Malaise

Wordle 591 3/6

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Fairly typical day yesterday. Dropped the kid off by car on time. 

Work went OK. I got thrown for a loop first thing in the morning when I got an email that looked like a new task, but on second thought turned out to be another draft of a document I had already been working on, but they had ignored my feedback and done work on a file of their own. Annoying and a waste of time. The biggest issue of the day was a question about which type of document should go where, which sent me down a rabbit hole of trying to find or make up clear guidance for something that should already have it and doesn't. If the answer we get turns out to be "everything should start going in the repository my team doesn't currently use at all, which looks like Geocities," then I'd appreciate the simplicity and no longer having to deal with the vagaries of Microsoft Word.

In the afternoon I had a little time to myself because T. had a meeting downtown, so that was nice. Around 4 I went for a walk. I'd barely even call it exercise, and while running some errands (dropping knives off to be sharpened, and buying pork chops, bananas, and an onion) I also got some ice cream so it was probably a net negative for fitness. Oh well, at least I did something. I have a physical therapy appointment coming up so soon I'll hopefully be able to make progress. 

Got the kid at the usual time. She was able to play with a friend in the playground after we picked her up for a few minutes, which she appreciated.

Dinner was pork chops, steamed peas, and leftover French fries.

1.25 hours to myself

Wordle 590 5/6

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One of the usual weekend brunches yesterday: pancakes and bacon. It was good but I'm long overdue for using up some potatoes... Relaxing morning. 

We had a relaxing day planned for me. T. was going shopping for clothes after noon and the kid had a playdate with a friend, an older girl she idolizes a bit, so that would be two hours I'd have entirely to myself. I could run easy errands, play WoW without any concern at all for other commitments, or just sleep, considering that I'm still a bit sick. And afterwards we'd all go to a Girl Scouts climbing event but T. is happy to be the more involved parent with that organization so I could just read or something. 

However, the kid's friend was running late, so my downtime was only a little more than an hour. And T.'s shopping took a lot longer than planned, so I got the kid to the climbing gym myself. (By bus. She thought it would be funny to ask me "are we there yet?" repeatedly on the way. The kid is spoiled by too much car use.) 

I actually had fun and did a little climbing there myself. I could imagine us getting a membership there. It was humbling. It was also hard keeping the kid safe and out of the way of the adults. I'm not sure how much running amok is expected at events like this. (Or what "events like this" even means, a Girl Scout event at a climbing gym...) 

T. picked us up there and drove us home. I got cleaned up quickly, just in time for a visit with our friend D. He used to live in the area but now is only here periodically for work. It was nice to catch up. It's been a while. Probably right around seven years, to be exact, since he remembers the kid as a baby. 

Time to myself

Is only a little more than an hour to myself enough? Too much? I get some time to myself every morning because I'm the first one up but on weekdays it's less than an hour and I'm multitasking. If I had a full day to myself I'm not sure what I'd do with it. Probably not much productive. Getting a good night's sleep the night before seemed far more important than "free" time.

Exhausting

Wordle 589 4/6

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Yesterday instead of the usual weekend brunches, T. suggested something more European-style, like bread, cheese, and cold cuts. I was fine with the variety, and it was less work too.

Later in the morning the kid practiced her guitar while T. and I did laundry and stuff. The smoke alarm was beeping so I checked what kind of battery it had. In the process, T. noticed that the hall lamp was hanging lower than it used to. Around 1 we went to Eastern Market. Parking was a pain. We took the kid to the library for a bit. After that I went to CVS for the batteries, and then T. and I took the kid to a friend's birthday party at their apartment nearby. They had fun. It has a pirate/ocean theme, which was weird in January, but they made it work. The main party favor was inflatable cutlasses. The kid had fun hitting us with them.

We had to leave that party early to go to another birthday party. This one was out in Hyattsville. They overlapped, so we expected to get there late. We were a lot later than expected because T. was navigating, sometimes her phone sends her to the wrong address, and this was one of those times. We were all frustrated. In the end we got to the second partly only about 15 minutes before it ended. The kid had fun briefly. She got a balloon. Afterwards T. realized there were secondhand clothing stores nearby she wanted to go to, and T.'s friend across the street was there and her dad offered to drive the kid and I home, so T. went shopping.

At home, I wanted to get the kid away from screens, so I got out the chess set, and she obliged. We got about 5 moves in before she had to go to the bathroom. I heard screaming. She had brought her balloon with her, and it got caught in the skylight's chain and ripped. There were tears. I gave in and let her watch TV while I did some laundry.

Dinner was leftover pizza. No one was too hungry after all those parties. 

I was tired, obviously. After putting the kid to bed I went to bed myself. I think I was out by 9:30, maybe earlier. I woke up briefly when T. came to bed, around 11:30, but otherwise slept well. I needed it.

Easy Friday

Wordle 588 5/6

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Dropped the kid off uneventfully. Work was fine. Two meetings. I wasn't actually in charge of either, which is always nice, and both were productive. Sent a few emails on other tasks but generally relaxed. 

In my free time, in addition to minor work around the house, I mostly played WoW. I'm not sure how much time is left in the current "season", so I'm not sure how much I need to worry about my seasonal goals (of course, the obvious answer is "not at all, it's a game"), but I'm getting close to one of them (KSM. Still nowhere near AOTC.) The process is humbling. A fair amount of learning by making mistakes.

We got the kid earlier than usual and went to a parents' organization happy hour. It was fun for both us and the kid, since some friends of hers were there. Too brief, though, because she had gymnastics. This is why we don't normally bring her to those events. While she was in gymnastics, we did the shopping. (I dropped her and T. off in a hurry. I thought she'd stay with the kid, or just didn't think at all because we were late, she thought I'd take her to the store with me. I felt bad about leaving her. But then when she got a dessert we didn't need, and lots of other stuff not on the list, I kind of wish she hadn't come!)

During class, the kid's friend across the street invited her to come over for pizza and a movie. We said sure. T. and I had pizza ourselves for dinner, and celebrated having the house to ourselves by watching a little more TV of a more mature topic (i.e. swearing) than usual. What can I say, it was only 2 additional hours to ourselves and I'm still a bit sick.

The morning was the only hard part

Wordle 587 4/6

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The vet gave the cat an antibiotic for a suspected respiratory infection and sent us on our way.

I came home to find that meeting in progress. My teammate had no problem continuing to take minutes. I followed along and we got basically the same results with the part I was there for, which is encouraging. 

Later in the day I finished a report to our leadership on the status of stuff in the library on a team-by-team basis. It went well. I mean, the status isn't great, but the report looks good in the end in my opinion and my teammates agreed. So let's see how the next meeting goes.

