Tikatu's Travels Through Time

I've managed to empty all my clothes hampers. The last load is in the washer.

Yeah, it's nothing big, but we moms take our triumphs where we can get them.

Ink Jet needs to visit the vet. He has an abcess behind one ear that he's managed to rip open with his claws. Not sure where he got it; very likely picked it up during a fight. But it's unpleasant looking, and I don't want him to get an infection. I think that's the way his father (or the cat we think was his father) lost both of his ears. So he's to see the vet tomorrow morning, which means I get up and take the van.

The boys have had a nice visit with Boy #1's old friend from down the street. The mom there send me some frozen blueberries. Looks like it's time to make some muffins! Still waiting on a gift for the girl. I've  emailed the place I ordered it from on Saturday, politely asking the status of my order - and I haven't heard back yet. Considering that I ordered this back on the 11th, I think I have reason to be concerned. I may email again.

And I discovered that the archangel Gabriel is the patron saint of... postal workers! I'll let Hubby in on that when he gets home.

The kids had a great time over the weekend in NC. The boys both brought back bags of soggy clothes as they'd braved the camp's cold creek and gone tubing. The Girl said it was the most fun she'd had at that camp in the three or four times she'd been there. Boy #2 excitedly described his turn on the land trolley. Boy #1 brought back two stick bugs - he has a bug report due in mid-December (uh, science teacher? The bugs are dying off?).

I managed to hit 20K last night. It felt good, so good that 22.5 is my goal for today. I'm already nearly halfway there; my feet woke me in the wee hours and my mind - with the next scene from the story whirling through it - kept me awake until I got up, fired up the laptop, and wrote it down. I'm kind of concerned because though I'm racking up the word count, I'm not getting along with the plot. I've spent the past four chapters just introducing the characters, with a lot more exposition than I'd really like.  I need to get down to the nitty gritty of the plot - which at this rate, looks rather skimpy compared to the world building and the character introduction.

Write-in at Spill The Beans tonight. I've saved out a bit of money to buy something while I'm there; it's always good to patronize the places that provide the venue. We'll see how many turn up.

Need to get some lunch, and get on to writing!

And a happy Father's day for all the dads I know... including my own, my FIL, and my beloved Hubby!

As the title states, the Girl took the second of her College Board tests - the ACT - yesterday. She said it wasn't quite as hard as the SAT and she was glad she didn't have to write an essay. Hubby had Friday and Saturday off as his regular days off, and spent much of yesterday digging post holes for the fence, then repairing the spigot at the side of the house. Friday he went grocery shopping with me, which was nice.

Today we gave him cards and a gift: another Dr. Pepper t-shirt! It's getting to be a household joke - don't know what to get Dad? Get him a Dr. Pepper shirt! I think he has four or five of them now, including the long sleeved thermal one, and not including his sweatshirt style jacket. At least the one we got him today was different; it's two shades of gray instead of the sort of murky red that the others ones are. Next up: Dr. Pepper sleep pants...

Dinner was great! Boy #1 gets into cooking, and did the 5-cup salad for me yesterday, then heated the green beans (his choice of veggie). He also set up the skewers for our first try at grilled seafood: shrimp and scallop kabobs. Hubby did the actual grilling, but Boy #1 set everything up for him. Man, that was good! We used this seafood seasoning shaker stuff on the kabobs. Marvelous flavor addition. And since we thawed out ALL of the seafood, we get to do it again either today or tomorrow! Yum!

Now it's time for me to call my dad and wish him a Happy Father's Day. I don't know why, but both Mother's and Father's Days have just sort of crept up on me and caught me unawares. At least this time it was close enough to payday that I could get cards and gifts - and I put a little something in the packages for the moms, too. They probably should arrive by Tuesday.

Mostly I think because the vast majority of the people at the site are much younger than I am, teenagers and young twenty year olds. I have nothing against that age group, but when I read the "friends" column, I just shake my head. There's very little connection there. And I'm sure that when they read my own entries, they wonder why I make such a big deal about the things I do. And truthfully, there wasn't a whole lot of Thunderbirds centered activity there. So, I dropped it. Maybe sometime I'll go back. But for now, I just don't feel I fit in.

In better news, the kids got their report cards last Thursday. A clean straight A sweep for all of them! I am very, very proud of them, especially the Girl, who brought her three As and three Bs up to all As. And Boy #2, who, I discovered on Friday, was the only child in the whole third grade to get straight As! Boy #1 earned the good citizenship award in his class, and his Red Ribbon week essay was chosen as best in the fifth grade. (He made me chuckle when he said he had a "professional beta reader" edit his stuff.) So they are very smart and high achievers and I couldn't be a prouder mom!

