spritechan | Entries tagged with couple chronicles

Today is such a busy day! Steve and I managed to sleep in until almost 11, the comfy bed, snuggles, and thunderstorms all night soothing us into comfort that we were both incredibly reluctant to leave. But leave we must, because as I said, so many things.

First on the agenda was food, coffee, and writing up the entry for yesterday. I confirmed the time of Pokémon Go for Larvitar as well. Shower was had and clothes were donned, entries were posted and off to Mall of America - which is really the only way to do it, what with the MANY pokestops, lures, people and Pokémon. Why waste your time anywhere else??

Holy crap it was INSANE there today! The parking ramps was already crazy full with a huge line, but I beelined for the roof, because I didn’t ant to waste any more time than we had already, and there was like basically no one there. It is really muggy out today, very VERY humid. Once inside, it was quickly discovered today was the regional yo-yo competition, which is always entertaining but SO. NERVEWRACKING. Steve says I make the best audience because I am so animated while watching - I gasp and cheer and hide my face and have running commentary. Yo-yo is actually a really impressive hobby. We spent a good deal of time on the 4th floor catching so many Larvitar and other Pokémon before heading to the 3rd floor, where we spent most of our time. The mall was filthy with Larvitar. I got a really good shiny as my second catch of the day, and I never did find one better. I found a better regular Larvitar as well, though I didn’t have as many terrible ones as Steve did. In the end I evolved three and buffed up 2. Then we walked around doing a couple raids, which didn’t show up until after the event was over. As usual, when the first Kyogre raid started, my phone borked out and we had to move everywhere. Steve didn’t catch his first one. Once I got into a raid, I did, and it was pretty good. Then we went to another one, and I got another good one, and Steve got a SHINY Kyogre. So jealous!!! They’re purple! I love purple! AND it had good stats. So lucky. On our way out I spotted Pa and Carrie, Parkway coworkers of mine, who were also playing Pokémon Go. We stopped and chatted with them for a few minutes before heading out.

Next up was my brother Jack’s graduation party at my dad’s house. We made the 40-minute drive out there, feeling kind of bad that we wouldn’t be able to stay long because I had to be home before 8 to tutor. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Jack had several friends over and there were people there for Dad and Tammy to hang out with too. They made sure to have rice for my tacos and Jack’s cake was pretty good too. Jack’s friends were decently funny, and apparently the running joke of his childhood was that he always talked about having so many siblings, and his friends were over often enough, and yet they NEVER saw any of them. So Jack was excited to show me off as one of the “fabled mysterious siblings”. To be fair, Jack is much younger than the rest of us. Bethany, at 26, is his closest sibling and still almost 9 years his senior.

After hanging out eating, and watching his slideshow that Dad made, we had to head out all too soon. The children were loudly playing Smash bros downstairs, and Jack seemed a little bummed we had to go so soon but took it in stride. I told him that since he’s going to a college nearby y house that he HAS to come by and hang out. I’m so easy to hang out with; we barely even have to talk lol. Just play games quietly and have fun.

I took a daiquiri to go (it was delicious) and Steve and I listen to Name of the Wind on the way back (we also listened to it on the way to dad’s, and I may or may not have gotten tearful right before we got there. It’s a POWERFUL book). I was in the best mood. My lesson with Shinpei was pretty good, he was distracted at first but eventually got into it, and we had fun. After that I went downstairs and we chilled until it was time to go to Minneapolis.

Oh yeah, we had also bought tickets to the midnight showing of Howl’s Moving Castle. I think the Uptown theatre might do this every year or every few years, but they show Ghibli movies as midnight showings, subtitled, one weekend a month. Howl’s is my favorite, along with Spirited Away and Nausicaa (Only Yesterday is a strong contender too). Steve couldn’t even remember the last time he saw it, and I’m a HUGE sap for this movie. It is so romantic and tender in my heart. Like, the themes really get to me, and I wondered if the type of person I am makes me view the movie a certain way. Ugh, just so good. After the movie I talked at length about the various depths and details I feel, and he said I have a “really strong headcanon.” Lol.

