January 2021 in review

Okay, I think I slept through half of January, that and the fact January was a crazy month of pressure changes so I had some of the worst migraines. Basically, this means I’m just now getting any part of this written on February 2.

Yes, I’m a bit behind. I did get two of the collages done early.

January week 1

I’m attempting to be a bit more organized, not that you can tell from my getting this written, but one aspect of that means I’m creating a title page in my notebook each month. It lets me have a bit of fun with creativity. I kind of got sizing wrong so my snowman was overrun by the January…. Oh well.

We played my new Christmas game, Clank. Jeff gave me the Mummy’s Curse expansion and the players expansion, the boys were really thrown by the new board, which meant I actually had a chance at winning.

We almost finished reading Les Miserables, I picked an abridged version that was not super abridged, so we spent a little over two months reading it.

We continued our Legacy Seafall game, and Jeff continues to win over all of us. While we were playing the boys’ final Christmas present came in, Among Us hoodies, one imposter and one crewman. I’ll admit this was at least done so they couldn’t say, “No I was wearing the other copy of this yesterday,” when I tell the boys to go change out of the clothes they were wearing yesterday.

I made a Bavarian pot roast as part of our Germany study. It was kind of hilarious because all of the recipes I found for Germany said, “I got this recipe from my German grandma.” EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

 

Week 2

Notice the difference in these pictures. We started off the second week almost warm enough to wear shorts. Yes, that is Superman wearing shorts as he rakes leaves, but he’s a teenage boy and insane.

The middle left picture is Jeff’s final Christmas present. I ordered almost all of my presents the weekend after Thanksgiving, and yet a disturbingly large number of them didn’t show up until late in January.

The middle right picture is a sketch of Princess as we watched Gilmore Girls together. We’ve been having fun watching the show together, and she draws while watching as do I.

We ended the week with a record snowstorm for the Austin area. Our home got about 3-4 inches of snow, and for the first time ever I made a snowman over 6 inches tall. If we had gathered all of the snow in the yard, we could have made an even bigger snowman, but we were pretty proud of this snowman.

Week 3

Well, the pictures for this week have a heck ton more to do with me, than the rest of my family. I finally published the Fall of Man worksheet post that I’d had sitting in draft for over 2 years.

I finished the top for the 2020 Murder Mystery Quilt. I’m thinking of adding borders at the top and bottom to make it taller than it is wide, because I prefer that for a quilt.

Then in the top right corner is the January block for the 2021 quilt. I already think I’m going to like this quilt better since it’s not ombre and it looks like it might be a bit different style, we’ll see.

The final picture is our Les Miserables movie night, we watched the musical which had part of the family happy as clams. My boys… they tolerated everyone else occasionally singing along. I had a blast trying to bake large amounts of french foods I’d never tried before.

Week 4

 

January came to a thundering end, I didn’t even include everything that happened.

The kids started college, they’re taking a sign language class and an introduction to college class. Getting them all signed up for everything they need for college has been quite an ordeal. You heard me rant about it a bit in my Thiel post about dual enrollment, and how much I appreciated their straight forward way to get it done.

We finished Animal Farm and all of the kids realized why I hate the pigs so much, because the pigs are evil. We had our Animal Farm movie night (and watched a truly horrible version, I later found out there was a much better version streaming on Amazon prime, though I don’t know that anything can make that book/movie enjoyable)

I got one of the Battle for Hogwarts expansions, Charms and Potions, which officially lets you play with five players (we’d already house-ruled some ways to do it), and I like the new play ideas it adds in.

Then we had friends over and played their game, What do you meme? Family Edition, which had very mixed reviews from my family. I’m curious if we’d like other editions better than this one. Hmmm… I checked on the traditional edition and it’s R-rated.

But that bottom middle picture, that’s the true story here. Saturday I continued my troubles with pressure changes and had a horrible migraine. While the boys were off at Kung Fu I headed to take a bath.

I was getting out and noticed I’d missed two calls from Princess, so I called her back and here’s the conversation:

Me: Yes, daughter

Princess: You know that glass dish we cook everything in?

Me: The one with the ham in it?

P: Yes, that one, well this is another blender story.

Me: I’ll be out in a moment.

I come out and Leezard is in her crate and Princess has her shoes on. She proceeds to explain how the dog has pulled the dish off the counter, and it shattered and she discovered Leezard happily eating that giant ham as fast as she can. Somehow the dog doesn’t have a single cut on her.

We then proceed to spend the next two hours cleaning up the shattered glass that has gone from the kitchen, around the corner, and almost to the front door.

It was truly impressive in ways I cannot fathom.

All this to say, I am now down one 9×13 Pyrex dish, and the dog spent a significant amount of quality time outside by herself.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

So, that’s our January. Now to get this scheduled for tomorrow, February 3, and all will be well.