I had used up the last of our DayQuil later in the day so I walked to the pharmacy for more. The shelf was pretty picked over - it's that time of year - but they had Theraflu so I got that. On the way home I picked up burritos for lunch, for a little variety.

The afternoon was quiet enough for me, but not for T. a meeting with someone annoying at work and a stressful call with her mother about plans for our next visit. I put chicken in a slow cooker recipe and prepped the carrots for glazing before we left to get the kid. The guitar lesson teacher was a substitute but not a complete stranger to us, so that was interesting.

Dinner wasn't my finest work, but after that morning, and generally being sick, who cares. And the kid ate it, so its blandness wasn't a problem for her.

Bad timing for a rough morning

Wordle 586 5/6

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Yesterday T. and I both took the kid to school. We parked in the neighborhood and had breakfast at a nearby café. Then we went to her school for Exposition. It was focused on conscious consumerism, i.e. smart shopping and thinking about the effects of how you shop. Ironically the kids made things for sale to the parents as a fundraiser for a local charity. When the kid asked for money to buy a keychain, I enjoyed asking her if it was something she needed or something she wanted. The event was more hectic than last year, maybe just because it was fully indoors due to the time of year. 

After that, home for a couple hours of work. I had planned on a half-day because the kid also had a guitar lesson in the afternoon, a makeup class for a class missed over the holidays. (Can't save them up too long.) But T. took the whole day off and offered to take care of that without me, and after a little hesitation I accepted. I thought about napping but didn't get other stuff wrapped up in time, but still relaxed more than usual. 

Lazy day yesterday. I'm getting sick, with a sore throat, runnier nose than usual, and general aches and pains. T. is getting better from her illness but still not 100 percent yet. The kid had more free time than usual because she was picked up earlier than usual because of the guitar lesson. But it was raining, so outside activities were off the table and it was hard to persuade her to go anywhere else. So we just sat around in the afternoon. T. and the kid watched a movie on Netflix while I played WoW and finished out my workday. Seems like they liked it. The kid got too much screen time, probably even if we didn't count the movie. 

Dinner was pasta and asparagus. The kid liked them more than expected. Cool. While grating the parmesan cheese, I grated my finger a bit. Ouch.

This morning the cat had a vet appointment for a respiratory issue. It overlapped with the kid's school dropoff, but we figured T. could do one solo and I could do the other. No problem. While getting ready for bed last night I suddenly realized it also would overlap with a meeting of mine every Thursday at 9. Shit! So the first thing I did in the morning was reach out to a teammate and ask him to cover the meeting. Fortunately, he had no problem with it. 

This morning when T. logged on she found out that she had a meeting at 8:30. Shit, shit! So instead of dropping the kid off a little before the last minute like usual, she dropped the kid off a little before the official start of the drop-off time. I got the cat to the vet's appointment and it was uneventful but it's too early to say for sure he's OK.

Walking in the other direction counts as variety

Wordle 585 5/6

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Yesterday I drove the kid to school alone again. T. still isn't feeling well.

Work was fine. One meeting in the morning. The topic wasn't mainly my responsibility but I had some things to say anyway. I had a good-sized to-do list for the day and in the end got through all of it. Good for me. The hassle from yesterday, the change to a template, has developed into a new template and we got to work on that, but it hasn't/won't hold up the documents in progress until it's done, so that's not as bad as I had feared.

I was feeling hassled again yesterday, maybe even frazzled. Out of sorts even! I thought about doing some sketching to see if it had any therapeutic value. I got out my sketchbook and found some models Warcraft-related models to draw, but didn't actually get around to putting pencil to paper. Maybe some other time.

In the afternoon I took a walk, a bit earlier than usual, or else longer days are already getting noticeable. Normally I walk around our neighborhood and the nearby college, but yesterday on the spur of the moment I went south instead of north, up Capitol Hill. Scenic. More street crossing - irrelevant when walking leisurely but it would be a problem if I were trying to run. It's funny, I've been complaining about cars while stuck in traffic taking the kid to school or elsewhere, but yesterday my walk took me by Lincoln Park. When she was 3 or so we tried getting her in a kid's soccer club. We walked there with her in a stroller, a mile uphill, in November, and she hated the soccer anyway. That sounds roughly as silly as most of the recent car stuff.

After that I got myself cleaned up quickly and then went to meet the kid and her friends at the pool. I had to be early because I had forgot to send her to school with a swimsuit. Whoops. Swimming went well. I didn't even try to work out and just read on the bleachers.

Dinner was tilapia and a cucumber salad. T. made it all and it came out better than mine, according to the kid. Maybe she should cook more often! :) 

In the evening my throat started feeling scratchy. Uh oh. Hope I'm not getting what T. has.

Hassles

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Yesterday I drove the kid to school alone because T. wasn't feeling up for it. I had the house to myself for most of the morning because she was napping. I didn't get to enjoy it much, though. I spent most of the time listening in on a meeting with the team responsible for these short-notice tasks, in hopes of preventing or getting warning of the next ones. I had minor follow-ups. Good for me for attending.

In the morning I made an appointment with the physical therapist. Then while looking up directions I got confused, because why would the doctor have referred me to the business's Virginia address when they also have DC locations? Could I move it? I've kept the appointment for now but may have it elsewhere going forward.

Our weekly team meeting is usually Tuesday but was moved to yesterday because our lead will be out today. It was busy. Lots of stuff going on. After that, listening in on an all-hands. After that I wanted to go for a walk, but first I had to deal with an issue at work, and it turned out to be more complicated than I expected/wanted. This other team has been making changes to the template of some documents we're working on for them, and at first it seemed pointless but as of discussion yesterday, maybe they have a good argument, and also we should be handling these documents differently. It's a bit complicated.

I finally got away from my computer at around 4:40 and went for a walk. Very abbreviated, just through the neighborhood with a detour by the 7/11 for milk. Far from the usual walk but it was still most of my time on my feet for the day. 

Picked up the kid at the usual time or a bit later, solo again.

Dinner was tamales and refried beans. Very easy.

This morning I woke up around 5:30 and couldn't go back to sleep without making sure everything was OK. I would say I heard a noise, but I had my earplugs in. It might be more honest to say I had a minor panic attack or something? I don't know if that even makes sense, but it was the first time in 2 years I had to get out of bed to make sure the door was locked. At that point I just stayed up, so I'm a little short on sleep.

Lazy despite a race

Wordle 583 3/6

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Pancakes and bacon yesterday. And the pancakes definitely taste different when greasing the pan with butter rather than bacon fat. The weekend routine was thrown off a tiny bit. 