Before the movie, we were both so tired, and the Uptown is on Hennepin ave, one of the most happening streets in Minneapolis. Loud people everywhere. Huge crowds everywhere. We were both super tired but happy during the movie, and were (stupidly) surprised to see that the activity had not died down, or even so much as slowed down one bit when we left the movie. It was 2:30am! How are you people still active??? It was like I knew the dichotomy of being an old tired person placed against my own alcohol-fueled energy going out to party... but still!

You think we went home and went to sleep, but you’d be wrong. Father’s Day is tomorrow and I promised a dessert. The dessert I decided to make is no-bake, but it requires 8 hours of refrigeration. So to Cub we went for a couple of ingredients I needed. I made a simple but amazing-looking chocolate pie thing. Vegan, of course. That meant us finally flopping into bed at 4am. Oh my god.

Sunday was a lazy day, but I really wanted breakfast at Bloom again, and so off Sean and I went.

I was NOT disappointed. I mean, I was a LITTLE disappointed because by the time we got there, the vegan pop tarts were gone, but I ended up ordering a crapton of other things instead.

I ordered a really good sticky breakfast and jasmine tea (above picture), and crispy hash cakes that made me want to die, they were so good. I ordered Steve biscuits and gravy, and he said they were the best he’d ever eaten. That place is a winner, no doubt about it.

Before and after, Sean and I walked around playing Pokémon Go. We did a Marshtomp raid, and that was really cool.

After we got back, the boys were watching Dmac play ITG, trying to qualify for a tournament. I spent the afternoon weaving, and Sean joined me doing her own. I thought maybe I was weaving too loosely and Sean was weaving too tightly. Mine had gaps in the warp and hers was bubbling. But we just kept at it! I also helped her re-wind some yarn to work well in her project.

Before we were ready, it was time to go. Back in the car, got my knitting out, and more Name of the Wind.

We woke up and Sean wanted to go to a farmers market. I can’t remember which market she wanted to go to and which Ben wanted to go to. Whoever wanted which one, we ended up at the smaller market. I got really excited about this bakery stand, and ended up hating the caramel roll I got, so Steve graciously ate it for me. I bought some mustard greens with flowers (my fave) and some strawberries. Then we were all hungry, and Ben and Sean brought us to this AMAZING bakery called Bloom, where they had tons of vegan and gluten free pastries, as well as delicious pop tarts and tea. Since I couldn’t order everything I wanted, and we were on a time crunch, I decided I am going to go there again tomorrow. For today though, I got a sweet vegan pop tart as well as a savory hummus “pop tart” that ended up being more like a pastry sandwich but tasted AMAZING. it was all super delicious.

We got to the yarn shop right at 11, and the boys left. The weaving class was... interesting. I was cranky and belligerent most of the time, because the lady would not. Stop. Talking. We’d get started in one thing and she’d interrupt us every 4 minutes. She redirected the two other ladies multiple times to pay attention and not try to do the things at the same time she was doing them, even though I’m sure some people learn best by imitating while they learn. She seemed VERY concerned that people might miss something and *gasp* ask for an instruction to be repeated. There were only four of us. I was super irritable because the boys kept texting asking for updates, and I felt like a child who couldn’t use her phone even though it was important for them to know when to pick us up. We had barely gotten started on any ACTUAL weaving after the 4 hours were up! It was madness. So I was kind of cranky when we left, because it felt like holding in a sneeze.

I worked through my annoyance though because we were going mini golfing afterward and I knew that would be fun and we’d have time to weave in the evening.

Mini golf WAS fun, we did the course we don’t usually do, and Steve and I tied for second place at the end. We all did terribly except for Ben of course. I got an RNG (lucky) hole in one, much flirting was had, and it was just a good time.

In the evening, the boys played ITG and VR and I worked on weaving. Sean took a nap and then weaved some. DMac and Mike came over at some point and Dmac cutely asked for relationship advice, and it was funny to hear Ben give relationship advice when he’s had one girlfriend his whole life, that he started dating when he was like actually 12. But I appreciated that Dmac feels safe enough with us to be vulnerable like that.

For dinner it was Cafe Hollander again, and this time I ordered something better than the burger, and the uneven table made several people spill their drinks. Dmac spilled his into his lap and got pretty grumpy about it for awhile. We got pretty into the women’s heptathalon? Some college thing that was mostly women doing various running challenges, and we talked about how we’re all so old now compared to people in sports and how weird it is to follow basically teenagers in professional arenas.

