Revving back up

School starts back up this week, and Mal's calendar is about to get busier again, as well.

I have a mystery shop today; we're going to a trampoline park! Yay! I did some shops this weekend, just taking pictures, and those were NOT worth it. But today's will be a great indoor activity to keep Mal entertained without dying.

One of my shops this weekend was here. Let me know if you know what it is!

Then this afternoon, we have a Zoom call with Mal's school to kind of set expectations for the year. It sounds like there was some student drama last year and I'm guessing they want to stop that before it starts. The school is so awesome; they love the kids, and they're so affirming and patient. It's been a real blessing for Mal, and that's why we keep sending him, even though we are DESTITUTE. 

(Not really. It does feel like that sometimes. Anybody want to hire my husband?)

Wednesday, I have my one-year follow-up with the endocrinologist who referred me for surgery. I'm overmedicated, which is suppressing my thyroid-stimulating hormone (which you want to do at first if you've had cancer, just to make sure everything withers and dies), and has my cholesterol absolutely soaring. I am going to ask if after this appointment, I can switch medication management to my primary care office. They charge under $200 per visit, as opposed to my very competent and in-demand endo, who charges (and deserves) more than $450 per visit. Her office has worked with me and been extremely kind to keep pushing appointments back by 6 months while still adjusting and renewing my Levothyroxine prescription. I recognize that this professional bunch should be paid well for their amazing work... I just wish it were insurance and not me paying it! Feel me?

Also on Wednesday, we should be able to check in for our cruise! I know what you're thinking: "You just said you were destitute!" Well, yeah. We have planned a couple of trips expecting that James would have a job at some point, and so we're doing them... but after we visit Mexico in March, we'll put the kibosh on traveling for a bit. When it's been 2 years without a real income, we'll have to reevaluate some stuff.

BUT.

I'm very excited about the cruise because D is going with us! It's their first cruise in 15 years, and I know they're going to love it. It'll be nice to have the whole fam together (maybe not on the drive down or back, but, you know, in general) for a change.

My friend referred me to a sweet woman who's going to stay with our cats while we're away. She charges the same price for housesitting that we paid Rover to come feed the cats and empty the litter boxes for half an hour per day! Yay!

Then next week is the third anniversary of our "library" group! We started LGBT-friendly homeschool meetups because when I see stuff like this, I know they don't mean "us."

We'd had 6 regular members for a couple of years, but one kind of aged out (I wish we had more older kids, but that hasn't panned out yet) and one moved to Washington. It's cool, though, because Mal and Kona talk to him online and they play Minecraft or board games several times a week.

More recently, another kid has joined us, and he just fit right in! I'm really proud of our core group for not being cliquish; it probably helps that the group IS so small. I'm just excited to see what Year Four brings!

Also next week, Mal's classes soft-start with a couple of weeks of self-directed days to get back into the swing of things. And the open gym he attends is resuming sessions.

It will be his birthday before you know it! And actually, it will be MY birthday before that, so mark your calendar!

A (pre) Christmas Miracle!

Hiya, toots!

This summer in central Texas has so far been seasonal from the before-times of the late 2010s. It is just now consistently getting into the 100s during the day, whereas last year that started in May. We were saved from like 10 weeks of the blistering heat of the recent past, and I appreciate it!

We've had enough rain in the general are that the lake is 8 feet up (though it's still just under 40 feet low) in the past 2 weeks. 

Mal and I have been taking advantage of our PogoPass, glad that we paid for those before James got laid off. 

Last Sunday, Mal's friend was out of town so instead of meeting him like we always do, we went to Typhoon Texas. It was raining when we arrived, and there weren't a lot of people there. We were able to have the place practically to ourselves!

 

I got to use my awesome new shrug to protect my scar from sun exposure!

Then later in the week, we went to the LBJ Library. That one wasn't on the PogoPass last time we had it, so this was the first time Mal's visited. He loved it as much as I expected he would. Given his Five Nights at Freddy's obsession, the LBJ animatronic was one of his favorite parts.

We've gone to Indigo Play, Inflatable Wonderland, The Thinkery, James took Mal to Pump It Up Round Rock... we still need to get down to Wonder World to take the cave tour, and to San Antonio for the Witte and Zoo. Did I mention that I only paid $50 per pass? Just going to the water park and kids museum paid for it!

One down side to the great weather is that the mild temps and rain have super-charged the grass. I mowed on a Tuesday, and needed to do it again by Saturday. Then I made it until yesterday (Friday) and mowed a third time in under 2 weeks! I was thinking, "That's it! It's all going to go dormant now!" because we're heading into 100s every day and no rain in sight. But then this afternoon, it poured rain out of nowhere for an hour. Good. And bad. But mostly good. And also, I should be grateful for an upper body workout; pushing a giant battery up the hills of our back yard is not a joke (and, yes, it could be self-propelled but that drains the battery faster).

Mal's homeschool gymnastics class starts back at the end of next week, and his classes start back in just over 4 weeks. He's ready to get back into his schedule and so am I.

Of course, he'll miss a couple of weeks of everything when we go on his 10th birthday trip. Please send us your good vacation mojo because our travel is exactly as far out right now as it was in 2020 when we realized that Covid was going to cancel everything. And, yes, I got travel insurance this time! We were lucky to get back every single penny we'd paid 4 years ago, but I don't anticipate businesses doing that again. (Also, the CrowdStrike outage freaked me out about flight stuff; fortunately, for this trip, we're on Southwest.)

 

 

It's Staying Hot Out Therre

 At the risk of sounding like a sad old person: Can we talk about the weather?