T. wasn't feeling well, so she took a nap in the late morning/early afternoon. The kid had an afternoon activity, the Scouts' pinewood derby. I had to go to the grocery store for tea, cough drops, and a few other things. I gave her the choice of doing the shopping with me before the derby (i.e. basically interrupting the episode of TV she was watching) or after (i.e. maybe delaying or even preventing uncertain plans for playing with friends). She opted for the former, sullenly. I said yes to more requests than I normally might have (Froot Loops, jumbo Goldfish) to make shopping a little more appealing. Not sure if it actually helps.

The derby went well enough. The kid didn't want to compete in the main event and didn't have much interest in it, but she got to hang out with friends who were there. There was a little squabbling over who wanted to hang out with whom, I'm not looking forward to this age, but still, glad we went. She was interested in the Scout's Choice award and had decorated her car for that. Didn't win but was fairly understanding of it. 

After we got home, we had about an hour of downtime. Then her friend across the street came over for over an hour.

Dinner was chicken and green beans.

The kid got a lot of screen time. Bad parenting, maybe, but it was rainy and cold out and we had done enough prodding the kid to do more edifying stuff the day before, and T. was tired. I put the kid to bed even though it wasn't my turn.

Better than most unstructured days

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Yesterday T. asked for eggs, bacon, and English muffins for breakfast instead of the usual pancakes. Why not? 

We had no outings planned yesterday. Tentative plans for a playdate for the kid but that's it. So instead we got stuff done around the house. All the laundry, where normally that takes until Sunday night. The kid got cleaned up early (it was overdue) and practiced her guitar with relatively little complaint, and worked on cleaning her room a bit. 

In addition to laundry and general cleaning, in the afternoon T. and I took turns lying down a bit. We both had a bit of a headache. 

In addition to lack of sleep and stress over the house stuff - progress is good, but it'll be a lot of money and stress until it's done - I'm worried about the cat. He's sick. I think he's still having urinary problems, although he's spent an unusual amount of time for the past few days so I can't be sure, and he's definitely having respiratory problems. I don't regret cancelling this appointment, under the circumstances, but I wish we had followed up right after we got back.

The day went better than I would have expected. Normally the kid only wants to either watch TV or bother us. But there wasn't too much fighting about the chores she assigned. We got out a gummy candy set she got for Christmas and made a batch of those. That was interesting. Otherwise she did some word searches, read, and generally behaved herself. She did get more screen time than usual but it wasn't too egregious.

A little after 4 I went for a walk. Not too vigorous got I got to clear my head and get my steps in. Aside from the bare minimum of exercise, I think time to myself without screens or anything is good. I wouldn't say it goes as far as meditation, but it's at least time for introspection.

The kid's friend got to come over for a few minutes, but there was some miscommunication about their plans, so it was only for about half an hour. 

Dinner was a stir-fry, mostly beef and broccoli. The beef was kind of tough but it was still good overall.

After putting the kid to bed, like usual, T. and I watched a little TV while playing our respective games. Unfortunately she finished hers and tried to unclog the cat's nose right when I was in the middle of a dungeon that wasn't doing well. I should have helped her faster or just had the cat's water fountain ready earlier. Whoops. I don't know if there's a rule to be made there - "no dungeons while the cat is sick?" - other than just not procrastinating so much, but that dungeon was a mess either way. Sometimes they don't go well.

Average Friday plus dinner out

Wordle 581 5/6

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Yesterday we experimented with T. biking the kid to school on her bike. It went well enough. She felt nauseous working out with coffee but no breakfast, and hasn't figured out how to engage the motor on her bike, but despite that, well enough, as in, we got there and back without any safety issues. The other stuff can be worked on. I enjoyed it, at least. It was sunny and in the high 40s, so we needed coats and didn't work up a sweat but weren't bundled up much. Exercise, particularly light exercise early in the day, feels good. Crazy, I know.

It was the biweekly report day at work, so that's never fun. It went OK. The only really late one was the result of miscommunication rather than them actually being late. Something to work on.

Exchanged emails with the architect and contractors. Incremental progress.

In the afternoon I went for a walk and happened by the grocery store on H St. and got a few things. We might be good for a week depending on how creative/organized I can be in the kitchen.

Then home for a little more work, at least on paper. Not too productive but at least I got things organized to hit the ground running next week. 

We left to get the kid at school around 5. We were on time for gymnastics class for once. During class I went to the ATM at the nearby 7/11 for cash but otherwise we just sat and read.

After class we met a friend at a nearby Italian restaurant for dinner. That was fun. The kid ate more of her dinner than I would have expected.

T. and I stayed up late watching Bullet Train. Good movie, but I'm feeling kind of stressed/grumpy now and being a bit short on sleep might be part of why. Not that there aren't other possibilities.

Getting old sucks

Wordle 580 2/6

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Woo hoo.

We drove the kid to school yesterday. It went fine, although I was worried about being late. It's hard to judge what traffic will be like until we're halfway there.

Work was fine. Productive enough. Worked on several little things. Closed a couple tasks, which is always nice, even if in this case it was because we definitely determined they weren't needed rather than actually finishing work on them. On the personal front during the workday we sent several emails to the architect about engineer contractors. Things are moving along.

In the afternoon, T. wasn't feeling well, so she took a nap. Around 4 I went for a walk for a little exercise. My leg has hurt since Tuesday. Apparently the minimal exercise I did then was overdoing it.

As soon as I got back, we went to get the kid. The guitar lesson went well enough. After that, we made a detour on the way home to weigh her pinewood derby car. Driving to an unfamiliar place in rush hour in the rain, or at least a light drizzle, was stressful.

Dinner was seafood paella from a bag for T. and I. It was decent. The kid had a token amount but mostly ate leftovers.

Still getting used to the mouthguard at night.

A mouthguard

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Getting the kid to school yesterday was typical. We thought about trying out T.'s bike but decided against it, partly because she was feeling a little unwell. 

Work was less productive than the day before. Partly because I was tired, partly because I had got to the low-hanging fruit already. But even so I managed to get through the bare minimum of my 2022 performance review. I probably could have put more thought into it but I figure just getting it done is better than nothing (the review, although now that I think of it that's true of the year too). Especially since today and tomorrow look busy and I shouldn't have put it off this long as it is.

Around 1:30 we got a call. The kid was in the nurse's office with a fever. T. went to get her. Right when they got back, around 2:30, I biked to my dentist's office. I had an appointment to get the mouthguard he had recommended. That went well enough. I was home by 4. The kid was having quiet time upstairs. (We thought she was napping, but in fact she was playing with her iPad.) I logged on work and did a little more to get to a full day.

Dinner was pork chops and cauliflower. I tried to improvise a sort of batter for the cauliflower and it didn't work, but they still tasted fine.

Productivity is actually really hard!