After dinner we chatted for awhile but I was BEAT. SO tired. To couch pod!

Tealie pointed out that today is our last ACTUAL teaching day together. When we found out two years ago that I would be with Jenny last year, we both got a bit emotional about the fact that we were breaking up as co-teachers, and now we're making it permanent! We tried, we really did!! It was actually sad to think about, because I feel like there was so much we didn’t get to do together this year because of various roadblocks, but overall the year was good. We didn’t have any real conflict that I can think, no tension between us or struggles. We got along really well and are much closer friends outside of work. She even has begun sending me more “home life” snaps that are more personal. It’s cute.

Today was another long day. At Nokomis I started going through and organizing my files intermittently, and then I went up and pulled Idrew to talk about his services for next year. Janice had caught me in the hallway and said he seemed a little less happy to see her, and she was worried he was upset about qualifying. So he and I had a really good conversation about what the services will look like for him - they won’t be much. At this point it will just be a study skills class to help him with his work. He is smart, so he’ll be in gen ed classes all the way. I gave him the rundown of the structure of the day there, how teachers will help him, how he’ll definitely make friends (and several of his peers will be attending Parkway too). At one point I asked him what his biggest fear is about going to middle school, and he gave the cutest answer: “Like I’m the new kid and everyone will be staring at me.” Awwwwwwww.

I went back to Parkway to finish testing Miracle, and that took almost 2 hours because I was giving her breaks and chatting with her and Aazariah. I hadn’t had a chance like this all year to really connect with her, and I know both of their older brothers. I never had either of them in class, but Miracle’s brother Tre was in my buddy room a lot. He seemed like a cute kid, just some difficulties with focus and I know he has an untreated hearing problem. Miracle told me he got arrested this year for breaking into someone’s house, and she went on at length about how he’s not a bad kid and he’s been mixed up with a bad crowd since going to high school and his life has been threatened as a result of the fact that he’s trying not to run around with these other boys after going to court and having house arrest. She’s really worried about him and said she’s still mad at him for behaving that way. I know she’s just really worried about him and her family means so much to her.

After testing I drove us to Dairyette. It’s like a Dairy Queen, but it’s a one-off establishment that’s been around forever on the east side. I bought them each a treat for staying so long after school with me. While there I ran into Gustavo! He goes to the high school closest to Parkway. He seemed good, he asked about anime club and the kids he was hanging out with completely reminded me of the group in Spider-Man: Homecoming - unapologetically geeky but also really funny. He seemed sad that I wasn’t gonna be at Parkway next year even though he never even visits, lol.

I walked the girls across the street to the apartments where Miracle lives. She harassed her mom about,eating us in, banging on the door and calling her several times in the span of 30 seconds, and her mom came storming to the door yelling, and the look on her face when she saw me was hilarious. She of course stopped yelling immediately and apologized to me, saying that Miracle will often call her from WITHIN the tiny apartment. I told her she didn’t need to apologize to me, and that I had told Miracle she was being annoying. Lol. We talked about Miracle for a bit, she signed the papers I needed her to, and I was on my way home.

Once I got home I realized I was so damn tired. Steve and I laid down for what we thought was only a short amount of time, but turned out it was almost 2 hours!! We must have been really tired. It felt sooo good to sleep but it meant I was too hungry and low energy for yoga, unfortunately. I fixed us up some delicious potato kale soup with leek, and it was AMAZING. I toasted some bread cubes and pumpkin seeds and that took it to a whole new level. Soon after we ate we both realized we didn’t have near enough calories for the day, so I suggested maybe we get ice cream from Dairy Queen. When we started walking, I opened Pokémon Go to find I had an EX Pass! Gasp! And it isn’t for this weekend, thank god, since we went be in town this weekend. I practice,y yelled at Steve to check his phone but didn’t want to give it away, so I got to watch his face light up at his own surprise invitation. It’s for next Tuesday to catch MewTwo and I could not be more excited.

We made the short trek to DQ, he got a seasonal fruit blizzard (small) and I got a salted caramel blizzard (mini). They were perfect to our needs and a great treat to end the day, but I was SO thirsty by the time we got home.

