April memories 2024

It’s April 19, and it’s crazy to me how quick this month flew by.

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Week 1

I made an attempt at getting bluebonnets pictures. I had this theory we would get more pictures later on, but I don’t know if that will happen. I don’t think that will happen now, so I may just have a sad bluebonnets post this year. Much sadness.

The big picture in the middle is how I did with my various habits, reading, and cooking. As you can see I did not do so good with sign language practice. I’m doing much better this month.

Then going clockwise with the small pictures starting in the top left.

That’s a shot of our gaming group and the giant death dungeon that we are working our way through. It’s quite the campaign, but it’s also super deadly because we don’t always play well together in these stories.

I don’t remember why I took that picture of Leezard, probably just a vague look at cute puppy being cute. But I did. And the flowers were taken while taking Leezard on a walk. I love Texas wildflowers and every year I take loads of pictures of them that I do absolutely nothing with. I just see the flowers and think, “It’s so pretty! I must get a picture of it!”

And finally, on Saturday, Superman had a kung fu demo team show, and we got to go down to a local charter school and see it.

I almost forgot!

Books read:

• Chromatic- I got a chance to pre-read this for Lorehaven, and I very much enjoyed how the series ended, though there was a bit of a deux ex machine in the ending

Games played:

I forgot to record this.

Week 2

Tara and her family came to visit, which means we had our much-delayed Christmas with her family.

We started off the week celebrating Christmas. All of the presents were a big hit, and her kids loved the stereotypical things preschoolers love. So the tea set was a big hit with the 4-year-old girl, and the construction equipment set was a big hit with the 3-year-old boy. The adults enjoyed the board games I gave them, and generally, all presents were a hit.

Then it was time for the solar eclipse and that was amazing! I now understand why people would travel across the country to go see it. There is a world of difference between a partial eclipse and a total eclipse. The only downside was it was cloudy during the eclipse, so we didn’t quite get the full effect, BUT it did clear out from time to time during the eclipse so I got some fun shots, that aren’t great with my phone. I have some friends that got much better pictures than I did.

While Tara was here we played many various games, and I realized one of the games we own, but haven’t played yet is actually a 5-minute cooperative game, so it was rather amusing. This wasn’t actually the game I thought I was getting out, I did find that game later-on, and so we then played that.

While we were playing games Leezard was wandering around the kitchen and looking for something, and I tried giving her lettuce, and she happily ate the lettuce which greatly amused all of us.

Friday night we went to a friend’s house for dinner. I have retyped that sentence several times now because I’m trying to figure out how do I describe the parents of my dead childhood friend in relation to me? They are friends now, but it’s not a peer friendship because I am always very aware they are Sam’s parents.

Either way, it was a fun chance to catch up with them, see how her daughter and her twins are doing (they are also 4), and my kids always enjoy going over to “Uncle Sam’s parents’ house.” Everyone had a great night, and it was a reminder of the value of long term friendships.

Tara and her kids left Saturday morning, and this week was very much a reminder of how very different parenting teens is from parenting preschoolers. They are both tiring in their own ways, and I don’t really miss that age, but it was fun to visit it again as I had several tea parties with Tara’s kids, and went back to parks and how very different parks can be with preschoolers.

Books read:

• Vivid– I went back and reread the first book in the Color Theory series, and I need to then go back and read the second book, I’d forgotten how much the circumstances in each book.
• Longbourn Inheritance– I found an author who writes Pride and Prejudice variations. Basically, each variation changes one or two things. In this particular variation, there had been a son who had died earlier, and Mr. Collins dies! It’s interesting to see just how much that one little variation changes the end result of the plot. I’m actually currently reading another P&P variation, this one with dragons.

Games played:

• There’s been a murder– we are collectively working together to solve the murder, and the end results is part of what makes this so amusing as you are being judged by how quickly you solve it
• Death on the cards– one of you is the murderer, and you are trying to reveal the secrets of the other players so the murderer can be revealed. I am terrible at this game because I am terrible at hidden role games, I have no poker face, none whatsoever
• Relative Insanity– much like many other party games, most of the amusement comes in playing to the person picking

Week 3

We started the week with a field trip at the farm where The Artist volunteers. It was funny because the owner saw her and was like, “Excellent, now you will help with this field trip,” and so occasionally she was pulled in to help with random stuff.

I’ve been working on publishing a book club for Mr. Popper’s Penguins, and was making step-by-step pictures of how to make the snacks I created. I realized I needed to better plan how I would take those pictures for long term plans, also my plans for taking some of those pictures were not good.

We went by Joann’s for a random thing we needed and saw this rather disturbing blank child-sized mask, and were joking about how terrifying it would be for my 5-year-old niece to wear one of those and wake up her mother. My sister-in-law did not appreciate this. I thought it was hilarious.

And my Sunday School craft for the week was making a Cycle of Apostasy wheel which turned out quite well.

I know there are a wide variety of amusing stories to tell for this wee, but I remember nothing.

Books read:

• Geekerella– I got this on sale, and was wildly amused by this variation of Cinderella set in the idea of a thinly veiled Star Trek convention
• Castle of the Winds– the third book in a Gothic fantasy book set in Victorian England

Games played

I kind of forgot to write anything down, and I know I played some with friends

Week 4

To show how our month ended, I’m finishing writing this at 10:00 on May 2.

Most of that week was nothing in particular.

I lied, no the last week of April was the nightmare of FAFSA. I had completed my portion of the FAFSA back on February 3. Then, we got notified there was a problem, so I went to fix it, and there was a problem with my name. So I spent two hours with “customer service” and got it fixed.

They said check back in a day or so and make sure it took.

Only it didn’t, so I login on Wednesday, and spend over an hour on so-called customer service, only to be told, “Well we can’t help you go call Social Security.” I got the phone number from him, only after spending over 10 minutes on hold I find out he gave me the wrong number, instead I had just called a medical alert bracelet company. I look up the phone number and get the one for Austin, I spend another 10-15 minutes on hold, only for them to say, “We’re experiencing unusually long hold times, call the national number,” and then click. They hung up on me.

I searched again and discovered the original number I was given was off by one number from the correct number. So I called them and got back on with customer service for FAFSA. I spent another hour or so, and in theory, got it all corrected. And each time I’m being reassured by the person that I won’t have to fill it out again, and it will all be fine.

Fast forward to Friday and I get another email saying I need to sign the form, I log in and there is no form to sign, but I can start filling out the paperwork all over again.

That is when I completely and totally lost it, and I just started crying. I called the kids and was such a mess that what I said was not English. Eventually, we got everyone sitting in the same room on like four or five different computers as we worked between us, and started over all of the paperwork from the start and submitted it again.

It was horrible.

And that is why I have a picture of us eating dinner at a restaurant because Jeff declared I did not need to be cooking after such a horrible day.

Bless the man.

Saturday morning Superman had a Kung Fu show, and that afternoon The Artist and I went with her best friend and her mom to the botanical gardens to get senior pictures. When I got home and uploaded the pictures I had over 700 pictures, and her mom probably had twice as many pictures as I did. I can’t wait to see those pictures!

Our Sunday School craft the next day was swords to go with the Othneil, Ehud, and Shamgar lesson. I’ll have to write up an official version of what we did, we made a much less sturdy version of the Roman sword project. Not too surprisingly it was wildly popular.

Monday, the Artist had her first work day for her Stars and Stripes project. Her troop decorated flower pots. Next week we’ll be starting the first part of the greenhouse tear down and rebuilding.