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Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Catch Up (not to be confused with ketchup)

Today I'm playing catch up on my digital life. Scotty fixed my laptop over the weekend, so I'm on my laptop for the first time in months (when I fired it up, the browser was still open to the registration forms for Nicky's golf season which started last August... so my laptop had been out of commission for about six months). Man, it feels good to be using a keyboard! Do I remember how to type? Nah. I never learned how to type. I do my own thing, which involves only using one finger on my left hand. I was really self-conscious about this when I was a school secretary and had to do typing tests to qualify, but I always made the minimum WPM to be eligible, so who cares?

With my digital catching up, I have the itch to blog, but I don't really have anything in mind for content, so bear with me on this one. It could be quite random. Normally I would do one of my "and ten other random things" style posts, but I'm trying to pretend like I blog in paragraphs and not lists (since I've done so many lists lately). 

Should you be interested to know what I've been up to lately, I'll give you the rundown. Yesterday I made pretzel bites, and they were delicious. I also made chocolate chip cookies (assisted by Zoe), and they were delicious, too! Chocolate chip cookies stress me out because everyone has a different recipe that they claim to be "the best," and I don't know how to navigate that. I want to have a chocolate chip cookie party where we are able to taste test all the cookies side by side. I don't know if I will ever claim to know "the best" chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I will confidently declare, "I made chocolate chip cookies, and they don't suck." Because they don't suck!

I've been working on cleaning out Zoe and Eva's bedroom over the past week. Their room is always a nightmare. They are little hoarders, and I have to comb through hundreds of art projects and tiny, stupid toys. Every time I get it cleaned and organized, I think, "Okay, this time for real! This room is staying clean!" and it literally takes five minutes for them to turn it into a dumpster. One of my biggest problems with them is that, in addition to wanting to keep everything, they want to display it! They set up their garbage like a museum covering every surface of their room. So the dollhouse? Every room is a collection of fidgets and squishies. The kitchen set? Here's every card and piece of candy they were given for Valentine's Day. The dressers? Every rock and stick they've gathered in the past month and every tiny eraser they've mooched off their friends from school is piled on there.  

The room is full of notebooks of song lyrics and screenplays. There are papers everywhere. And socks. So many socks. And they are not socks I purchased, so I have to ask, where the hell are my kids getting all these socks?

And don't even get me started on stuffed animals. 

I don't hate stuffed animals. But I want my kids to have 3-5 max. I swear I get rid of at least 100 stuffed animals a year, and they just keep multiplying! HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?

And, of course, they all have names, and they're super very special, so if I get rid of a bunny rabbit from the dollar store that has a big hole in its back that my kid hasn't touched for three years, it's suddenly named Harriet and is the most important stuffie of all time, and the kid will never sleep again. The days I purge the stuffies are brutal. The girls never see them leave the house, and yet, somehow they always know. Even if the dang things have been sitting in a garbage bag in the shed for eight months. 

As you know, I've started working a couple days a week. It's been so great. It's fitting into my life better than I ever imagined, and I am really enjoying the feeling of accomplishment I get when I finish something at work. I don't really get that feeling at home because anything I do at home is never really finished, and there's not always a visual cue to validate my efforts. At work, I can build 100 photo frames and watch them pile up on a shelf, and there's something to show for it. I can assemble an order and package it for shipping and see it sent out into the world, signaling that this task is DONE. 

I like that. And I didn't know how much I needed that in my life. I need to be able to FINISH something or to SEE progress in some way, and I get that at work.  

Last weekend Zoe competed in the State Lego League Competition. It was not my favorite event (nor was it hers), but we got through it. Scotty, Eva, and I spent most of the day in Ogden so we could pop in and out of Weber State to see some of Zoe's events. 

This is the first five-day school week we've had in a while. The past three weeks have been four-day weeks. I feel like five-day school weeks are rare. 

My eyes have been really itchy this week. 

(Yes, I'm digging at the bottom of the barrel for something to write about). 

I'm 43 days soda sober, and I hate living this way. Nothing fills the void. There is joy in a soda run - pulling up to the window and having someone hand you an icy Coke... running into a gas station and having access to pebble ice and styrofoam to keep everything chilled... ahhhhhh. There is nothing that replaces that. 

Maverik, I miss you.

McDonald's, I miss you.

Sweet nectar, I miss you.

But whatever. I can't moderate my soda intake, so it's best that I not have any at all. It’s all or nothing for me. 

In other news, I dyed my hair the other day, and I look like Snape. It's not the first time I've ended up looking like Snape, and it's probably not the last. Speaking of Harry Potter-esque things, there's a house for sale by the junior high, and the realtor is named Emma Watson. True story. 

My low battery indicator just went on, so I better finish this up before my computer shuts down. I would leave you with something profound, but let's be honest, all I'm thinking about now is what I'm going to have for lunch, and I can’t even muster up the energy to find a photo to stick in this post. 

Happy Wednesday, my friends. 


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