I wish I could say my last classroom days at Parkway have been bittersweet... but they really haven’t. Partly probably because I’m leaving for good, but also partly because I’m just so tired and overworked right now. But there have been a few sweet moments - me teasing down Malik’s hackles when I had to interview him for his 3-year re-Eval (which was simply done by talking to him and asking him questions about his life, which I do often, and embedding the questions I needed to ask within that conversation). Much like when I wrote Harmony’s eval for high school, his is rife with information where I’m lowkey imploring whoever works with him in the future to take heed of his intense needs if they want him to be successful and if they want to have an easy time. He’s a gentle souls who needs so much TLC. He barks loud and can have a good bite, but he’s had so much trauma, so many letdowns by adults, and he’s so damn sensitive. He’s also deep, and funny. I just want people to know that he comes off as so intimidating but he’s a big softy on the inside.

Anyway. My first block was spent getting info out of Malik and eventually helping other kids on their work, and then we went outside. Second block we continued watching Spider-Man: Homecoming while I worked really hard on eval stuff for Idrew and answering emails.

Nokomis was pretty good, just incredibly busy and stressful, more Idrew stuff, consulting with the psychologist and speech therapist, etc. I left at 1:30 to go home, eat lunch and nap (because naturally I couldn’t sleep last night). I went back to the meeting for Idrew at 4, and the meeting got a little intense at times, with Mom getting emotional about different “maybe” diagnoses her son has from Gillette but that we didn’t see in our EXTENSIVE evaluation of him (depression, ADHD). He does qualify for special ed under the Traumatic Brain Injury label after a car accident fucked him up a couple years ago. Which REALLY sucks because the poor kid loves football and is really smart, and not being able to perform in school or sports like he used to just sucks!

I was able to get home around 5:30, and Tyler had bailed on game shopping. Steve suggested that we maybe go to this other game store a bit away, and I was totally down for that! I love little trips to cool places! It ended up being a bust, but Steve *almost* found a couple things he was looking for. In particular he was interested in a game for the Sega CD called Time Gal, and it was definitely one of those games where if he had shown me all the games for sale for the system that day, I would totally have known it was one that he wanted the most. Unfortunately, it was supposedly still sealed and he’s 100% not interested in paying “unopened” prices. What’s the deal with sealed games anyway? Like, anyone can seal games these days, it’d be really hard to prove a game's seal is original, and WHY do people want to own things you’ll never open?? I feel the same about figures. I much prefer to enjoy them as they were meant to be enjoyed.

I really wanted to buy Jocelyn and Elba flowers to say goodbye, especially after I found out that Jocelyn believes that most staff at Parkway don’t like her. It might be true, but I don’t feel that way. She has a hard job, and she has changed a lot of positive things about Parkway’s climate. I appreciate what she has done for the school. So I asked Steve if we could pick up some flowers for the two of them, and while we were on our way to the flower shop I found, I realized we were in the same area we visited before Cayden and Clyde’s birthday party! I suggested we stop at Half Price books after flowers. I bought Jocelyn pink and cream carnations, and Elba lime and orange carnations. I also put them in matching vases with ribbons and bought them cards.

Half price books was also a bust, and Steve was heartbroken that there were 3DO games but no 3DO. Sad face. But still a fun time! Right about then we realized we were quite hungry and we wouldn’t make it back in time for Catrinas, and anything we made at home wouldn’t be consumed for at least another hour. We were right by a Chipotle, and that’s the Catrina’s equivalent. So Chipotle it was! We ate outside and it was sooo nice. <3 I love cute days with Steve, they’re so relaxing and fun.

Ward 6 is this local hip place that serves amazing brunch food, located on a busy street on the east side of St. Paul (read: not a super great neighborhood). It was one of the catalysts to revitalizing the street, where several new establishments have cropped up and people want to spend their time walking up and down it. The problem with Ward 6 apparently was their business model: serve high-quality, sustainably sourced food from as many local places as possible while keeping prices reasonable. I guess they have been losing money for a couple years, and they’ve decided to close. Such sadness! Steve and I have gone there almost every Sunday for the last at least 2 years. I’m glad that we’ve been supporting the,, and they were always crazy busy on weekends, but I guess the same can’t be said for during the week? I went there twice for dinner and it was packed then, too.