We've had about a month of this, and it sucks. Las Vegas was hot, sure, but it WAS a dry heat. Here, it feels more dangerous. It's difficult to get outside to do anything but swim, though we are walking to the library and back for our weekly group meet-ups.

I look back and see pictures of us at the former-lake park year-round, including right now, and I am not sure whether it was significantly cooler or whether Mal was just small enough that he wasn't deterred by extreme heat.

Taken at the park in July 2019

Taken in August 2020 (see the water?!)

Between the politics here, and the increasingly uninhabitable climate, we might soon take refuge somewhere else. Mal has so many friends and my side of the family is all here... but good grief. 

What do you guys think? Any hope regarding environmental changes that you want to share so I don't keep looking at rentals in Delaware?

Summer is cooking

I've spent a lot of time in the kitchen over the past week. 

I tried to make my mom a birthday cake early last week, but I think the frosting I made was too heavy for the very light, springy cake, and it fell in on itself. We still ate it, though; it was tasty and extremely sweet.

Later, I made steamed buns for the first time. It was a Hawaiian take on them, filled with ground beef that had been sautéed with onions and seasoned with five-spice, hoisin, and soy sauce. They were ugly, due to my inability to shape the dough properly, but they were stinking delicious. We still have a bunch because I made a double recipe. I think steamed buns are something I could eat almost every day and not get tired of it.

We recently re-subscribed to Imperfect Foods, taking a break from eMeals for a bit. I am liking it because instead of picking the same types of meals (vegetarian, heavy on the Asian and Latin influences), I'm getting ingredients that I then figure out what to do with. 

Later in the week, I cooked the pork chops they sent, and made a big batch of purple mashed potatoes. We also had some mushroom ravioli with a lovely spinach Alfredo sauce.

This has nothing to do with our grocery delivery, but the past couple of days, I've made yak chews. I've been looking at them ever since we decided to get a dog, but they're so expensive. I found a recipe online, made them. Twice. The first time, I guess I didn't use enough acid so I was able to run the milk through a second time and did a second batch! Now we have whey left over that I'm trying to give to my neighbors who have chickens, if I can catch them at home.

If I ever do decide to purchase yak chews at the store, I'm going to buy these from Yak-9. They're local!

We finished paying for our dog yesterday, and within a couple of hours, got a notice to set an appointment for pick-up. We're scheduled for Sunday, August 8! 

They're getting so big! This is actually two litters together. Ours start coming home next weekend, then the others a week later. (Luke is the mostly-white dog with some brindle spots and a blue collar, sitting right by the big old bucket, watching his bro (or sis) try to chew the dog fence.)

This week, Mal and I finally made it to a different homeschool meetup than the one we usually attend. He met a couple of kids who played the same way he does, and as we left, he told me, "I had the time of my life!"

We met at Casa Costa in Old Leander, where James and I went a couple of years ago (the pandemic makes the passage of time so weird), and it was really good. This time, I got Portuguese fries, which I highly recommend, if they're the special when you visit.

The next day, we went swimming with the group we frequent, and Mal loved the pool so much that he just went back with James. I still have a bit of a sunburn so didn't want to re-expose myself yet.

Mal slept with James two nights this week. The first night, he kept having to use the restroom (his doctor says this is normal, just an immature bladder) and decided he'd rather be in a bedroom where the bathroom is in the same space, because he was scared of running five feet through the living room to get to the well-lit bathroom in the front of the house. The next time, he just decided he wanted to sleep in there. I slept GREAT both nights! 

It's about three years late, but Mal might finally be transitioning to his dad as the "favorite" parent. I don't mind that at all. It's been a good run, and I'm more than willing to share the title with someone else for a few years.

Turn Up the Heat

This week, I've spent an inordinate time (to me) at indoor playgrounds. Wednesday, Mal spent just under 5 hours at Indigo Play. 

Yesterday, it was just under 4 hours at Urban Air. This morning, I told him I was ready to spend the day at home... but guess where we are now? Urban Air. Again. James was going to bring him when he got some outdoors work done, but then I remembered that it's Friday, and big kids come to Urban Air on Friday night. Mal likes to dawdle in the "ultimate warrior" course, and so I figured it'd be better to let him have his fun earlier.

We have a monthly membership at Urban Air, and I highly recommend it. It's about $12 per month, which is cheaper than a single visit. Lately, we've been visiting at least once a week, and often twice or more. I'm trying to prepare Mal that we'll have two weeks after we get the puppy when I need to stay around the house fairly constantly, and I figure it's a good time now to get some of this out of his system!

It rained for weeks, but that stopped and now it's extremely warm. It's hotter now than it was last week, but much of the moisture has evaporated out of the soil, so it doesn't actually feel as nasty as last week did.

Our adjuster came out this week, so we finally have ServPro scheduled to come Monday to give us an estimate for fixing the bathroom ceiling.

Our lawn mower finally got back from vacation and he's coming out tomorrow. I ended up mowing our front yard because it was getting so bad, and in the process found out that our mower battery has degraded significantly in the past two years. It's mostly my fault, for leaving it in the storage shed. I vowed to take better care of the next battery... before I realized that the battery is no longer available. I knew the mower had been discontinued, but good grief. We've had it just over four years! It still works well; why make me buy a new one?

A cool thing about Mal that shows me he's growing up: You might have noticed that in every picture I took of him during the "lockdown" this time last year, he was just wearing underpants. In the past few months, he's gotten more modest, wanting to have clothes on when we have people over, and even when he's spending the day at Nana and Pappy's. Then when D is around (like not asleep, but walking around the house). Now, he gets up every morning, picks out his own clothes (they're hanging up and he's figured out how to get them down), and dresses himself. Today's the first day he's put two things together that just don't "go," but I'm not saying anything. I'm proud of him, and grateful! 

