Checking In

After my last post, I was so sure that I was going to get back to writing regularly (not daily, but at least a couple of times a week). The more time that passes, though, the more overwhelming it feels. To keep things simple on this post, I think I'll just write bullets--short tidbits of what's been going on lately. I've actually really missed writing!

**Eli bought a new (used) car. And when I say used, I mean a Dodge Neon! They quit making those in the early 2000's, I think. I actually had a 1995 Dodge Neon when I was in college and I loved it. Eli has gotten really into cars, like Noah, and he chose this one because of the "mods" (I don't understand anything about cars--they don't interest me at all).

It's so interesting, though, that both Noah and Eli have met people due to their cars. On more then a couple of occasions, car enthusiasts have pulled into parking lots behind them to ask about their cars. I never knew it, but there is a whole community like this--my kids have even gone to car "meet-ups". Anyway, I have taken over Eli's Volvo--it's a 2008 and has 317,000 miles on it! Hopefully it lasts until interest rates on cars go down, but I'll drive it until it's dead. It has a CD player and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited about playing some old CD's from high school. I have no idea why I held onto them, but I'm glad I did!

**My weight is up about five pounds. Honestly, I feel lucky that it's not more! I know my biggest problem is snacking in the evenings. I don't know why it's so hard to get it under control. If I can just quit snacking before bed, I know that it would make a big difference in my weight. All I can do is keep trying, I guess!

**One of the reasons I was hesitant to write is because of a comment that someone left on my last post (I didn't publish it). This person has been hate-reading my blog for probably 10+ years, and I was kind of creeped out that she mentioned something very specific regarding my kids. There are a few things that I've always kept private from my blog, usually for safety reasons. (For example, the name of my kids' schools... yes, someone could get that info if they really wanted to, but I didn't want it to be easily accessible on my blog.)

Seeing something that specific in the comment, something that I'd deliberately left out of the blog, was kind of creepy. I was used to the degrading comments (she loves to make me feel bad about everything--my terrible parenting, being a bad wife, being a lazy stay-at-home mom, doing projects all wrong and making them look like crap, my food looking disgusting, my house being ugly, you name it!); but this was new. I've been valuing privacy more and more lately (with cameras *everywhere* now, I hate feeling watched all the time). So, the fact that this person looked up this info about my family was disturbing. Anyway, I don't understand why people hate-read; my time means too much to me to waste it in such a negative way.

**My Asian pear tree has fruit growing on it!!! I only planted it in the fall and I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw actual fruit there. I'd waited probably 10+ years for the other "Asian pear tree" to grow fruit, only to learn that the tree was just an invasive species of tree that would never bear fruit. Hopefully I'll get to eat a few Asian pears from the tree this fall!

**Jerry and I were scrolling through Instagram one day when we saw the "old man challenge"--you have to stand on one foot and put on your sock and shoe (while keeping balance and not lowering your foot or holding onto anything), then switch legs and put on the other sock and shoe. We tried it and had fun doing it, so we looked up some more challenges. There was one that I thought was ridiculously impossible but we tried it out for a laugh. And we discovered it actually wasn't that bad--it looks so much harder than it is! This is just a screenshot from a video right before we crashed to the floor.

Date night shenanigans

Ideally, both people would be able to balance horizontally. We never fully got the balance to the point where we could hold the position for a long time, but we realized later that the person on top has to stay flat (this is hard to describe--if you look at the picture, Jerry should be lying back more, which helps control the balance). Anyway, we laughed so hard and we have some funny videos of us toppling over. 

We also did a challenge to see who could draw the best circle without looking. Mine is the white one and Jerry's is the red one. Basically, you stand with your shoulder close to the wall, looking straight ahead so you can't see the board. Then you use your arm to make a big circle and see how close the start and end are to touching. Mine was really good! Jerry's needed some work, haha.

Luke and Riley came over and I had them try it, too. Luke was so funny. Luke's was off about an inch at first, so he switched to his left hand and it was near perfect. He's the only person I know that is truly ambidextrous--sometimes he writes with his right hand, sometimes with his left, whatever he's in the mood for. Same with things like throwing a ball, and even playing Jenga.

**While Luke and Riley were here, I played Tapple with them--it's the game I wrote about before, where there is a category and you have to take turns calling off things that are in that category, beginning with a unique letter each time, until all the letters are used or someone can't think of one before the timer goes off (you get 10 seconds each). The category was "things found in a house" and we went through things like couch, table, dresser, pets, etc. There were only a few letters left, and "i" was one of them. Riley said, "Inhabitants!" I was stunned and couldn't help laughing. She's only five! That was impressive.

**When Jerry and I went to Minnesota, we spent a lot of time at Becky's parents' house. Becky's mom is a very talented quilter (she's the one that quilted my race t-shirt quilt top). Since I love sewing, I was fascinated with her sewing room and all of her quilts. This one blew my mind--she pieced the entire thing BY HAND with a needle and thread! She told me how many pieces there are, but I can't remember.

The hexagons are incredibly tiny, and she had to do a lot of "fussy cuts"--which basically means that rather than cutting fabric in any which direction, she chose to cut the hexagons out with the fabric's polka dots in the center and the stripes going in particular directions. I wish I had the patience to quilt, but I prefer smaller projects (likely because I am an instant gratification person, ha).

**Remember when I took that 23&Me test in December? I did it solely for the medical part, but toward the end of January, I decided to look at the ancestry part of it. I thought it would be incredibly boring, but I discovered something kind of unbelievable. I wish I could go into details, but I have to keep this kind of vague. I saw someone who was listed as a first cousin (sharing a set of grandparents with me) and I didn't recognize the name. I asked my parents and they didn't know, either. (Each of my parents has five siblings, so there were a lot of possibilities.)

I contacted this cousin (I'll call them a gender-neutral "Sam") and discovered they were adopted right after birth. They didn't know who their biological parents were due to a closed adoption, but they had a little info from the adoption agency. Based on this, I was able to figure out who Sam's bio parent is. Sam had been looking for this info for decades! The bio parent is choosing to remain anonymous and because of the closed adoption, Sam is respecting their wishes. I really hope that someday this will change, but for now, all I can do is get to know my cousin--and chatting with them has been great! We hope to meet up later this year.

**We bought some more luxury vinyl planking, and are going to put it in the bedrooms--Eli's room and my craft room still have carpet, which desperately needs to be replaced, so we are excited about this project. I'm hoping Jerry will get it installed it next weekend. While I did most of the work in the house remodel, Jerry did the floors and I'm happy not to have to do them! I am definitely going to paint the craft room, though. Maybe I'll do that this weekend, actually.

I'm going to end this post now. I know I have more to write--I really need to keep a list--so hopefully I will write another post soon! Thanks for the love and the checking in on me. I really do appreciate it, more than I can express.