It doesn’t appeal to locals; most of the people I saw there were white people of the sort you find in the suburbs (hi pot, it’s kettle - I have been trained to notice such hypocrisies I am a part of). That’s not to say PoC didn’t go there, but the food there again was to different tastes - whereas every weekend just across the street is a Hispanic family that sets up a roasted corn cart that seems more appropriate. What I mean to say is, everything at Ward 6 is catered to a white perspective of tastes, even if they have chicken and waffles and chilaquiles.

Still sad to see it go, it was bittersweet and only a week’s notice was given. They were out of many of the main items, of course, and it sounds like people who like the place have been pouring in. We enjoyed one last meal and said goodbye.

Picked up a few things at Mississippi Market co-op and then headed home. Because I have so many things I want to do, and so many things I NEED to do, I found myself in the classic Leah anxiety paralysis and ended up snuggling a ridiculous Nero cat basically all day while Steve played ITG and we watched Hearthstone. The cuddles were amazing and made me so happy, Nero was in the snuggliest mood and helped me feel better. I didn’t do NOTHING all day... I went to yoga right away in the morning after a quick cup of coffee with Steve. Hannah’s hot class yay! It felt sooo good to go again. Can’t wait to keep going.

Nick and Scott came over, and I tutored. Dinner was a homemade lentil soup, yum. The Office was watched, Nick continued Uncharted 2, Scott scrolled, and Steve continued Owlboy. I spent the rest of the night watching The Office and working on my entries for the previous two days because I’d fallen behind. I also spent a significant amount of time flirting with Steve over text (using my mac to type and send texts is so fun), which built a stupid amount of excitement and had a fantastic culmination after everyone left. Ehehe.

Oh man you guys, one more week of school left... two more teaching days, two days of retreats, and a field day. It’s all happeningggg!! I’m of course suffocating on all the work I need to do, and I spent my afternoon at Nokomis freaking out, doing testing, typing things up, and generally panicking.

My old co-teacher Jenny reminded me that she was having her annual end-of-the-year get-together at her place, and encouraged me to come. I felt like I should, partly because I haven't seen Jenny in so long outside of work and I know she's gonna miss me, and also partly because I'm not gonna be here next year so I really should get my face time in and not look like I've completely abandoned everyone. I invited Steve along, because he's come before so he knows that it's not demanding, just probably pretty boring for him listening to us talk about teacher stuff the whole time.

I came home and I was so tired and exhausted from not getting enough sleep the night before, so I laid down and snuggled with Nero and napped intermittently while Steve played a game on VR called something like "The American Dream," which is an Australian-made game that parodies the obsession America has with guns, set in 1950's style. You use guns for everything - cooking, watering the garden, pressing buttons, changing diapers, etc. It's like kinda funny but sooo embarrassing. It's dripping with disdain and is very cringey when you think about it, but it was entertaining.

At around 4:30 we headed out to Jenny's. Kristin, Allison and her husband, Denae, Todd, and Jenny's husband Toby were there when we arrived. I made sure that Steve set up our spots NOT by Denae, and Jenny sat on my other side, thank god. We spent most of the time talking about work, as usual. The conversation meandered around, and was pretty relaxing in general. People asked questions of me a lot more than I expected, and it was weird having so much attention on me about like, my knitting and tutoring and stuff. Jenny's so cute and I know she's interested in my life because we worked together all year last year. Later Todd left and Andy showed up. We ended up staying until past 7, and right when we were leaving, Sean called me to ask about yarn for the weaving class next week. She ended up facetiming me, and I had just pulled out from Jenny's, so we had to pull over and swap spots. We talked about the suggestions for the class and I ended up picking a yarn that looked kind of rainbow-y and I told Sean I trusted her judgment for the solid color, and she didn't disappoint. I cannot WAIT for the weaving class, I am so very excited to learn how to weave with a loom!!

On the way home, Steve and I went back and forth about what to eat, realizing we were both so hungry. I was willing to get food from somewhere just because we were so hungry, and I was trying really hard to think of places we could eat without overdoing it, but Steve said something about hummus and crackers, and I remembered that there were a couple of Perfect Bars in the fridge, and voila! A meal. Hummus and crackers were procured from the store, a quick dinner was had, and a cuddle with some Hearthstone rounds out the day.