Our dog was born early this week, and we should get to select it on Sunday. It looks like someone who was on the waitlist above us backed out, so we've moved up and are 6th on the list, for a litter of 9 pups.

That's about it for now; I decided to bring my computer to Urban Air today, and I've gotten a few things done... but Mal still wants me to come play with him a lot. The one thing about being away from the house for half of the day is that when I get home, it feels like I have to pack hours worth of work into the couple of hours before I'm ready to start relaxing for the evening. I think, hopefully, than I got everything done I need to get done today before we left, even though it was a last-minute decision to come. 

Have a good weekend!

Pre-Dawn Walking

I've always enjoyed walking, but in January, started tracking my walks through an app because I'd seen this 500k program where you could get Sesame Street swag... and that ended up being a REALLY expensive program, but I thought it would be cool to see how far I might walk in a whole year.

What happened, though, as the month wore on, was that I found myself slipping into disordered behavior, where if I didn't feel like a walk (say, with an older friend, at a slower pace, and not as far as my regular constitutional) met certain criteria, I'd want to walk more later, just to get it tracked. Or if I gave myself a day off, I felt like that space was a glaring missing tooth in the week.

It wasn't healthy, so I decided to stop tracking and just enjoy walking. Which I do when I'm no being weird about things.

I'd heard about a lady who said that, in order to run in the morning before the onslaught of the day happened, she would wear her running clothes to bed so she could just get up and go. I've never wanted to motivate myself to run, but figured that early morning might be a good time to enjoy the neighborhood without having to excuse myself from the family for an hour or more on a regular basis, and also if I could build the habit up before summer, the future me would thank my present self.

Furthermore, we're getting a dog in August, and sleep is going to be spotty for several weeks or more, so waking myself up when it's still dark is some preparation for that, as well.

After I'd walked one morning and really liked it, I set an alarm on my phone to make sure I'd wake up early enough. That felt too official, though, so I turned it off. I would walk if I woke up early enough, and if I didn't... that would be fine. 

So far, this is working.

I'm tending to wake up naturally at 5:35-6:15 every morning. I guess I've probably always awakened at about that time, but just rolled over and gone back to sleep (which, actually, I've done several times, when it's been raining or I decided to give myself the day off, or knew I was going to walk with someone later in the day).

One thing I notice when I'm out and it's still dark out, is which houses already have lights on inside. It feels so early, that I am sorry for those people who have to get up to get their kids ready for the bus (one of them picks up before sunrise), or to head in to work. Today it hit me: I'm up. Dur. But the difference is that we are fortunate enough to have a lifestyle where we almost never need artificial lighting to start our days. 

James no longer has to commute, so the sun is well up by the time he checks in at "the office." Neither of my kids has ever been in school, much less ridden a school bus. And I can get around in the near-dark pretty well. So we all have the luxury of being awakened gently as light slowly breaks us into the day.

As an aside, we bought these to help see when we're out in the dark. They work very well, and they don't mess with your pupils' dilation, so if you're trying to stargaze (or you just don't want to shine a bright light into a neighbor's window), they're super! Highly recommend.

Here are a few pictures from my morning treks.

A Midsummer Night's... Sweat

You guys! Things. Have. Been. Crazy!

Nope. That's an Amber Ruffin bit.

What I mean is that things have been HOT. Yes, since I blogged a couple of days ago, it has continued. The heat.

But we can't hibernate in the house forever, so I've been out and about working most of the week so far.

Monday morning at 1:18 AM, I was awakened by... something. James was still awake (he had Monday off) and we met up in the living room. I asked him what that sound was, and he didn't know. As he looked out the front window, I looked out the side. It sounded vaguely like someone was running around on our wooden porch.

James saw a GIANT branch from our chinaberry tree go rolling off of the roof.

First, chinaberries drop limbs ALL of the time. Second, it's been dry, so I'm sure this one is parched as heck. Third, it SNAPPED. And the branch was huge.

I was pleased to find in daylight that our gutters had held, although I'm sure I need to go back and clean them again, even though I just did it maybe a month and a half ago.

Monday afternoon was overcast, and I took advantage of the shade to cut apart the branches to a manageable weight so I could move it off of the masonry. The branch did take out a chunk out of the top of one of the open patio posts, but it's only visible from the house side.

I ended up cutting three more iffy branches from the tree before I was done. Then I was DONE.

Kind of cool how so much of the growth was to one side of the tree. All of the cuts look like this.

Tuesday morning, Mal's friend's mom texted me to see if we wanted to meet them at the lake. Mal hopped in the wagon and we walked down there. It was only 10:30, so hadn't gotten up to 100 yet, but it hit that about the time we were coming home just before noon.

Mal, his friend, and his friend's brother had fun chatting about Minecraft and we moms had fun visiting with a grown-up who doesn't live in our house (hashtag social distancing).

Walking back up the hill from the lake required three water breaks for me. Mal plus the wagon is about 80 pounds, and even though the tires are AWESOME, it's still quite the work-out.

Then yesterday, we stayed in most of the day and Mal and I went on a walk once the sun started to go down. We looked at all of the construction going on around the neighborhood, and really enjoyed places where there are still just trees. We also saw this happy touch that's been on top of a nearby mailbox for months.

When we got home, I watered our poor apple trees (if they don't make it through the winter unscathed, and we pull them up next spring, we'll probably put in wicking beds instead and just plant gardens).

And, no, that's not gravel all over the yard. It's dormant grass. When we had our solar panels put on last year, one of the installers said, "You're going to have to re-sod this." I laughed and told him it was never sodded. It's just what's here naturally, and by October, it's going to need to be mowed again. It stays green all winter and goes back to sleep in June. Keeps our lawn guy (and me) from having to mow in the hottest part of the summer!

