Category: Daily Life

These are my daily rants, stories, and what not.

Raking and a Fire

meisajDaily Life

Yesterday was another full day. We start off slightly easy. Get up around 7:30 / 8, try to stay in bed but the girls are awake so I am awake.

Marceline also wasn’t feeling well so her day has become “stay at home, stay in bed;” which for Marceline is not a bad thing. She has hit her “I want to read everything,” and read several books yesterday while watching tv on and off.

Edith and I met some preschool friends at a playground for a Sunday playdate. And while it was a play date for Edith, it was also a playdate for me. I know my role, or rather the role I have cultivated with the group of preschool kids from both Marceline and Edith’s years at school.

I’m the parent that plays with the kids. Chases them around, plays games with them, picks them up and twirls them, and generally engages with them all the time.

One boy who I haven’t seen since June was shy for about two minutes, and then ran over grabbed my hand was dragging me around the playground for the next two hours. Edith and her friends were grabbing my hat and giggling / running away from me. One little girl who was about two, who was at preschool pick up every day last year, grabbed my finger and had me help her gather acorns and roll them down a slide.

We were there for two hours and I think I had maybe 5 minutes where I didn’t have a kid attached to my hip. This as most of the other parents were talking and catching up. Not that they were ignoring the kids, but there weren’t sought out by the kids like I was.

Maybe it is from being raised in a day care house.

Anyways after that Edith and I got lunch before coming home to find Marceline asleep and Sam reading. Edith and hid downstairs for a bit to not wake Marceline before I decided I had to get out and rake. It was in the mid 40’s and comfortable, and our backyard was full of leaves. I also started a small fire to burn some of our sticks that have been piling up in the backyard.

Eventually we moved Marceline outside under a blanket. We figured some fresh air would do her good. And it did. She was more lively out there for a few hours than she was in the last 24 hours. We ate dinner out there, read books by the fire, and watched the sunset before telling stories in the dark around a dying fire.

It was a great way to end the day and end the weekend.

Busier

meisajDaily Life

Yesterday felt busier than it had any right to be.

Tuesdays are busy in that Edith has speech in the morning before preschool.  And even though speech isn’t until 11, it is 20 minutes away so I try to leave by 10:30.

So after Marceline gets on the bus and I walk back home I have 2 hours roughly till I have to leave the house with Edith.

Still tired from a great Bills weekend meant I was moving slower too – did I mention I slept on a couch in a very bright living room of the Airbnb we got.  Not that it was uncomfortable but I didn’t sleep great either night.

Anyways, get Edith breakfast, dressed, read some books, make her lunch. Snack, pack all her rain gear for preschool and we get out the door on time.

So normal, if not tired Tuesday morning. 

The catch is I also have to bring two cats to get their bi-annual lion cuts at 2 because they are old and don’t do well keeping themselves clean.  And that place is also 20 minutes away.

So drop Edith at preschool after speech (12:30), head home after chatting with another parent for a second.  Get 45 minutes to make lunch and then wrangle two cats into cat carriers, load them up into the car and out the door.

After dropping I hit up Aldi’s for our weekly groceries (2 days overdue now), and have just enough time to make it back to Edith’s preschool for pick up (3:30).  Actually I was fifteen minutes early and took a ten minute nap in the car.

Come back.  Get Edith unpacked, check in with Marceline and Sam, bunker down to make dinner while Sam heads out for some of her own errands. Just as I finish unpacking groceries so I can make dinner, the cat place calls and says they are ready for pick up.

Sam is half out the door and the groomers are in the opposite direction of where she is going so I load the girls up and we head out to go get the cats and maybe a pizza for dinner.

Getting the cats was no problem, but it’s now 5 and even an order from Little Caesars takes much longer than it should for a fresh and ready pizza.  Despite ordering ahead the girls and I… And two cats sit in the car in the parking lot for fifteen minutes before our pizza is ready because they were behind on orders.

We get home around 6, eat, pajamas and start bedtime routine around seven while I slowly do some cleaning around the house.  Around 8:45 Marceline says she can’t sleep so I grab a pillow and blanket and lay down on her floor where I quickly fall asleep for an hour or so.  I wake up at 10:15 very sore from sleeping on the floor on my back and drag my pillow and blanket back bed, shove a cat out of my spot and crash into sleep for the night.

Like I said.  Busier day than a normal Tuesday and it left me exhausted.  Today… Hopefully moderately better.

Bills Game

meisajDaily Life

As much as I can I try to get to one Bills game a year.  It’s definitely not cheap, but is an excuse to see some college friends (hopefully) and reconnect in that way that only a shared experience can do.

That was this last weekend. Pat, his sisters, their partner, and I hit up Buffalo for a weekend and a game.

And as someone who graduated college over 20 years ago, it was fantastic.  Pat may be the only one of the group who I actually attended college with, but I met his sisters several times and honestly I’d consider them good friends now.  (And I’ll leave names out here, because other than Pat whom I’m sure I’ve mentioned before names aren’t needed).

Pat and I put out the call to other friends who live in the area, a few responded. We got together for dinner and a stroll down Elmwood. Things have changed as much as the feeling has stayed the same.

And the Bills game, and tailgating.  It’s not quite everything it was 20 years ago… No oil barrels of burning tires, but it was a good time.  And a Bills victory.

I feel… Refreshed.  It was a nice mini break.

There are a lot of pictures.

I like this one.

Yeah… A real photo we asked someone to take of us. It fits.

Getting back at it

meisajDaily Life

It’s hard.

I haven’t run in months. And before that I was starting to get in a bit of an exercise funk. I had been running pretty consistently for almost two years straight and doing push ups daily during that time too.

But my foot started to hurt, felt like a stress fracture on the outside of my right foot. I made a doctor’s appointment in late August and saw him for the consistent pain.

X-Ray’s didn’t show a fracture. Doctor said just rest and see how it heals over 4 – 6 weeks. However during the appointment I pointed out a new spot I had seen on my nose two weeks earlier that wasn’t healing.

He got me a referral to dermatology and I managed to get an appointment that day. And they did a biopsy that day. 

And pretty much I had to stop running because I had a big but on my nose that was missing a few layers of skin. Which came back as basal carcinoma.

And I eventually got in for Mohs surgery in October, which left a bigger hole in my nose.

So here it is mid November and I just ran some for the second day in a row. And even though it’s only two miles each day. And slow. It feels good.

Raking

meisajDaily Life

Our leaves finally fell off last weekend.  It’s pretty late in the season for that but I got out in the front yard for a couple hours yesterday to take and do some yard work.

Most frustrating was getting our hoses off the outdoor spigots.  We maybe left them on last winter.  But some elbow grease, actual grease (WD-40), and wrenches I got them off.

Raking was another matter.  We have a leaf blower, but if there is some sort of leaf blower technique or strategy, I don’t know it.  Probably doesn’t help that we have a nice wind swell being at the end of the cul-de-sac.

So I hand raked a lot.  And listened to music.

Started with some Jessica Lea Mayfield, then some Angel Olsen and finished with some Jets to Brazil.  All throwbacks to one degree or another.  But kept me moving

Which I needed.