Sunday, May 16 2021

2019-04-16 Tuesday

Good morning, journal!

Another day, another cup of coffee. It's a balmy, drizzly day in Madison. I'm drinking fresh coffee out of a silly corgi mug and listening to Blonde quietly in my headphones while I write for the sake of writing.

Yesterday was very busy, but I'm not gonna lie to you. We killed it. It's funny how Marissa and I happen to do really overly active neighborhood stuff on the same day. I finally found out what she was up to yesterday - she was teaching an art session at Karben 4 for kids with autism. Pretty cool stuff.

I was just meeting with the Kids Code leaders at Barrique's. I had to take Rodney. I was worried about how we would do sitting in a chair at a coffee shop for an hour, but he was a champ. He sat quietly, played with the toys I brought for him, and nibbled on a rice crispy treat. Didn't make a peep the entire time, except for a few quiet dinosaur noises. But that's fair, what kind of person can play with dinosaur toys without making the rawr noises. I understand that - I'm not a monster.

But it went well. Rodney and I had just enough time to whip up some quick stamppot for dinner, Marissa put him down for bed, I practiced piano, then we drank and watched Youtube videos. We discovered a great new food channel yesterday called "Food Wishes". Chef John is a little more down to earth than the usual youtube cooking personalities we follow. I like his deal because he finds cheap, practical ways of making difficult recipes. Last night we were in awe watching how quickly he was able to whip up a cheese souflee using only like two bowls, some eggs, flour, sugar, vanilla extract. I just love the kind of recipe videos that are so simple, you don't have to write anything down.

So what else is going on. Work was OK. I spent half the day at home just watching a hostgroup update. Tried to get some work reading done. Taking the time to read and understand a document someone else wrote is nearly impossible. Heath wrote up some document outlining where he thinks our config service project should go and I literally read it three times - still couldn't figure out what he was trying to say. Am I getting worse at reading? Maybe I just don't read things other people write very often and I'm bad at it.

Today should be much more normal. Regular day of work, then taking Rodney to Hy-Vee for a much needed grocery run. Also going to pick up supplies to make homemade spaghetti & meatballs in red sauce. I'll let you know how it goes.

Let's have a great day!

2019-04-29 Monday

Good Morning Journal!

I had a wonderful weekend. I got to spend a lot of one-on-one time with Rodney, and I got to pretty much cook all weekend. I'm still riding the high of how well my pizza turned out. Oh, and I finally got around to listening to Beyonce's new album /Homecoming/, which was pretty fantastic. I need to listen to it a few more times before I find a track for the 2019 mixtape. One of those definitely deserves to be on there.

Last night Marissa and I watched Game of Thrones. I'm still kind of reeling from the episode. What are the rules with spoilers and journal entries? Well, just in case some distant descendant of mine is reading this, I'll refrain from describing what happened. It had both of us just sitting their with our mouths open, I'll say that much.

Last night I had a pretty weird dream. Marissa and I were having another baby, and when she gave birth it was like a little fart and the baby was really small - like a mini baby, only an inch. I proudly declared "IT'S A GIRL" and then woke up as I was googling "how big are babies supposed to be". It's good knowing that no matter how surreal the problem is, even in the dream world, I still have the sense to google things.

This week should be pretty low key. As of 9:00am this morning, I'm finally off of ticket duty. I think to celebrate I'm going to shut my phone off and work somewhere secluded today. I didn't actually get paged last week, but I still had to carry my laptop with me everywhere and keep my phone on full volume. Plus I had to stay sober through two weekends. But that's all over and I won't have to do it for another four weeks.

Damn, I missed my piano practice yesterday. I think we all know that wasn't going to happen. I had fun with Rodney yesterday but I went hard. The second after I was done cleaning up dinner I just flopped on the couch and that was that. It's a warm, rainy day today. I'm looking forward to a quiet week. I need some alone time.

Hey, let's have a nice week. Let's catch up on thinking and get back to the basics.

2019-05-12 Sunday

Good Morning Journal!

Well I'm hanging in there. This is a really weird cold/soar throat because I forget about it every now and then, like when I get a really nice hot cup of coffee or have something good to eat. But then I just crash in the evening. Yesterday I think I fell asleep at 11. But I'm getting through it. We still had a pretty good dinner. I made braised chuck roast, potatoes, and a Caprese salad. I'm really happy about how the potatoes turned out. Knowing how to make a bed of creamy yellow potatoes really flings open the doors to other trinkets of culinary fanciness, doesn't it?

Today is going to be pretty low key. I'm pretty sure the only thing I have to do is email my mother, as it is Mother's day. Marissa and Rod are going to sleep in and once they wake up we're going to order in Denny's and eat in on the couch.

Yesterday we all watched a nature documentary about insects. It was pretty interesting. After Rodney went to bed we kept it rolling and watched the episode about ocean invertebrates. I don't know why, but I was really struck by how intricate these creature's routines are, all to the end of just surviving. Did you know a mother octopus hides under a rock for ll months without eating anything just to wait for her eggs to hatch? She even moves water over them to circulate air and combs the egg sacs to keep algae from growing on them? It was also very cool watching how efficiently a bunch of star fish can pick a carcass down to the bone, albeit a little macabre.

So like I said, we're taking it easy today. A dead seal pup getting picked apart by starfish on the TV is probably the most exciting thing happening in our house this weekend. But you never know. Maybe I'll take a killer nap in the afternoon and I'll suddenly want to walk to the Biergarten with everyone. That wouldn't be so bad.

Let's have a relaxing Sunday, shall we?