Then today, Thursday, I went to pick up a couple of rain barrels that we bought for half price through the Round Rock water district. Woo hoo! I was going to wait until it was evening to install them, but procrastinating is difficult for me.

Today was hot, but dry for a change. We've hit 100 every day for several weeks now, but this morning, we broke the record low for the day! The Austin airport registered 63 degrees, and I happened to be awake early so opened up the house for a couple of hours.

It could have been a worse day to set these puppies up, and I'm glad that I got it finished in time for a nice cool shower before dinner.

Now we just wait for it to rain! In December, maybe?

Here's hoping for a lazy Friday to round out a physically exhausting (in a good way!) week.

Have a good weekend, weird-os!

Throes of Summer (AKA Pit o'Hell)

In the past month, James has blogged more than I have! Can you believe it?

I keep thinking of things to write, but once I get a few minutes to sit with my computer and my thoughts, I just want to veg. I want to watch "The Story of God" on Netflix, or some late show bits on YouTube.

Because my brain is fried, ladtlemen and gens.

First, there's the fact that we're closing out our second full week of +100 degree temperatures. Our grass is crunchy, the lake is so low that they've closed the first dock, and I'm watering our poor sad fruit trees every dang day. Actually, the fig tree looks fine; the apples are iffy. If they don't make it through to this fall, I think we should pull them out and get something better suited to this area of Texas, like volcanoes or flame-throwers or something. I guess just because they sell a particular tree at a local nursery doesn't mean you can actually expect to grow them here. Sigh. We're $120 in at this point, and I'm not replacing them if they don't both make it... and you do need two apple trees for at least one apple tree to be healthy and produce the best fruit. At this rate, if we ever do get real apples, they'll probably look like those projects we did in elementary school where you carve a face in an apple and then "shrink" it through dehydration. Anyway, heat = shrunken BRAIN.

Second, I have an extremely high-energy, high-needs 5-year-old who is either talking, singing, or making sound effects literally every waking moment. I have difficulty thinking whole thoughts, much less getting out an entire sentence most days. I remember thinking, when D was this age, that my brain might melt toward the end of the day. And that child went to bed at 7 PM and got up at 7 AM. My second goes to bed between 11:30 and midnight and wakes up anywhere from 9 to 10 AM. So he's getting markedly less bed time than D did. My applesauce noggin feels it. Also, I'm repeating a theme from above totally unintentionally because my head can't bother itself to think of another example.

Third, everyone seems to have at least a little pandemic fog. We're still being pretty insular, staying in and seeing few people. We've seen my immediate family somewhat regularly, and have met a friend or two at a park. But the park stuff is over with for a while, until we can go out without turning into puddles of goo. Today I saw that a guy who works construction here in Austin drinks 2 gallons of water a day at his job, and he never has to go to the restroom. So that's what we're dealing with heat-wise (which, I know, I've already mentioned; but that's one reason we've curtailed even MORE what we were doing two months ago). School (such as it is) has mostly started back, so the public pools are closed. (Actually, a splash pad is open but you have to make reservations, and I just booked Mal a two-hour window for a week from tomorrow. That's how desperate people are to get out and do stuff like this.)

Basically, everything is a little more repetitive than usual. We're super fortunate: James is still working, none of us has gotten sick. We're fine. But the days bleed into each other with no major difference in them.  It can get kind of "meh," even as I acknowledge that we've only been inconvenienced and not truly put out, let alone harmed. But there have been numerous articles detailing this common "pandemic brain fog" experience. They seem confident that this will all pass once we're back to "normal," but no one knows when that will be. 

In related news, the city of Austin and Travis County (I live in the latter but not the former) just extended the mask mandate through December 15. I'm sure this is to cover the first semester of in-person schools, and our numbers are still high enough that I absolutely get it! But it seems SO far away. 

After the State Fair of Texas canceled for this fall, I planned an alternate little road trip, since James already requested time off. (He'd requested off for April and just canceled that since no one was going anywhere in April.) I decided to assume everything would still be operating weirdly and planned most things for outside. The one thing I did tag as a "maybe" was the Science Mill in Johnson City, but I think I'll pull that and we can visit again when we don't have to wear masks. I might feel differently when it's not 412 degrees, but just waiting to checkout at the grocery store yesterday, I was so warm and steamy in my breathe-holes that I felt intense pity for the people who work 8 hours a day and have to breathe into those things. 

As an aside, it's completely ridiculous that the wearing of masks has become a politicized issue. First, this:

That's pretty simple. Masks 1) keep some droplets from getting away from you and 2) slows the momentum of the droplets that DO get out. So until we know what's going on (and the better part of a year into this, we still don't), it's one of the easiest and most effective ways to keep others safe (hopefully they're also keeping YOU safe). 

Anyway, all of that to say that I'm glad that there are mask mandates. Before the cities and states had legal mandates, it was harder for stores to enforce their company policies. In case you're reading this in 2030 and don't have much context, look up "people freaking out over wearing a mask." People are yelling, attacking retail workers, committing vandalism, shooting into stores, and generally seem to believe that somehow their civil rights are being violated by being asked to have a little responsibility in this effort to curb the spread of COVID-19 until we can get a vaccine/herd immunity.

Even with governing authorities coming around to put some teeth in mask orders (our governor resisted for a long time, even prohibiting local authorities from enforcing mask-wearing with any kind of penalty at all after an initial warning; but eventually Texas became a hotspot and I think he realized he had to do something), people are still losing their minds over being required to wear a mask or leave. It's embarrassing. I'm embarrassed for them.