Finally I was able to get up and wake Steve up in time for morning coffee! Yay! It’s sooo hard to wake up when the snuggles and sleep are so good. Also I realized I wrote day 14 twice, whoops, gotta fix those lol.

Tealie told me last night that she was calling in because she’s trying to sell her house and needed to schedule several appointments, which intellectually I was totally fine with and support her, but also it’s so annoying and stressful (at least until first block gets going). For some reason every time she’s gone I am max annoyed for foundations and the beginning of first block, but then I remember everything is fine. It’s not like the kids only behave for Tealie, but they ARE rude to subs usually. Thankfully (tbh) she didn’t appear to have one, so I got to spend the first half of first hour with Nicki covering for Tealie. I liked having nicki in the room, because she has a loud voice and at the beginning when I couldn’t find the math review she gave them a stern speech about when they go to 7th grade and the expected noise level. After math review, things went smoothly. We were doing an activity that measures and compares the hand span of everyone in the room, and the way I structured it really worked for them. When we were finished, we went outside for like a half hour (our classes are 80 minutes). Malik of course fell down immediately and bloodied his leg up somehow, but he was back eventually. The rest of the kids organized a couple of games of tag or did little competitive things on the swings. It was relaxing and fun.

Even though I get kind of annoyed, and I’m sure she does too when I’m gone (and I had a lot of paperwork days this year), we never are snippy with each other about it because we’re always being supportive. She texted me halfway through the day checking in, because Kristin made sure to text her and let her know no sub showed up for her, stressing her out, but I just reassured her and she cheered up.

Second block was good, I spent the time running between each kid basically in the first group, and it was uneventful and nice. Second group Dyshawn asked if he could be reading his book for English in the pod, and he sat right outside the door and did read for a decent amount of time.

I had to be at Nokomis at the right time today because my replacement was shadowing me today, and st first I was a little stressed, but since she’s been in the district and has already done split schools, it was wayyy more relaxed than I thought it would be. It ended up being an easy day other than talking a lot about students we’re finishing up, including talking to Brian and Todd over the phone about kids at parkway.

I came home and tried to nap because I was sooo tired, but first I got distracted with Steve, which we both weren’t even expecting and was a nice way to spend my getting home. Lol. THEN I tried to nap, and I think I dozed a little right at the beginning but after like 10 minutes or so I just couldn’t sleep. I only had like a half hour until I was supposed to go to yoga, and when it was time to go I felt so tired it was like I was sick, but I need to stop being reluctant to go to yoga when I love it when I’m there. And I’m so out of practice it’s absurd and frankly makes me sad. So I got up and changed and headed out. It was easier to motivate myself because Hannah was teaching the class tonight, and she’s still by far my favorite instructor. She was subbing for Brittany, and Brittany loves handstands and other inversions, so we spent the hour working on shoulders, core, and legs. I like Hannah’s way of doing core, which is insanely hard but atypical. She has us use our blankets to go from plank to pulling our legs in, in various ways. Vs several others who like to basically do sit-ups and other lame things. The last time I was working on handstand I was able to do L pose pretty good, but today my back was not having it. Which was okay. I felt so good just doing yoga again. When I looked at the schedule, I saw Hannah’s back to doing hot yoga on Saturday mornings, and I just have to go. My favorite time period of doing yoga was when I was consistently able to go to Hannah’s hot yoga class, which at the time was on Monday. I just love how long you hold each pose for, and that it’s the same poses and yet they never get old, and you can really monitor your flexibility and accuracy in the pose.

This was something Steve and I talked about later, about how I was happiest and felt the strongest and healthiest when I was going to yoga almost every day. I asked him to encourage me to go to yoga when I’m being lazy, and he reminded me that people (me) can get belligerent when asked to get active when they’re (I’m) not feeling like it for whatever reason (usually because I’m tired). So we talked about and agreed upon a silly and horrible “code phrase” that he gets to use if I refuse.

I was feeling pumped up still after getting home, so I decided to play some ITG after Steve was done. By the time I got home he’d basically completed his sit and was tired, so I hopped on while he played Owlboy. Shoe-wise it was a bad day, my feet were extra slippery in the shoes (whereas last time I thought I was getting used to to them). However, even with the mild tantruming I did, I did improve a few scores. Most notably I finally got a 98% on Cryosleep, which was one of my oldest scores, from October of last year. Lately my TimeHop has been showing me when I got old scores over the last 5 years, and even from two years ago it’s crazy to see how much I’ve improved. It’s nice to see that progress!

