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.

Baking

meisajDaily Life

I’ve baked a few things lately I’m pretty happy with

Started with Cheddar Jalapeno Bread.  Which I’ve made before but lately it’s come out flat (still tasty though). 

Came out near perfect this time.  So good even Edith enjoyed it – as long as I removed the jalapeno chunks.  But the flavor and juice from the jalapeno was still there and she ate it.

Sam and I, with a little help from Edith smashed this in a day.

Yesterday Sam had a craving for walnut brownies.  I was already using the oven for a Rice and Chicken bake for dinner (sooooo good).

I found a random recipe online as Sam assured me just dumping walnuts into a brownie recipe wouldn’t work.  But I found an easy one and threw it in the toaster oven/air fryer and it came out great as well. 

Also made apple chips Monday in our dehydrator.  Which disappeared quickly.

Pretty happy so far.  Not every week has time for baking and cooking, but I’ve fit it in this week.

There’s a cheese and apple bread recipe in one of our cook books I want to try soon… maybe today.

Fangs?

meisajDaily Life

Marceline got some plastic vampire fangs from a friend at school.  It immediately changed her Halloween costume from a Ladybug, which she wore to school that day to being a vampire when we Trick or Treated a few hours later

She’s been wearing them on and off since Halloween.  It wasn’t until I picked them up while cleaning that I saw something off about them.

This was a full week after Halloween.  I’m just baffled.  How hard is it to make vampire fangs?

If fangs are supposed to be canine teeth, how do you screw up how many teeth are in between? 

Why is there one prominent middle tooth?

Why are there five teeth between the canines on the upper jaw, and three teeth between the canines on lower jaw?

Maybe I’m ignorant and just don’t know of some random creature who has a teeth structure like this.

Or maybe these are just very very badly designed vampire fangs.