I recently watched a video where a lady was running around a Trader Joe's calling everyone else there "sheep" for wearing masks. Well, I'm sorry, but why did YOU decide NOT to wear a mask? That wasn't just your independent idea. She's talking about breathing her on CO2, which she definitely heard somewhere. And I think people genuinely wouldn't be as angry if they didn't believe the mask stuff was some kind of power grab by the government. But they are getting that idea somewhere. We're all following someone; we just choose different sources as credible.

All of that to say, I HATE wearing a mask. Especially the one time I got out wearing my glasses. It's just hot and uncomfortable and as much as I love going places with Mal, I'll almost always leave him home because trying to manage myself AND continue putting his mask back on him over and over (he can't seem to figure it out) is exhausting. 

It's kind of funny that I felt the need to post a vehement defense of wearing masks before I said that I personally hate it. But that's because of how heated this has gotten politically. I absolutely agree that wearing masks masks us safer as a community. And they're uncomfortable and I will be happy when we don't have to anymore.

Also, I know... many Asian people wear masks as a habit when they go out. I'll say they're made of stronger stuff than I am. Amen and amen.

Finally: This weekend is my 8th Austinversary. I cannot express enough my absolute joy that I moved here and met the people I've met and live where I live now. Sometimes, I come across news or bits of a conversation from people I used to know, and places I used to frequent, and I wonder if I'd still be "the same" if I hadn't left. I feel like I've grown as a person an incredible amount in the past few years, and so much of that has been the influence of this place. I don't know exactly how to explain it, except that I've seen examples of people genuinely trying to be the best versions of themselves and encouraging me to do the same. But I could stand it without the heat.

Summer Doldrums

Hi, friends! We've had a couple of very television- and computer-game-intensive days around here, but I don't mind that at all! It feels like there's been a lot going on, and when Mal complained about having to take D to banjo lessons on Monday (he'd been to meet a friend at McDonald's earlier, and said, "I only want to go one place per day!"), I promised him we could stay home for the next two whole days... so far, he's mostly wanted to veg. We've played LEGOs and Disney Cars and Numberblocks, too. But he is in no hurry to leave. I don't blame him. It's been really hot! In fact, although I'm speaking with D's therapist alone tomorrow, I was going to take Mal with me, because he could just play in her office while she shows me some test results. However, he asked that I have my parents come stay with him, because he's all about being a homebody at the moment.

I'm glad! He usually loves just running around, which is fine. But I remember giant swaths of time when D was little that we'd be home all day for days. It's a nice change!

Our chickens are about 19 weeks old. James told me today that egg color is sometimes related to earlobe color (there are exceptions), and that's cool. I was noticing the other day that one of the chickens has very green ears, and another lighter green/yellow ones. They haven't really shown until recently, so maybe they're getting close. We're in no hurry. They're great pets, even without eggs.

See the yellow/green tint? But also, most of them seem to have red earlobes, which means brown eggs. The two "puffy cheek" ones should have some kind of pastel eggs. I can't see their earlobes. They're pretty obscured by fluff.

It was markedly cooler yesterday than in the past six weeks or so, and I could tell the chickens were feeling it. They had a great day roaming the yard under cloud cover, instead of avoiding the sun. Also, we used a lot of non-solar-generated electricity, but whatever. It was a nice break. Here are the chickens taking evening "baths" on the fence.

And the other day, out in the back part of the yard. They've been getting over the fence more and more, but they're understanding how to get back without my opening the gate. They look like wild birds!

Our grass is pretty much shot, and they go over the tiny patches of green first thing in the morning, so it's good for them to have other places to forage. As long as they don't cross the street or make it back to our neighbor's yard! He hasn't started building yet, and I don't want them to get into the habit of going back there!

When I lived in Sherman, one time I came home on a Saturday and there was a guinea sitting on top of our opened garage door. Interestingly, I still have a picture of it. It was October 13, 2007.

We were confounded until a few hours later, our neighbor from two doors down knocked on our door. He asked if we'd seen one of his birds, and we took him out to the garage, but it had moved on. He said it was his son's birthday, and they were getting ready to make his birthday dinner with the guinea, and he thought that the bird knew, so ran away. What's funny is that I didn't even know he had these birds, and they're really loud! Oh well. Wonder what happened to it.

Anyway, I don't want our neighbors here to have a plump, juicy chicken show up and think, "Hey! Free lunch!" Our chickens are friends, not food. I haven't gotten to the point that I can't eat other chicken, but D's been there ever since the pigeons got killed. I think it's permanent.

I'm super excited, because I love planning stuff. And I love traveling. But travel is kind of expensive, so it's not something we do a whole lot of. However, since our Hawaii trip got called off (boo!), it's allowed us to take a couple of smaller trips, and then also both James and I have a single-parent weekend with Mal in the works. I mean, of course, I'm planning both of those, too, but that's just how I like it.

We're going to see James's parents for his birthday (kind of like Mal and I did last year, but with James this time... and we're going late enough that we'll miss the Christmas parade, which stinks... but we'll hit the premier of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, so that's something), then next spring, we're going to go ahead and take Mal to LEGOLAND, like we'd discussed visiting on our way to Hawaii. We found amazing deals on two different hotels there, one of which we had to prepay, but we'd taken out travel insurance when we'd booked our flights, so we felt okay doing that. It's such a treat for me to now watch the prices on the same rooms we've reserved go up, little by little. I'm always on the lookout for deals, and am ready to change the reservation we didn't have to prepay, but it really seems like we got an amazing price, and I'll end up being super glad I do stuff as early as I do.