Wordle 578 3/6

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Before taking the kid to school and T. to work yesterday morning I sent a quick email in response to something that came in the day before. The trip went fine. Traffic was bad but uneventful for me overall. I got back around 8:50. This will be in unusual detail for reasons that will be apparent soon.

While writing yesterday's post I also expanded on an earlier one because I felt like gushing and did a couple minor work things and minor WoW things. Then, I wanted to continue my general productivity effort, so I cleaned the kitchen before my 10:00 meeting, rather than after like I normally would. 

That meeting ended at 10:35. Productive enough. One minor immediate due-out, an email that took literally only 5 minutes or so, plus some upcoming soon. After that I did some stuff in WoW that was generally minor, easy, with no risk of getting "sucked in", so to speak, absorbed to the point that I'd neglect other things. 

Around 11 I jumped because I suddenly remembered I planned to prep dinner. It's a slow cooker recipe we haven't tried before, both for variety and because this would be another late night. That was cooking by 11:20.

Around then I also posted a few comments on Reddit and had a quick snack. (4 comments and 427 words over the course of the morning, which sounds like a lot now that I actually check.) I helped T. edit a self-review thing for her job and emailed her some plans about tonight and tomorrow. I also updated a few tasks in the tracker at work. I also tried to reach out to my doctor by phone and online for more information on physical therapy, because I haven't been good about self-directed exercises, and did a few self-directed exercises myself. Less than 5 minutes of them, but anything is better than nothing, right? Finally, I emailed the architect to see where things stood and when we could expect progress. 

Somehow, it was 1 PM by the time I had done all that. Where did the time go? Very little of that truly matters and I still had several more things I wanted to get to (calling the vet and cleaning up after the dinner prep, to name two), but I still spent almost 2 hours not on either work or games! Curiosity about this is where the detail comes from.

Around 1 I had lunch, simply a PB&J. Over the following 2 hours I called the vet (inconclusive), cleaned up after dinner prep, read an article T. sent me about a TV show the kid likes, and sent several messages/emails about general organizational stuff at work. Around 3:30 I was tempted by WoW and an article and discussion at Unfogged, but first I managed to get through folding laundry, a little cleaning of the heap on the dining room table, emptying the dishwasher, and getting a gym bag together. Helped by note-taking here to reify this stuff, among other things.

Finally I took out the trash. Then it was around 4:45, time to go get the kid. I drove to school and took her, two friends, and their mother to swim class. Normally the other girls' parents would get them all there but their car is in the shop. Swimming lessons started at 5:45. Meanwhile I talked with the rec center staff about some account issues, making sure all our ducks were in a row. Then I jogged. 2.11 miles in 25 minutes on a treadmill according to my app, 2.3 miles or so according to the treadmill. Less then the usual loop, but I wanted to take it easy anyways.

After that, I drove the friends to their home, and then the kid and I home ourselves. We got there around 7:20. Then dinner, a pot roast. I liked it and I think T. did too. The kid tolerated it. I cleaned up while T. put the kid to bed, and I sat down in front of the TV around 8:45. 

We slept poorly. The kid came into our room to get Kleenex because she was out, and then the cat came in, and the kid woke us up a couple hours after that.

So what's it all mean?

A few takeaways come to mind. In no particular order:

• Everything takes longer than planned/expected. I'm not sure if this is because I'm not used to being organized or a general Murphy's Law type thing. For a few examples between 3:30 and 4:45, putting together the gym bag required running all over the house and out to the car. When coming back from the car I found the mail, which included a bill (I got it ready to go out in tomorrow's mail) and generally added to the heap on the dining room table.
• Structured procrastination works. I've had fun with this idea in the past. But in all seriousness, if I had written out a to-do list for the day with all this on it, I would have been horrified, got at most one or two parts done, and spent the rest of the day avoiding it. Instead I had a to-do list with one or two items on it and just kept going.
• Warcraft isn't the problem. Obviously this is impossible to be sure of and this is motivated reasoning, but still. 
• Reddit could be, though. 400 words about the game, plus some more later while waiting for the girls to get out of their locker room. Impressive, but maybe not in a good way. For the record, this is around a thousand words, but in a much better cause, and a big chunk of it was done during lunch and other downtime yesterday.
  
• This isn't sustainable. All the conditions were right yesterday. They might not be the next time I try to have a day like this.
  
• It's hard to care about vague stuff. Very little of this was satisfyingly concrete. Almost nothing was "done", especially not the big, important stuff.
  
• Good for me. Despite realism about efforts like this going forward, I want to give myself kudos.
  

Productivity

Wordle 577 2/6

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Woo hoo.

Yesterday breakfast at home was very light: one remaining leftover pancake for me, cereal for the kid, nothing for T. It was because we were planning to go to a friend's house for a neighborhood clean-up event as a community service thing for the holiday, followed by brunch. It went well enough. We filled three bags of trash with litter. Good for the kids for helping out.

I was hungry by this point, because even though I feel like I've been eating a lot lately, I hadn't eaten a lot so far on this particular day. Brunch was sort of European-style, basically charcuterie. I also appreciated the coffee; see previous post about sleeplessness. And the company. It was nice just visiting with them while the kids entertained each other. 

After that we dropped the kid off with another friend for a trip to a trampoline park. At that point, T. was planning to go to the mall, she was still looking for certain business attire for the new job, and I was planning to go grocery shopping and a few other errands on foot. But she offered to drive me shopping. Just getting there was aggravating. Traffic wasn't bad in general but it was bad in the store parking lot. Shopping with T. is often aggravating, trying to keep her from getting too much junk food or other things we don't need. And of course everything is aggravating when sleep-deprived. 

While shopping, T. got an invitation from a friend to use a massage appointment she couldn't keep, so that saved us the trouble of trying to figure out if she'd accompany me on the other errands. Cool.

Before going anywhere I got sucked into minor electrical work. I refilled the cat's water fountain and when I did, the surge protector it was plugged into started making a scary crackling noise. In the process I found a speaker plugged into it that I'm pretty sure we never used so I unplugged it. Let's see how long it takes us to notice that. I unplugged everything and blew into all the surge protector sockets and that stopped the crackling. So the scare is resolved, for now. 

So I walked to the library to return that DVD. On the way back, a little more shopping for something the first store didn't have. 

That was the end of the outside-the-house errands, but then I got to two bike-related tasks at home. First, changing the tube on the kid's bike. Easier than I thought it would be. So now she has a rideable bike. Cool. Second, experimenting with a passenger safety rail on T.'s bike. T. has an ebike but she has used it little, partly because we couldn't figure out how to get it set up for the kid to ride as a passenger safely. T. was on the verge of asking for a return for the safety rail. But yesterday she asked me to try to figure it out, and I got something. I'm not sure it's "right", I'd definitely agree with her that the thing is badly designed, but it's sturdy and somewhat functional. Cool.

