Summer List - 2012

In no particular order, here are my goals for this summer:

-recover my home office

-get a password management system up and running

-get tap shoes and use them (for clogging)

-ride at least three 50+ mile road adventures

-tromp or ride in the woods once a week

-put a ceiling in the basement

-read books everyday

-put new edging around front beds

-grow out my hair or chop it all off (decide before Sept 4)

-draft 3 chapters of my book

-write 2-3 new urban history lectures

-sort all my teaching files

-ride to AA to work once a week (when not traveling)

-take kids on an overnight backpacking adventure

-donate or trash at least one bag/box of stuff for every week of Jun, July, and August

-paint Emma's door to look like the Tardis (I could use help with this)

-teach Emma to cook

-help Owen find a sporty activity he loves

-develop a workable chore schedule for the kiddos

-avoid all contact with poison ivy

Ouch

Okay, this is it for a while. My right arm -- that would be my mousing arm and the one attached to my yuiopghjklbnm fingers -- is hurting. I've got internet elbow and carpal-tunnel-graded-too-many-papers-itis. Since there are still more papers to be graded and it pains me more than the joints and tendons to not write comments on them, I've got to scale back the 'puter time. I've give my Scrabble games to E (watch out!) and set my Facebook status to something that begs to not be changed for two more days...

I do have a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking 8 laying around. I may try to get that up and running... and then I can dictate comments for my students and yammer out all the blog posts running around in my brain. Then I can save more precious right arm for other amusing pursuits :)

Sounds of the Jungle

Good golly. I'm drinking (very weak) coffee at Jungle Java in Ann Arbor while my children are off climbing around in the giant indoor jungle gym. Very strange. I suppose this is a lovely idea, especially for a cool, rainy Saturday afternoon at the tail end of spring break. I brought work (because the kids don't want much from me with all this play equipment and I am not allowed to chase them through the climbing structure anyway) but I find the people here way too distracting to get much done. The lighting is really weird, too, and I'm feeling seriously disoriented. I expect we will all be twitching by the time we leave.

I wonder, what is the ratio of tantrums-upon-leaving to number of child patrons at this place?

Giggles

This is the first day of a long weekend for the kids. They have a friend over to spend the night and the three of them have been happily building pillow forts in the basement and playing "snake family."

I've been toddling around upstairs, keeping an ear out for conflict or over-the-top craziness, but all I'm hearing is giggling. For something on the order of an hour, the trio has been giggling wildly. As adults, you know we would have puked long ago from all that mirth, but they are just cruising along.

Oh sure, there was that moment when exuberant play led one child to crash into another and then that child smashed his face on a hard doll head... but the tears didn't last. They shifted from the basement to the bedroom and the giggles resumed. Soon I will have to try to convince them to go to sleep and stay that way until a respectable hour in the morning, but for now, it is the easiest night I've had at home in a long time.

This allows me to ramble on about other things:

1)Cake. W and I stole away for lunch out on Thursday after my PT appointment. We split a hazelnut torta for dessert. It was super yummy. Don't worry, I didn't really lick the plate, I was only smelling the hazelnuts and gingered cream...









2)Sledding. We had the hill to ourselves yesterday for the Second Annual Valentine's Day Sled Fest. While there was lots of interest in the event, only my family, Andy, Matt, Stacey, and her kids came out. Yep, adults outnumbered the kids! The snow was not particularly fast, but it was still fun and nice to not have to worry about reckless sledders running anyone down. Well, Stacey did overtake O and knock him out of his sled at the bottom of the hill on one run, but no injuries were sustained. Andy wins the "most reckless sledder" award for trying to recreate the spectacular fall Andre took last year (sleds are not for standing on, people!) -- and his neck is hurting today, hmmm.... Geo and Warren win the award for longest run. Riding double on Uncle Bob and having received a nice push off the top from L, they were able to hit the snow fence at the bottom. Dinner at Aubree's followed. The place was pretty well empty (not a romantic Valentine's Day destination, I guess), which meant the kids could be left to play tag among the pool tables while the grown-ups drank tall, tall beers...

3)Dalat. We like this Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Ypsi quite a bit. After surfing around through the menu, we've now settled on our favorites and order the same thing every time: 61, 62, 64, 66 -- a good amount of food and enough diversity to please all. But the restaurant has been closed of late -- and not for their annual trip to Vietnam. A friend sent me a pic of the sign that is on the door, but it doesn't really clear things up. Anyone know what's up and when they might be open again?

4)BeerFest. It's coming. Feb. 23. Yep, I'm as excited as Daye! I think I'll go do a bit of delious warm up by checking out the scheduled beer line up. What could be better than drinking beer on a February afternoon in Michigan on an outdoor ball field? Sounds perfect to me :)