They're finally starting on building a house across the street from us. They cleared it at the beginning of the year, and it seems like it probably just took a long time to get permits. It's kind of noisy, and a contractor parked in front of our mailbox earlier this week, so we didn't get delivery that day. But it's fun to watch from the comfort of our air conditioned front rooms. Yesterday, we got to watch some workplace rough-housing as three guys were filling sandbags with gravel and a fourth drove the Bobcat over, got the scoop close enough to one guy that he hopped up on the form wall to get out of the way, then the driver raised the scoop up just under his neck! It was precision driving. Pretty impressive, but I might not have the same sense of humor if it had been done to me. Mal laughed, though, and wanted an encore.

By the end of the year, we should have houses on both free corners. The caddy-corner from us is a neighbor's back yard. Unless he sells it because of property taxes, it should remain undeveloped. He has it set up like a park; it's so beautiful. I hope he doesn't. If so, though, we'll always have our back yard!

You might have realized that I will turn 47 in a mere two days. "What?!" you say. "You can't be older than 32!" But it's true. I'm old. I feel it in my reflection and pictures, but I don't care. And I don't feel any older/more decrepit than when I was 18. That's good. I need reading glasses. There is only 1.5 years more difference in my age from my younger child and my sister's age from her only grandchild, but... well, that one kind of makes me want to take up drinking but otherwise... no complaints. Having lunch with a friend and really hoping for a cool cake. That's about it. I don't want for anything else, so am pretty lucky. Actually, I *did* tell James I'd love to have the back porch power-washed. Love those chickens, but they're pooping up a storm out there. So I guess you could say, I have it really great. Happy birthday to me.

The Part of the Year That Sucks

It sprinkled a bit on Saturday, and you'd have thought we won the lottery. The child and the chickens were so happy. But here we are again, with 100-degree highs and zero rain in the forecast for the next two weeks. Blehh. I hate this part of summer. I guess I mostly hate summer. It was pretty mild until about the second week in July. I'm ready for a break in this crap already. Ugh.

Hey, here's something fun: I can see decay on ANOTHER tooth in Mal's mouth. Hopefully, I caught it early enough that doubling up on brushing and finally forcing him to use fluoride will help. I guess he just has super porous teeth. We can't go in for another cleaning/fluoride treatment until January. I'm going with another dentist's office, because... I just am. We have friends who are really happy with their dentist's office. Then again, her kid doesn't have cavities (and brushes maybe once a week), so he sounds like D. D LOVED the dentist, because it was always kudos for no cavities.

Something funny I was thinking about the other day: I don't remember brushing D's teeth. Like ever. I know I did, up to a certain point. But I have no memory of it. Or of when we went from baths to showers. All lost to the ages.

I deleted my Instagram account yesterday. I'm still on Twitter, but who knows for how much longer. Social media is the way that many activists I enjoy communicate most, but also, I know I'm in an echo chamber. AND people hate re-tweet (or screen cap and then share) so much, then the same talking points are heaved on both sides, and it's just tiring. I'm still using groups on Facebook under a fake name, so I can follow "Be the Bridge" and a hyper-local inclusion group, and a smaller (than Austin) area homeschool group, as well as Buy Nothing.

The only thing I miss about social media is sharing cool pictures with everyone. As much as I have always enjoyed writing, I think I increasingly process stuff visually. Before Google Photos sucked up Picasa, you could just make your entire photo page public, and I'm sad that I have to share each individual album with people I want to see my pictures. Most likely, nobody cares about this nearly as much as I do.

The chickens are around 16 weeks old. Their combs are getting increasingly red/pink. This is/can be an indicator of sexual maturity, and on average, Easter Eggers can lay as early as 20 weeks. I'm hoping it will cool down a bit before they have to start working on that, though.

I joined an online chicken forum, and asked people more knowledgable than I: apparently, the seller was right and all six birds are pullets! I'm so glad, as we really like them all and wouldn't want to have to break up "the set" if any of them were cockerels. But also, there's a likelihood that we may end up with a couple dozen eggs every week! Some weeks, we go through that many (especially when Mal was loving scrambled eggs -- which he now hates -- and D is on a ramen kick). Otherwise, if we have excess, I think I'm going to offer half a dozen eggs at a time for free to whoever wants them. It'll be a nice way to meet more neighbors. Maybe I'll use them as a welcome wagon gift, with all of the new construction and people moving in.

Mal and I are going to go see the live-action Dora movie tomorrow, and I'm actually super excited. It looks very cute. Yes, I'm a dork. After that, he wants to go to the Lego store (which is so very far away) and see if they have any Minecraft mini-figs. So that'll keep us mostly indoors and air conditioned tomorrow.

One good thing: This heatwave makes me really glad we got solar panels! We're using a bit under 20 kWh of PEC electricity on the hottest days, which is less than a third of what we were using before. So that's pretty exciting.

Tomorrow is my parents' 50th anniversary! They're on a cruise and will be arriving in Quebec City in the morning, then will finish up this trip in Montreal for a couple of days. I want to go back to Montreal soon. And Glacier National Park. And I'd love to go to Yellowstone for the first time. Basically, I'd love to just travel for a year or so. D could take care of the chickens and the cats, so it'd totally work out. I should definitely start a GoFundMe, right? Right??

Dribs and Drabs from My Scattered Brain

I don't know whether it's the heat or the fact that I'm used to exorcising itty bitty mental grenades as Facebook statuses, but I find that the stupidest things are ricocheting around in my brain as I make my way through the day.

Here's a dumb one: Mal watches a lot of kiddie music videos: Little Baby Bum, Dave and Ava - more on that one in a minute - and Super Simple Songs. And he has a lot of books with nursery rhymes in them. It drives me bonkers and every single time he hears or reads "Humpty Dumpty," I feel the need to verbalize the caveat, "He's not an egg. It never says he's an egg."