By this point it was around 5. The kid got home only a few minutes after that. I put her through her paces and made her practice her guitar. T. got home around 6. Dinner was pasta, a new type we're experimenting with, plus Brussels sprouts. 

I went to bed right after putting the kid down. I was tired. I got 8.5 hours of uninterrupted sleep, which is rare. Good for me.

17 check boxes on the safety waiver

Wordle 576 4/6

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Eggs and home fries for brunch yesterday morning. 

Leisurely Sunday morning, as usual, but we had stuff to do later, so not too leisurely. We thought about a playdate for the kid with her friend across the street but it didn't work out. Instead, around noon, we drove to the mall. T. wants new clothes for her new job. I let the kid browse in the bookstore (which has a big toy section anyway) and then took her to the kids' play area. It was meant for kids younger than her but she had fun anyway. 

After T. finished shopping, we had quick snacks (ice cream for the kid, she was hot with all the running around, and pretzels for T. and I) and then went to this birthday party. It was at a trampoline park. It was a lot of fun despite frequent interruptions with injuries, both of and in one case by our kid. A bad landing, someone else landing on her, her landing on someone else, some tears because she had apologized but it wasn't accepted... it culminated in someone else hitting her in the face hard enough that she lost a tooth. So that was fun. 

Dinner was a stir-fry from the freezer. Easy and not big, but we didn't know what to expect from the party. 

This morning I got up at 5 when we noticed the kid at our feet. He's still having urinary problems and therefore not allowed in our bed, and T. forgot to close the door last night. I couldn't get back to sleep. But I decided to turn over a new leaf on productivity, à la yesterday's post, and post an ad for this bike mount.

One year of this

Wordle 575 5/6

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Yesterday was the usual Saturday brunch, pancakes and bacon.

Late in the morning or just after noon the kid and I went to the park and threw around the frisbee. It was a lot more fun than I remember. She was a better sport about it for some reason. 

After that we ran some errands on H. Street. We had a short list: a bike tube to fix the kid's purple bike now and a patch kit to be prepared for next time, and some cat treats from the store across the street. We had to be quick because we had plans for an afternoon playdate for the kit. But there's a bookstore next to the bike store and the kid wanted to browse, and we said, sure, why not. And by this point we were hungry, so we got lunch. In the end we got to the playdate almost an hour late. Luckily we had been texting to reschedule. It was mostly outside, and it was cold. Maybe we should have gone somewhere else. Oh well. They had biked there and had plans later, so didn't really have time to go somewhere else, so we just made do.

Dinner was chicken and broccoli.

Musing

I feel like I should have some reflection on the fact that I've kept this up daily for one year, as of today. A few more entries than 365, but that's because early on I had done more than one post some days.

Honestly, I don't know. Not much to say. I could write hundreds of words, but it boils down to me being one year older, exercise being even harder to get (plantar fasciitis I haven't been doing the physical therapy for, and the kid is too big to be a passenger on my bike now), and not much having changed otherwise. A year ago I had quit WoW but that only lasted for about four months. I've experimented in minor ways with creative stuff but nothing I've stuck with (so far, although some of it is recent enough, it's not crazy to hope...). This blog has been fun sometimes, and has been useful to satisfy my curiosity about when certain things happened in the past year, but I can't point to any practical use out of it I couldn't have got from my calendar or things like that. I don't exactly regret any of this but feel like I should have changed more somehow.

EDIT: "hope"? Well, isn't that revealing. This is something I could theoretically have some control over.

Not unlucky despite the date, but tiring

Wordle 574 4/6

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Sort of cheated there. Oh well.

Yesterday the kid didn't have school due to inservice, so T. took the day off, but I didn't. I don't get as much PTO as she. I really should do something about that...

So the kid got to watch a lot of TV in the morning. I focused on that second document due by next week. 

I did one personal/family thing in the morning, namely trying to get the kid on a bike. She needs practice. I'm not sure when I last mentioned it here, but at some point I hope to bike with her to school. Exercise for both of us and less aggravating traffic. We have two bikes for her in the basement from various secondhand sources. The first one I got out was too big. It doesn't have training wheels set up, just a handle for me to hold on to, and she can't even start pedaling if she physically can't keep it vertical. The second one is smaller, but the front tire has a hole in the tube. I found two patch kits... but the glue in both of them was dried and flaking. So we have to go buy more of those. Haven't been biking as much as I used to, of course. It had a set of training wheels and I tried to put them on the bigger bike... but they wouldn't fit due to the gear shift. 

So that was a waste of 45 minutes or so. If there's one bright spot, the kid was a good sport about it. Willing to try and was helpful, or at least not a problem, as I was fumbling with the tools. 

Just after lunch, T. and the kid went to the African-American History Museum and I finished up the work day. I got that draft of the document done and sent to the SMEs, and relaxed a bit. 

I went to get them around 3:30. Then home for just a bit. At 5, we took the kid to gymnastics class. T. and I did a little shopping for presents for various upcoming events. After gymnastics class, the kid stayed late for a parents' night out event the gymnastics school periodically hosts, and T. and I went out to dinner with some friends. It was nice having a double date. It's been a while.

Productivity

Wordle 573 3/6

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Yesterday T. and I drove the kid to school and came home, uneventfully enough for once. 

I had a meeting in the morning and took notes, as usual for Thursday. I was more productive at work beyond that as well. I'm not sure if I should credit guilt/shame, T. being present to keep me from having too much fun, or simply getting close to the real deadline, but still, good for me. The deadline I've mentioned is two related documents, in theory due to be published by a week from today, but the part I have control over is sending my draft out for review with and actually getting answers can take hours or months; I sent my draft of one of them out yesterday and got a tangible start on the other. Woo hoo. 

I had another meeting scheduled for 2, but they decided it wasn't needed and cancelled it. Good for them. So a little after that I went for a walk. Three blocks from home it started raining, so I came back to get an umbrella, and of course it stopped by the time I had it. I walked the loop around the college, followed by going down to the Giant grocery store. Good for me, doing this stuff by foot again after relying on the car so much in recent months. Exercise aside, walking is meditative. I don't have to think about walking on familiar, safe streets, I can just zone out. Is this actually good? I suppose. There's never been anything else like that in my life. When exercising I have to focus to get through it, figure out how much gas is in my tank, watch my footing, etc. Biking is easier than jogging but I have to watch out for traffic.

Anyways, shopping was uneventful. We might be good through Tuesday night. Not sure. 

