After my last post, I was sure I was going to get back to writing regularly (not daily, but at least a couple of times a week). However, the more time passes, the more overwhelmed I feel. To keep things simple in this post, I think I’ll just write bullet points, short snippets of what’s been going on lately. I’ve really missed writing a lot!
**Eli bought a new (used) car. And when I say used, I mean a Dodge Neon. They stopped making them in the early 2000s, I think. I actually had a 1995 Dodge Neon when I was in college and loved it. Eli is a huge car guy, as is Noah, and he chose this one because of the “mods” (I don’t know anything about cars, I’m not interested in them at all).
It is very interesting, though, that both Noah and Eli have met people through their cars. On more than a couple of occasions, car enthusiasts have pulled into the parking lots behind them to ask about their cars. I didn’t know this, but there is a whole community like this; my kids have even gone to car “meets.” Anyway, I’ve taken over Eli’s Volvo – it’s a 2008 and has 317,000 miles on it. I hope it lasts until car interest rates come down, but I’ll drive it until it’s gone. It has a CD player, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to put in some old CDs from high school. I have no idea why I kept it, but I’m glad I did!
**I have gained about five pounds. Honestly, I feel lucky that I haven’t gained more! I know my biggest problem is snacking at night. I don’t know why it’s so hard to control. If I could just stop snacking before bed, I know it would make a huge difference in my weight. I guess all I can do is keep trying!
**One of the reasons I was hesitant to write is because of a comment someone left on my last post (I didn’t publish it). This person has been hate-reading my blog for probably over 10 years, and I was a little freaked out that they mentioned something very specific about my kids. There are some things I’ve always kept private on my blog, usually for security reasons. (For example, the name of my kids’ schools…yes, someone could get that information if they really wanted to, but I didn’t want it to be easily accessible on my blog.)
Seeing something so specific in the comment, something I had purposely omitted from the blog, was a little creepy. I was used to demeaning comments (she loves to make me feel bad about everything: my terrible parenting, being a bad wife, being a lazy stay-at-home mom, doing projects wrong and making them look like crap, my food looks disgusting, my house is ugly, you name it!); but this was new. I’ve been valuing privacy more and more lately (with cameras *everywhere* now, I hate feeling watched all the time). So the fact that this person was looking for this information about my family was disturbing. I don’t understand why people hate reading anyway; my time means too much to me to waste it in such a negative way.
**My Asian pear tree is bearing fruit! I just planted it in the fall and couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw actual fruit there. I had waited probably 10+ years for the other “Asian pear” tree to bear fruit, only to find out that the tree was simply an invasive species of tree that would never bear fruit. I look forward to eating some Asian pears from the tree this fall!
**One day Jerry and I were scrolling through Instagram when we saw the “old man challenge” – you have to stand on one foot and put on your sock and shoe (while keeping your balance and not putting your foot down or holding on to anything), then switch legs and put on your other sock and shoe. We tried it and had fun doing it, so we looked up more challenges. There was one that I thought was ridiculously impossible, but we tried it for a laugh. And we found out that it actually wasn’t that bad – it looks a lot harder than it is! This is just a screenshot from a video right before we fell to the ground.
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| Date Night Pranks |
Ideally, both people would be able to balance horizontally. We never managed to balance to the point where we could hold the position for a long time, but later we realized that the person on top has to stay flat (this is hard to describe – if you look at the picture, Jerry should be lying down more, which helps control the balance). Anyway, we had a lot of laughs and have some funny videos of us falling.
We also did a challenge to see who could draw the best circle without looking. Mine is the white one and Jerry’s is the red one. Basically, you stand with your shoulder close to the wall, facing forward so you can’t see the board. Then you use your arm to make a big circle and see how close the beginning and end are to touching each other. Mine was really good! Jerry’s needed some work, haha.
Luke and Riley came over and I asked them to try it out too. Luke was hilarious. At first, Luke’s was a little off, so he switched to his left hand and it was almost perfect. He’s the only person I know who is truly ambidextrous: sometimes he writes with his right hand, sometimes with his left, whatever he feels like. Same goes for things like throwing a ball and even playing Jenga.
**While Luke and Riley were here, I played Tapple with them. It’s the game I wrote about earlier where there’s a category and you have to take turns naming things that are in that category, starting with a unique letter each time, until all the letters are used or someone can’t think of one before the timer goes off (you have 10 seconds each). The category was “things found in a house” and we went through things like couch, table, dresser, pets, etc. There were only a few letters left and “i” was one of them. Riley said, “Housed!” I was stunned and couldn’t help but laugh. She’s only five! That was impressive.
**When Jerry and I went to Minnesota, we spent a lot of time at Becky’s parents’ house. Becky’s mother is a very talented quilter (she quilted the top of my race shirt). Since I love to sew, I was fascinated by her sewing room and all of her quilts. This one blew my mind: she made all of the pieces BY HAND with a needle and thread! She told me how many pieces there are, but I can’t remember.
The hexagons are incredibly small and she had to do a lot of “mind cutting,” which basically means that instead of cutting the fabric in any direction, she chose to cut the hexagons with the fabric polka dots in the center and the stripes in particular directions. I wish I had the patience to quilt, but I prefer smaller projects (probably because I’m an instant gratification person, ha).
**Remember when I took the 23&Me test back in December? I only did it for the medical part, but towards the end of January, I decided to look into the ancestry part. I thought it would be incredibly boring, but I discovered something amazing. I wish I could go into detail, but I have to keep this vague. I saw someone listed as a first cousin (who shared a set of grandparents with me) and I didn’t recognize the name. I asked my parents, and they didn’t know either (my parents each have five siblings, so there were a lot of possibilities).
I got in touch with this cousin (I’ll call him a gender-neutral “Sam”) and found out that he had been adopted right after he was born. They didn’t know who his birth parents were due to a closed adoption, but they did have a little information from the adoption agency. Based on this, I was able to find out who Sam’s birth father is. Sam had been looking for this information for decades! The birth father has chosen to remain anonymous, and because of the closed adoption, Sam is respecting his wishes. I really hope that one day this will change, but for now, all I can do is get to know my cousin, and talking to him has been great! We look forward to meeting up later this year.
**We purchased more luxury vinyl planks and are going to put them in the bedrooms. Eli’s bedroom and my craft room still have carpet, which is in desperate need of replacing, so we’re excited about this project. I’m hoping to have Jerry install it next weekend. While I did most of the work in remodeling the house, Jerry did the flooring and I’m happy I don’t have to! I’m definitely going to paint the craft room though. Maybe I’ll do it this weekend, in fact.
I’m going to end this post now. I know I have more to write (I really need to keep a list), so I hope to write another post soon. Thank you for the love and checking in on me. I really appreciate it, more than I can express.