I feel like creators are being lazy. Just because he was depicted as an egg somewhere back in the 19th Century doesn't mean he's an egg. The whole thing makes no sense. Why would the king give a rat's patootie about a broken egg?

See? I need to be somewhere where I can get outside and enjoy nature and not have these idiotic obsessions.

The second thing is that I think Americans need to get with the times and pick a different name for what we call "football." It ISN'T football anymore, and it makes so much more sense to use that name for soccer (or futbol, if you will). Mal has a lot of balls, including a so-called "football," so, yeah. I am confronted with this a lot.

Oh! So going back to the videos: I think my favorite "channel" is Super Simple Songs. Mal started with Little Baby Bum, and those are cute. I like how they reboot "Rock-a-Bye Baby" and make it less death-y. And their "Twinkle Twinkle" videos are beautiful (and ubiquitous; Mal calls stars "twinkle"). The Super Simple Songs are cute enough for Mal without being overly obnoxious to me. There is a set of videos called "Do You Like...?" that makes the unschooler in me chafe, but you'll see about that in a week or two when I have completed a fun project and blog about it. 

We discovered "Dave and Ava" when James' mom was here, and they caught Mal's attention immediately. Well, they're a little precious, but tolerable... EXCEPT for this. The main characters are two little kids who wear animal pajamas all of the time, and apparently live with a father (figure?), a dog, a cat, and a mouse, on a farm. Some of the animals are anthropomorphized a bit, especially seen dancing or walking upright. A few wear some clothes if the "story" of the song calls for it. BUT... There is a "family" in several videos. A family of monkeys. Fully dressed, except with no shoes, and with hairstyles that are overtly black. This is unmistakably a black family, represented as monkeys. It *might* be innocent, but how could the creative team not know? 

In all of the videos, the kids are mischievous, jumping on the bed in this song, rolling over and causing problems and being ornery in "There Were Ten in the Bed," stealing apples and bananas and making rude faces in "I Like Apples and Bananas." I mean, it literally makes me uncomfortable. I have looked around on the internets to see if anyone has called them out on this, and found exactly two instances on Facebook or YouTube where someone asked about what the heck they were thinking. The creators haven't responded. I know they're not absent, because they DID respond (in good humor, I think) to something I wrote pretty snarkily on their Facebook page.

The "cast" of Super Simple Songs is diverse almost to a technical precision; it was obviously intentional. I prefer that to this, which almost seems like a way to catch kids' attention, then subtly teach them to be racist. Mal loves their videos, though. So, again, I talk a lot while he's watching.

Okay, I don't remember where I was going with this post. I started it days ago and had a laundry list of things I was planning to "discuss," but have lost them all and keep not writing because I'm too tired to try to remember.

I'll end with this thing that Mal found this morning that is truly awful. It's the Videogyan YouTube channel and it's truly insufferable. They have about 14,000 versions of "Five Little Monkeys--" ahem, "Babies" and by the time it got to the eighth one in the compilation Mal was trying to watch, I had to stop it. They're written awfully, with lyrics like, "Five little babies playing with the toys. One tossed it up and it got broke. Mamma called the Daddy and the Daddy said, 'No more babies playing with the toy.'" Or, "Five little babies opening the eggs. One got a dino and it got scared. Mamma called the Daddy and the Daddy said, 'There are no dinos living in our house." Yeah. So if you hate yourself, watch a few. You're welcome.

Stuff around Vogelfutter

Our patio is awesome. It's really hot at the moment, in more ways than one. For the past week or so, the temperature has been in the high/mid-90s with heat indexes in the 105-area, due to humidity and general awfulness. Also, two pigeons just tried to make babies. It was noisy, both in terms of their vocalization and the fact that they kept running into the bars, so it sounded like someone playing a giant xylophone. Badly.

James' mom visited last weekend, and she and Mal had a great time together. I told James that's what we need to raise a toddler: three adults. There's one to take care of the income, one to take care of the house and primary care of the kid, then an alternate who can jump in and play with the kid during meal preparation and errands.

Patsy got to visit Mal's gym a couple of times (once with Mal's cousin, Tian, in tow), meet Mal's friend Luna while visiting our church, eat at a couple of our favorite places (Kerbey Lane on the patio was such a perfect breakfast for Mal... there was even a 17-month-old who wouldn't sit still except to nurse sitting right beside us!), and see a lot of Mal's nakedness. That's kind of our life right now. That kid hates wearing clothes.

Speaking of that, Mal has had what I've come to believe is a heat rash for like two months now. It started out as what I thought were ant bites, but now it's all over his abdomen, upper legs, and some on his upper arms. I was just reading about it here, and they recommend staying out of the heat and humidity. Okay, thanks. That's really helpful advice here in Austin. The rash doesn't seem to bother him, so we're just putting some Gold Bond on it when it looks red, and waiting it out otherwise.

Mal is trying to talk more, repeating words we say in his own way. One word that he has down pat is "die." Like when he wants to climb up on the cabinet, and I say, "Be careful, Mal. I don't want you to die." Or, "Get down from there or you're going to fall and die!" So now, while he's climbing, he gleefully repeats, "Die die die!" over and over again.

When Patsy was here, Mal started interjecting every time I'd say "James." He'd respond with, "Daddy! Daddy!" and the sign. I guess he knows his dad's name. He still won't say "Mommy," though. 

For some reason, I'm famished like all of the time. I don't know if it's because Mal is still nursing so much or because I'm just trained from the past two years of eating to, well, eat. But I am trying to hold out until dinner (which might be at 6:30 and might be at 8:45; we never really know until James texts that he's on his way home). I had a good breakfast, a snack, a great lunch, an afternoon snack, and, honestly... It's like I've lost the ability to sustain a hungry feeling. I go from mild stomach growl to beginning hypoglycemic occurrence really quickly. 