I got home around 4. I logged into work for about another half an hour. Then it was time to get the kid. Normally T. would go with me but she was napping and wanted to continue, so I went alone. The kid got to play with friends for a few minutes between me showing up and the music lesson. Fortuitously, it was a friend whose parents we wanted to get in touch with because of an upcoming birthday party. 

While the kid had her music lesson, T. cooked, with a little prep I had left behind. Dinner was salmon, peas, and naan bread. T. and I thought it was great. The kid hates the idea of salmon, but ate this with less difficulty than usual. Hmmm...

I may have a problem

Wordle 572 4/6

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Yesterday T. had a big, early, in-person meeting, so she left for work before the kid and I even left for school. Wow, poor her. But then again, poor us, because traffic was once again bad, although not as bad as the previous two days.

There was a minor problem in the morning where we were supposed to help an electrician get into the neighbor's house but couldn't find the key. That was inconvenient for what I was doing at the moment, and probably sucked for the electrician and the neighbor's tenants too.

At work I wasn't too productive, and it finally caught up to me. Not in a terrible way, but bad enough to make me feel bad. Two new tasks came in, urgently with basically no notice. That would be aggravating even if I was on top of things, of course. This isn't the first time this has happened with this team. In addition to triage on the tasks themselves, I reached out to our lead about what we can do about this pattern, if anything. Proposing an alternate deadline several days later than requested would be cathartic, or simply refusing the request entirely, but that wouldn't be being-a-team-player, would it. Each of the tasks themselves went to one of my teammates - they volunteered, and weren't too busy, whereas I have ongoing tasks - but it makes my delays on my ongoing tasks a practical problem now. 

This is a reminder that part of the reason to get things done before the last minute is that sometimes it can change or I don't know what else will come up, not that the reminder should be needed.

I've been procrastinating mostly by playing World of Warcraft. Games instead of work is bad in general, of course, and feels even worse because I'm not getting all that much done. I'm not making great strides in actual competitive content, I just logged on and found myself tantalizingly close to a couple profession goals, and I could have got one of them in 5 minutes by throwing gold at it but I wanted to save gold and work on both of them, but that required an alternate character, and I got sucked into that character too. I'm not sure how much of this is due to changes in the game, due to T. being absent and her mere presence keeping me honest, and how much of this is due to executive functioning issues. I'm not at the point yet where I want to go on ADHD medication, but I do need to generally shape up.

Anyways, a little after 4 I got to a good stopping point on stuff at work and cleaned the kitchen. I met T. and the kid at school a little after 5 and drove them home. Dinner was spaghetti and Brussels sprouts, simple and easy. The kid was really annoying in the evening, but it was more exuberance than actual misbehavior, so it wasn't the sort of thing we could punish her over, but it was just exhausting.

The fun kind of Tuesday

Wordle 571 3/6

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Yesterday I drove the ladies to school and work as appropriate. Traffic was once again bad. I can only assume there's new construction right off our route or something. (Or just a run of bad luck.) 

Work was OK. One meeting, productive, and dealing with a few weird ad hoc requests. Still putting off some stuff that I'm really, really going to have to get to soon but I'm not actually at the deadline yet. 

T got home at 5 and we left almost immediately to go to the kid's swimming lesson. She had loved them last year, but missed most of the summer due to travel, and stopped in the fall due to schedule disruptions. Conveniently, she got a ride from the mother of her friends taking lessons at the same time, so we didn't have to leave nearly as early as normal. It went well. 

Dinner was chicken (put in the slow cooker before we left because swimming would go late, of course), salad from a bag for T. and I, and carrots for the kid.

A walk counts as strenuous exercise these days

Wordle 570 3/6

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The kid was grouchy in the morning. Lack of sleep from the weekend maybe? Traffic was terrible taking her to school. I really, really want to get her biking. Me biking would definitely have been faster but she's outgrown the seat. Her biking might not have been faster with any plausible level of skill this month, but she's never going to learn if she doesn't start trying. 

Work was fine. Two meetings. One, I was more or less in charge of, and it went well. One I wasn't in charge of, just listening in on, and it went OK. Once again I didn't get much done outside those, but I'm still not worried about any particular deadlines.

Around 4 I went for a 3-mile walk. Good for me but it's sad that that counts as exercise... on the way home I did some quick grocery shopping. As soon as I got home I went out again to get the kid. While I was on my walk and driving around T. was napping; she wasn't feeling well. Traffic was bad in the evening too. I was later than usual and it was only partly due to leaving late. The kid wanted to play with her friends on the playground but I unfortunately had to tell her they were out of reach. 

Dinner was rosemary steak tips, glazed carrots, and leftover green beans.

Art?

Wordle 569 4/6

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Yesterday breakfast at home was leisurely and fancy: scrambled eggs and home fries. The kid came home around 10:30. A friend of hers came over shortly after that. Meanwhile I inked the self-portrait. Coincidentally, T. and I also cleaned out some old boxes/portfolios of art. It started with the kid's old stuff. We want to keep lots of her art, but that doesn't mean every single school worksheet or coloring book page. After that we moved on to my old stuff. My parents had dropped off a portfolio with ~50 pieces from my high school years that they didn't want to keep. I identified about 5 I liked enough to hold on to and recycled the rest. It was a tiny bit hard, but realistically, I'm never going to do anything with them.

In the afternoon we went to a Scout event at the Natural History Museum's dinosaur exhibit. T. dropped off me, the kid, and the kid's friend from across the street. There was a quick intro beforehand with worksheets for the Scouts and meeting afterwards discussing what they had found, but it was mostly each parent guiding their respective kid, or kids in my case, through the exhibit. 

In the evening, T. and the kid played their respective games on their devices while I finished coloring the self-portrait, using a mix of crayons and pastels, and made dinner: pork chops, couscous, and green beans. Over dinner we video-chatted with my parents.

Right before bed the kid and I tried playing Sleeping Queens 2, a Christmas present the kid got, but it's quite a bit more complicated than the previous version of the game and it was the last minute anyway. 

Art.

I found myself more disappointed with the portrait as it got closer to done. It was basically comic-book-style art, pencils followed by inks followed by simple colors. It's one thing to look at a pencil sketch and think, well, that arm looks a little lumpy or is my head really that wide? It's another thing to see a pen stroke in the middle of nowhere or think I must have been on drugs to use those colors. I wouldn't be comfortable with anyone outside the house seeing this.

Part of the problem is the materials. Pencil is almost impossible to screw up, but even there I found myself wishing I had a better eraser. After that it got harder. We have about a hundred pens in the house but most of them are ballpoint pens, a lot of them are mostly dried out, and a lot of them aren't plain black. I found one fine point Sharpie and used it even though it was partially dried out too. Colors were worse. We have literally hundreds of crayons in this house and a lot of them are smudged browns. I got out one of the kid's fancier sets of art supplies but found any one type of coloring implement would be inadequate for the skin tones and shades of grays and browns in my clothes and the furniture.