Did a hugely massive collaboration on IR:TNP today, our first post-rescue debriefing. Everyone showed but Nikki, who unexpectedly had a young cousin to entertain. I tried very hard not to let Dianne dominate, but to let the newer writers have more of a go at it. The results took FIVE posts to get it all up. It was frustrating at times, but once we got some ground rules down, it went faster and turned out better. A good first attempt. I'm glad we won't be doing this after every rescue but just after some of them.

Hubby tried a chicken cacciatore recipe that took all afternoon. It turned out well and the kids didn't complain about it too much. I enjoyed it. He loves to putter around and do this kind of stuff. But now he's wiped out and just about ready to go to bed. I'm going to throw in some laundry so everyone has something to wear tomorrow. Later.

I hate homework. Not housework, though that's a subject in itself. Homework. Like the homework that my kids bring home from school.

Now the Girl is pretty self-motivated. She'll get her work done in a timely fashion. And Boy #1 knows what he's supposed to do. But Boy #2? Different story entirely.

Yesterday, once we got home, they all had a snack. The Girl buckled down to get her work done. But the boys decided to play and wrestle, until I yelled at them to get their homework going. Boy #1 did his work, no problem. But Boy #2 pulled a newspaper out of his backpack and started looking for his spelling words in it. Fine, I thought. But it seemed to be taking a long time to get it done and when I looked at the homework list for the week, I didn't see that particular activity on the list. I asked him about it, and he said, "Oh, the teacher said we could do this for extra credit."

Needless to say, I made him stop that and buckle down to his actual homework. He had to take the math pages with him in the car when we went to pick up the Hubby. He complained that he couldn't read one of the figures he was supposed to subtract because the number ran off the page. Then he discovered he was working on the wrong side of the page! So he had to turn the paper over and start over again! By the time we got home, he said he had finished both his math and his reading workbook. So I breathed a sigh of relief and set him to finish reading the book he's had for weeks and for which there was a diorama due by the end of the week. He worked on it before dinner and en route to Awana Club and finished it.

Now, both the Hubby and I had been after him for the past two weeks to finish the book and get the project done. It was due on the 28th. Yes. Today. I thought it was due Friday, but no. It was due today. Boy #2 knew this, for this morning he said to me, "Perhaps I should write the teacher a note; she said she wouldn't accept the project on Friday." He knew it was due today. I knew what date it was due, but got mixed up about what day of the week it was. He deliberately didn't tell me what the teacher said about it last night so that he could go to Awana. It was store night and he really wanted to go to it; if I had known last night that it was due today, he wouldn't have gone. He would have stayed home and gotten the project done!

I was livid. We had pushed and pushed and he had putzed around for weeks, not reading the easy book that the teacher had assigned, but instead reading Bunnicula. Now the project was due. And he was in big hairy trouble.

Fortunately, his sister and brother were helpful this morning. I made him eat quickly, dress quickly, and then work on a very basic scene from the beginning of the book. His sister and brother helped fix their lunches while I helped him with the diorama. I'll be interested in seeing what the teacher thinks of it, and whether he'll be honest about how much work he did and how much I did.

As a result of this putzing around and not doing what he was supposed to when we told him, he's lost the privilege of playing computer games for at least a week, possibly two. Depends on what the Hubby says when I tell him about the whole affair. And it looks like I'm going to have to be more vigilant about his homework, making sure he works on it as soon as he gets home, even if it means he doesn't get to play with his siblings. And pull out a timer so that he'll read for at least 15 minutes a night until he's finished his assigned reading.

I hate homework.

Well, the car line grind has begun again. I'm still wearing the air splint as per orders. Doesn't seem to interfere with the driving much, but it does make stairs a bit of a challenge. The girl didn't get on the bus at all last week. I complained loudly in an email to the district, and after playing "phone tag" with the head bus supervisor all day I found out why: they gave me the wrong pick up time! Government schools can be so inefficient sometimes.

Speaking of schools, this week is conference week at the elementary school. We've gone to see the teacher of Boy #2. She had nothing but good to say about him, but she seems to be having trouble keeping him challenged. She's got some good ideas for the next nine weeks and I'm looking forward to seeing him come home excited about school. I'll see Boy #1's teacher on Thursday. I expect that will be a similar situation. Found out that Boy #2's class respect Boy #1 very much. Why? He's intelligent and gave them some "cool" instruction on amphibians. Nice to be respected because you're smart.

Looking at Boy #2, I noticed how scruffy he looks. Both of them need haircuts, and so do I. The Girl could use a trim, too, though I know she'll balk at it. Friday. Payday. I can hardly wait!!!