

Later, while messing around in Ancestry, I found some new-to-me pictures of my great grandmother, Alice Johnson Keen. Bottom pic: Alice, her mother Hattie, and her oldest daughter Marguerite.

Thanks, Cousin Jane!

And finally, I started this book:

It's a book race. I'm pretty sure this one will win.

CATNESS EVERMEAN

I didn't do much today - didn't feel very well. There was a lot of lounging and playing with M and the babies. Hubby and I made chocolate chip pancakes and sausage for lunch for everyone. He and R had two soccer games. He and I had a quick trip to Costco to window shop for a new vacuum cleaner and ended up buying food. We had beautiful sunny weather today.

B is trying to finish all of his assigned hikes for his hiking class; H is working in Tacoma for the weekend; C is looking for jobs and has a new haircut and trimmed beard that we'll get to see tomorrow.

The senior parent committee had an impromptu Zoom meeting to talk about what to do about our now-defaced senior wall. Such a bummer, and the school (we feel) could have handled it so much better. Hopefully it will all be fine.

"And where the hell was I?"*

Hubby took on a Saturday shift today, so after dropping him off downtown, I met Emily for breakfast. We met in downtown The Couve this time, picked up our orders, and started another one of our epic sprawling walks. There was a Little Free Library in one of the neighborhoods we visited, as well as folks to chat with, dogs to pet, and cats being very naughty. 

We ended up at the public library, went up to the top floor, and chatted on the balcony - it's a beautiful sunny day and we could see the skyscrapers in Portland from our vantage point. The library is doing a fun Valentine's Day thing with their books. I chose this one:

...which ended up being this:

I also checked out:

After hugging Emily goodbye, I drove to Cl*rk and traded cars with R, so she could head over and pick up Hubby. It's pep band time!

How are we playing instruments during the pandemic? I hear you ask. I picked up this nifty mask after concert band rehearsal yesterday.

And, since our instruments are just nasty, gross receptacles for spit, they get a mask too (my knee for scale):

This is called a bell cover. You should see the one for the French horn.

During the games, when we weren't butchering a Bruno Mars tune, I had great chats with Georg (aka Bassoon Kid) and Uriel, my fellow clarinetist. Georg knows C! He and C played on the same soccer team for a while, and Hubby was their coach. He is also friends with a girl C used to date. What a very small world. 

Hubby attended the second half of the men's game and enjoyed it. Afterward, we had dinner, dropped by Angie's house to pick up the 50/50 stuff**, got Dairy Queen (I ordered a Turtle mini blizzard and ate about a quarter of it, then gave the rest to M), and came home exhausted. We both had a huge day.

*From Naked Gun. We walked around so much, Emily had no idea where in town we were.

**One of our senior parent committee fundraisers, where we sell raffle tickets to audience members at school sporting events. The winning ticket gets 50% of the pot and the committee gets the other half, which goes to the senior graduation party. A couple weeks ago, I made new signs for it.

Goldilocks and the 420 Bears*

BUDWATCH: They're slightly bigger.

Today was a pretty mellow day which included: 

- Sbux and a drive over to Lacamas Lake with Hubby

- Texting my siblings "Happy Dad's Birthday" and hearing my dad's voice for the first time since the last time I saw him. Mel saved his voice messages on her answering machine. Cue the tears

- Band practice, which was quite funny. "Start at G for 'gnome'"

- Lots of baby time

- M's homemade tortillas and then burritos for dinner

- B giving us souvenirs from Arizona. Here's one of mine (which we all played with):

Finished this book. ("What will you read tomorrow?" Hubby asks.)

*from one of our completed Mad Libs

Books and Cats

Finished these books today.

Started this one.

Spent time with these lazy sacks.

Back in the saddle again

So here's something I've been thinking about doing for a while, and today I finally managed to get there for a workout:

Up until now I've said to myself, you don't need to go to a gym, walking outside is free. But do I do it? No. So we're doing it this way for a while.

I visited this lady during her lunch time and brought her some food. Her company was delightful as always.

Then it was off to band rehearsal, which was fun as usual, and I figured that since I'd be back in an hour to pick her up from school, I may as well head over to the library. It was fun to spot this book on a shelf - the author is a friend:

The library was also having a nice big sale, selling used books at $1 a pop, and I couldn't resist adding to my cross stitch book collection and grabbing a couple of things for the babies. I read for a while and then took R home.

After a major nap, which was hard to get up from, I met Hubby downtown. We decided it was a good time to visit H at his place of employment and have dinner.

This job is keeping H busy. Tonight he was the acting manager. This weekend he will be going to Tacoma to help at that location, and there's talk of his old manager moving to Colorado and commandeering H to go with him. 

After dinner, we settled in for another senior parent committee meeting, then came home and went to bed.

Today was the best day I've had in a long time, as far as "doing everything right" with my diabetes, so I'm giving myself a gold star:

⭐