Part of the problem was being out of practice. Like I said, it's been 20 years. I thought about adding ink hatch marks after I started coloring. And of course, part of the problem isn't a problem at all, just my own perfectionism and other neuroses. 

Part of the reason I didn't stick with art all those years ago was I was too self-critical to enjoy it. But despite all this I don't actually mind the problems with the picture too much. After all, the kid is happy with it and that's what matters. Maybe I've grown out of it and should start sketching now and then?

Relaxing day, date night

Wordle 568 3/6

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More luck than skill there, but I'm not complaining!

Yesterday I made waffles for breakfast, for variety and to use up some old baking goods. We don't do it much. At 11 I went to a friend's house to help move some furniture. On the way home we stopped by a park the kid likes to kill some time and burn off some energy. 

Then home, for some laundry, lunch, and general clean-up. Around 1:30 T. took the kid to the birthday party of her friend across the street (the friend lives across the street, the party was across town at a karaoke bar - fancy for an 8-year-old). Meanwhile, I stayed home and relaxed. I hadn't slept well the night before so I was in bed almost the whole time. 

I got up around 4:15 and they got back around 4:30. Then we did a little more laundry and generally relaxed until dinner. I made carne asada, asparagus, and couscous: simple but big and easy.

At 6:30 we dropped the kid off at that friend's house for a sleepover. Woo hoo. Then T. and I took a bus to Eastern Market and saw Black Panther 2. That was fun. 

The movie was sad. I've read that early drafts of it were intended to dwell on "the blip", the consequences of Thanos' snap, but it got overtaken by reality, i.e. Chadwick Boseman's death. It was good, but I have to admit I had too much fun with Namor, the antagonist. 

He's a crazy character to see on the big screen. The comicbook medium is filled with crazy stuff, pulp pseudoscience and Golden Age characters who are basically cartoon characters and so on, and as a fan of the medium it's interesting to see how it gets adapted into modern movies. When there's something particularly crazy, they'll usually either tone it down and try to make it "realistic" and believable, like the X-Men's costumes, or adapt it fairly directly and treat it as a joke, like most of Aquaman. Namor is generally a crazy character. He's an imperious asshole and creepy sexist stalker but usually technically a hero! He's the king of Atlantis, which has just secretly always been there under the sea! He wears little more than a green Speedo! He has elfin pointed ears, and can fly because he has wings on his ankles! So you might have expected them to either make big changes or treat him as a joke, right? Wrong! They kept him essentially the same and then treated him dead seriously. And, IMO, it worked! 

They did make some changes. They toned down his stalkerish tendencies, but there's definitely still elements of it. And his attire wasn't just a green Speedo, and there's a logical reason for him dressing the way he does, but it still looks basically like his classic outfit. And his undersea nation hasn't always been there, which explains why it hasn't been discovered before now. But even so he's a lot more like his comic counterpart than most similar characters, and treated very seriously (cracks one joke, and characters express disbelief about the concept once or twice, but that's about it), and overall it works. One of the MCU's better antagonists. The top 5, in no particular order: Thanos, Zemo, Killmonger, Namor... Gorr had potential but didn't get much screen time, Loki was good but arguably not an antagonist after the Avengers movie, the Red Skull was good but one-dimensional... but they're all miles ahead of any others I can think of.

After that, a bar for cocktails and dessert. We tried a new place and it was nice. Haven't had a date like that in a while. Thought about even more, but (a) it was in the 30s, so not much fun walking around town, and (b) it was 11 and that's late for us even though I had had a nap. Maybe this summer...

OK Friday

Wordle 567 4/6

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Drove the kid to school yesterday and we were a little late. I blame T...

Work was OK. The biweekly report was better than average. I assume it's because it was covering the holiday period so there's less to report on. 

In the afternoon I did something I haven't done seriously in 20 years: drew. I've sketched some stuff here and there, mostly for or with the kid, but not anything I'd actually have to think about. But a few weeks ago she asked for a picture of me and said it might help with bedtime if I were there with her in another way, and yesterday I finally got around to it. I got the sketching done. T. and the kid had no complaints/feedback over the details, so the next step is to ink it and color it in. Good for me for challenging myself and doing something more creative than a new transmog for my characters in WoW, I guess.

Then I went for a walk. Not as long as I'd like, but I had started too late.

We got the kid on time for once for gymnastics. A little shopping during that.

Dinner was pizza to go from a place we've never been before. It was OK but not great.

More freedom

Wordle 566 5/6

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Yesterday I drove the kid to school alone and had the house to myself again. 

It was fun. In World of Warcraft I cleared the raid on Normal. This is... the end of the beginning, let's say? The first thing I might not have been able to do in the new role. Good for me. As for work, I had a meeting and was generally responsive to questions, but still could have been more productive. Oh well. Today is the WAR and that will keep me busy, and hopefully I can catch up on a couple things next week. 

T. came home around 4. Jury duty is done; after all this suspense, she didn't get selected. Not a huge surprise. She was too well informed. She has mixed feelings about not getting selected; she would have looked forward to seeing justice done in this case.

We got the kid early, because there was no after-care because of a Girl Scout meeting instead, and stayed late, because music lessons with the new teacher are later than they used to be. In the 45-minute gap in between, the kid played with her friends on the school playground, I went for a walk around the neighborhood, and I think T. mostly talked with other parents.

Dinner was the usual on nights after music lessons: fried rice from a bag. Easy and fast but boring. I feel like I want more variety next time.

A great day except for the Wordle

Wordle 565 5/6

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Yesterday I dropped the kid off at school alone because T. had jury duty. T. left before us, hungry and stressed because getting out of the house that early was hard. Right before we left, the cleaner came and got started. 

Funny vignette: she used to watch the show called Gravity Falls, which among other things features an evil extra-dimensional being called Bill Cipher, who has reality-warping powers and usually appears as a yellow pyramid with arms, legs, and one big eye in the middle. She had noticed similar symbolism here and there in other things and on the way to school asked me if maybe they were making references to Gravity Falls. I showed her a dollar bill and blew her mind. Then I told her a bit about the Illuminati (and in hindsight maybe I should have covered the Freemasons more). 

As soon as I got home, I organized a bit and finished putting away the Christmas stuff while staying logged in and reachable at work. A fair amount of heavy lifting.

Around 10:30 I biked to the library to pick up a DVD I had reserved. I thought about getting breakfast bars for T. since she mentioned them, so I went to the Trader Joe's. I got several things we could use there, but forgot the breakfast bars. Ugh. 