D recently bought herself a MacBook Pro. She was wanting to write more, and said that she felt like writing sitting on her bed or a comfy chair would be nice. She was also able to hook her drawing pad up to the Mac, so she can do that from the mattress, too. She is rarely on her desktop anymore, except for when her cousin TJ comes over to game. She also just read almost entirely through the Harry Potter series. She's toward the middle of book seven, but the book light I lent her has dead batteries, and she has been consuming the books at night. I need to get her a headboard-mounted lamp.

Done. Gosh, I love the internet.

Today, I was cleaning up my email folders. I actually moved the "writing" folder to my archive. It's kind of sad, but it's a season. I'm sure when Mal is 5 or 8 or 12 or 19, I'll get to write again. For now, the blog is the thing, and I'm really fortunate that I get to watch yet another amazing kid grow up.

Making  friends at Mozart's.

Now that he's older, I think we're ready to try story time at the Bee Cave library again. Maybe we'll hit it next week. This week got away from me, plus I have been so tired. I told James the other day that I didn't feel motivated to do anything, but once I mentally listed everything I'd done that day, I'd done quite a lot! I guess I just didn't feel like it. Anyway, last year, Mal couldn't sit at all to listen to the stories, but I feel like now maybe he would. He doesn't sit to listen to the 5-minute children's message in church, though, so I could be wrong. If all else fails, there is a splash pad right across the street from the Bee Cave library, so we'll have a nice morning, regardless.

One final thing Mal is really into right now: bringing everything from somewhere to somewhere (usually someone) else. It started one night when I was trying to get Mal to go to bed. He had gotten up and gone into the living room where James was hanging out. I stayed in bed. A few minutes later, Mal brought me one of the blocks from the set we keep in an ottoman storage thing. I said, "Thanks, but I don't want a block." However, he sat it on the side of the bed and ran back into the living room. A few moments later, he came back with another block. He set it on the bed, then sped back into the living room. This happened over and over again. 

Eventually, I asked James, "Is he going to bring every block in here?" James said, "It looks like it." I opened my eyes and saw that he'd laid each side by side, so that the to open sides of the bed (the foot and one side) were both bordered with nearly 40 blocks. When there were about 5 blocks left, Mal decided to drag the ottoman into the bedroom instead.

When his grandma was here, he pulled everything out of his kitchen and put it on her bed for her. Last night, while Mal's dad was in the restroom and I was in bed, Mal brought me my brush, then my comb, then some leave-in conditioner, then my pick, etc. He just zooms from one place to the other, then back and again. I think it's his way of running off some excess energy? He's not as big on putting everything back, but it's pretty entertaining to watch, anyway.

Weird Weather and Words

The other day, Mal and I went to the park, both wearing shorts and t-shirts. The day before had been delightfully chilly, and I was so disappointed that this day was muggy and in the mid- to high-70s already at like 8:00 AM. Apparently, this is an austin thing, which I forget each year, but noticed in my "Facebook Memories" today I was complaining about two years ago. It gets chilly, happiness mounts as I get to enjoy leggings and sweaters, and then... well, someone asked if it were "Indian summer" (is that offensive? I don't know the origin) but I think a more accurate assessment would be that the cooler days are a fake-fall, which we don't actually have here.

Also, another little boy and his mom came to the park while we were there, and he was wearing long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a Captain America hoodie which was zipped all the way up. I'd have been crying in protest if it were me. People dress weirdly here. The day before? Nice and chill; it would have been appropriate. This day? Way to give your kid heat stroke.

Another thing is that the temperature doesn't follow a "cooler when it's dark, hotter during the daytime" pattern this time of year. The high might be at 9:30 AM, then it dives and is 20 degrees cooler at 3:00 PM.

Alternately, I might get up and put on sweats and a long-sleeved shirt, only to have to change into shorts and a tank top in the afternoon, then back into long pants at night.

This morning when Mal and I went on a short jaunt around the complex, it was 58 degrees, and about half of the air conditioners were on. I don't understand why people don't open their windows. I've looked literally every time we've ever been outside and have only ever seen one set of windows (like a double window in one apartment) cracked open at all. It was VERY cool inside our apartment when we woke up this morning; 67, I believe. It got cooler when I opened the windows more. I don't think it ever got above 70 in here. If I had to work, I'd still leave the windows partially opened. I guess I'm just cheap that way.

To change the subject completely: All of those words I reported Mal using a month and a half ago? He's stopped. He rarely (but will a bit) says "Dada." The only other thing he says, and he says it ALL OF THE TIME FOR EVERYTHING, is "ba-hum." It means "help," "I want that," "no, seriously, help," and, of course, "nursies." The thing is, he understands A LOT. Like everything, almost.

We have this joke now when he climbs into my lap and wants to nurse. He'll say, "Ba-hum" and I'll say, "Nursies." He'll usually smack my chest and say, "Ba-hum!" So I'll correct him: "Nursies." Then he laughs or screams like it's the biggest joke, and it makes me laugh.

There have been a couple of times I've asked him to pick up and item and bring it to me, and he's done it. He knows exactly what "vitamin" means, and "bath." When we ask him if he wants to go outside, take a walk, ride his bike, etc. he knows what's going on. He sticks his tongue out on the page in a book where a kid is doing that. He waits for me to give him a kiss on the page in another book where that happens. He gets things.

The other day, I asked him if I could clip his nails. He walked over to get his grooming kit, opened it up, and... took off with the clippers so I couldn't. He gets things!

But it's like he's given up on trying to talk. He vocalizes almost constantly. But he isn't trying to make words, so... that's interesting.