Then, home for a couple more hours and worked. One meeting in the afternoon, really just a phone call between me and S., one of my two teammates. 

The cleaner finished around 2, which was perfect timing because I had another outing, a dentist's appointment, scheduled for 3. Even though it was supposed to rain, and in fact already had rained a bit since my first outing, I biked across town because I am insane I procrastinated too much to get there on time any other way I wanted the exercise and to indulge nostalgia, because the dentist's office happened to be only three blocks from my old office. (In defense of my insanity and procrastination, I brought an umbrella and was prepared to lock my bike up and take a bus home if I had to. But still, if I had got around to exercise the day before I might not have felt obligated to bike yesterday, and procrastination is bad.) Anyways, the dentist's appointment went fine. It was my first one with a new dentist since the previous one stopped taking my insurance. They recommended a mouthguard so I have a follow-up appointment for that, but they said things were great overall. No cavities. 

Then, home very briefly, the dentist's appointment had taken over an hour. This time I got the breakfast bars. I soon went out again to pick up the kid. Once we got home, the kid practiced her guitar a bit while I organized and prepped for dinner. T. got home about half an hour after us. 

Dinner was pasta (a new type from a kit we bought on a whim a few weeks ago), leftover salad, and a leftover potato.

A busy day, but good anyway. I guess I would have had more fun with more time for World of Warcraft, but I'd feel like an asshole to complain about that. Productive but not difficult. Biking continues to be my favorite style of exercise, despite the occasional danger - a bus came into the bike lane on the way home from the dentist's office and would have hit me if I had been 10 feet ahead. Too bad biking is no longer part of my daily routine. Maybe I should just go out and bike for 30 minutes like I was jogging for a while, in some loop around the Hill or even just up the nearby trail and back?

Getting back to normal

Wordle 564 X/6

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This fucking game. If there's a strategy to be changed, I guess it's to recognize ASAP when I need to make a guess I know is wrong to eliminate letters, but I didn't actually do anything wrong.

Yesterday we dropped the kid off at school at the usual time, and if anything it went better than I would have expected considering jet lag, and then dropped T. off at work, and I had the house to myself. Woo hoooooo!

Work was fine. Two meetings, both productive, with minor prep before and follow-up after, and one ad hoc task. I did the bulk of my work on that urgent task from last week. I'm not exactly proud of how it went but the very short deadline was out of my control and my boss understands that.

I spent most of my free time playing World of Warcraft. In addition to the usual stuff I raided in the new tier for the first time. The tier started three weeks ago but due to our travel I didn't feel like I could raid until now. Despite not getting any major achievements, it still feels notable because this is my first time as a tank. It's not exactly harder but it's a very different kind of challenge. 

In the late afternoon I washed some dishes, unloaded the dishwasher, and did the laundry. Then I went to meet T. and the kid at school. We got there at the same time as the parents of some friends of hers, and the weather was nice, so we all let them play for almost half an hour before dragging them home.

When I went to pick them up, I was feeling pretty good about my day, but T. pointed out something I hadn't thought of: we have a cleaner coming today, which is a problem because we should have the Christmas decorations put away first. Ugh. Wish I had got started on that during the day. So while T. made enchiladas, I wrapped ornaments on the tree with the kid's help. While I put the kid to bed, T. packed things better and put away other decorations around the house.

Taking advantage of the holiday

Wordle 563 2/6

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Woo hoo.

Yesterday, once again, breakfast was late and light. Jet lag, plus I at least want to cut back on overeating and the usual batch of pancakes is big.

A little after noon we collected the kid's friend across the street and drove them to an ice skating rink downtown. I dropped them and T. off and looked for parking. After over half an hour I gave up on finding anything on the street and paid for a spot in a garage. T. and I read and played games on our phone while the kids skated. Around 3 the time at the skating rink expired and friend's mother took over and took them to a nearby museum. Cool. We're told they had fun.

The parking spot in the garage wound up being $24 for two hours. We really need to get the kid on her bike. Oh well, at least I got my walking in just getting to and from the spot.

On the way home T. and I went grocery shopping for a few things we couldn't find the day before. Then we called my parents to catch up. Within 5 minutes of hanging up, just as we were wondering if we could or should do something fun or useful with our time, the kid came home. Oh well.

Dinner was steak (on the grill, it was dark but warm), baked potatoes (a little underdone but edible), and a cucumber salad (which was hardly touched since the previous two things were so big). We also did the laundry, since we came home with a couple day's worth of dirty laundry and the hampers here weren't completely empty when we left.

New Year's Day

Wordle 562 4/6

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After yesterday's post, I went back upstairs and was pleasantly surprised to get about an hour's sleep. I felt much better when I got up for real.

Breakfast was simple, cereal and coffee. The morning was relaxing enough. The weather was beautiful. It was hard to hate global warming when it was around 58 degrees and sunny in January, especially after a lot of rain in California, and hearing about ice here. So I took the kid to the park for a few minutes in the morning.

We decided to take advantage of the weather by doing something touristy: taking the bus to the Lincoln Memorial. It took a while to get there but the kid did a pretty good job of entertaining herself, I guess. We got lots of nice pictures and had ice cream. 

We took a different route home, Metro to Eastern Market for some shopping. Trader Joe's was closed for the holiday so we couldn't get everything we wanted, but we got the essentials. A pork and broccoli stir-fry for dinner.

New Year's Eve

Wordle 561 5/6

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There's nothing to say about yesterday considering when I posted that, but it's the usual time and I have a few things to say anyway.

Yes, I'm up early for a holiday, especially considering the jet lag. T.'s snoring did it, despite the earplugs and nose clip. I have another tab open to shop for noise-cancelling headphones. Is there any way I can get back to sleep? I've slept on the couch comfortably before but right now it's covered in cat hair and I'm relatively clean. The guest bed is a Murphy bed and right now it's blocked by two suitcases and two chairs.

I don't always make a New Year's resolution - the last two years, I figured just surviving, literally and figuratively, was good enough, and even before that I didn't always bother - but this year I'm making one to get in shape. A cliché, I know, but for months I haven't had any regular routine at all and the last two weeks have been an exercise in gluttony. 

I plan to recommend a family resolution of the kid having less screen time. This might be a family resolution, requiring cooperative effort from us. Once again, over the past two years we didn't worry about it so much. (And I don't want to overthink problems yesterday, of all days.) But she should be better at entertaining herself without TV or computer games. I may not be setting a great example of this but even I finished a novel while we were in California. Legends and Lattes, a Christmas present from T. It was fun, light reading. And I started Nona the Ninth. Fun but not light. She has a ton of books and I'm not sure how much she actually reads them, and other activities, but it's always TV, games on her iPad, or, even worse, YouTube.