I’ve continued to chat with and encourage Noah on mfp and he and Steve and I have been a good mfp team!

Wait, it’s already halfway through the week?? That’s both exciting and terrifying. We only have one more real week left of school and I have so much to do, including a lot of things that require me to test students - not just paperwork typing. I’m definitely fucked again this year with regards to filing... getting access to our special ed files is so much hassle and I hate it! I was also quite terrible with progress reports, though I believe I’m not the only one by far so phew. It just means I’ll have a long Monday the 11th getting everything finished. Lucky for me though, since I only have 6th graders I don’t need to freak out as much as other years, since none of my kids’ files are getting sent along to high schools. That was my big issue in previous years, especially my first one (where I had 10 8th graders omg).

My day was spent feverishly trying to test and get emails sent out, and by the end of the day I had a pretty bad headache, so I came home to a waiting Steve and tried to nap away my headache in the dark. The nap was unsuccessful because I realized I wasn’t tired, just low energy and kind of emotional. Eventually I sat back up and did some scrolling until Steve was kind enough to heat us up some dinner, more potato soup. Yummm. When he was gone I started thinking about how grateful I am that Steve has stuck with me, and how strong he is, and how much I love our life and how much I appreciate him. I mean I think that stuff all the time, but seeing Pat and Aimee for some reason really launched my head into a tailspin about how even though it was just 3 months ago, that all that feels like a completely different life, and I feel so divorced from that behavior, and a life without Steve is such a sad, empty, pathetic version of a life that is so pale and colorless. He makes my life so full of happiness and love, and I don’t want a life where he’s not in it. So all of that has been swirling in my head and he brought me down heated up soup and bread and I just started crying. He asked me what was going on and I tried to tell him, I hope I did an okay job. It’s hard to articulate all of my feelings on the matter and they just get so intense that apparently what I do now is cry. Lol.

After I calmed down and we talked about it, we ate our soup and enjoyed Kripp playing some Hearthstone, exactly what I want to be doing with my life, and precisely who I want to be spending that time with. Soon after, Nick came over. We chatted for awhile about this and that, and then put on The Office while Nick continued Uncharted and I got scolded for continuing to scroll and not knit, which was so valid. I really would rather be knitting, I think it’s just that I love the iPad so much, it’s hard to transition away. I knit a good chunk more rows on my LYS shawl. I’m about 1 and a half repeats from doing my first color change. The Hedgehog fibers yarn is GORGEOUS and soft and I love working with it. I continue to encourage everyone to take up knitting, it is such a fine hobby AND YOU GET TO USE WHAT YOU MAKE (or gift it, whichever). Like you make an actual textile and it is amazing, and super impressive to non-knitters. To be fair, a lot of it IS impressive. But still. ;)

YarnHarlot posted an entry recently where she was able to take horrible, cheap dishcloth yarn and weave two very nice scarves out of it, and it has made me even MORE excited to learn weaving with Sean next weekend at Sow’s Ear. Another fantastic use of yarn, can’t wait.

Noah and I texted a bit about our food consumption and MyFitnessPal. Noah is realizing that MFP underestimates calories and overestimates exercise. I explained that with my Apple Watch , my scores get wonky as the watch actually tracks my true activity, which can lower (or raise) my total amount of food to consume for the day. It’s kinda cool but also kinda confusing. I’m just aiming for a specific range at this point until I get a better grasp of my activity levels. But Noah sent me a super cute text that ended with, “thanks for excitedly doing this with me, it’s keeping me motivated to become a thinner dood.” Awwww. It was so sweet, but more starkly put into perspective how he lives in the middle of nowhere with only white racists and teenagers as company, and I want to be a good friend! And you KNOW how much I love a good motivational health regimen. What better way than with friends who need support?!

I forgot to mention yesterday that Steve and I went to Stephanie’s Yoga Flow class for anniversary and that was super good and fun. She moved a bit too fast for my liking, and she was as dopey as ever. I prefer classes with slightly less poses in favor of holding to get a deeper stretch. If you’ve ever tried to hold a pose for even 45 seconds, you know that *less* poses does NOT equal *easier* poses. Moving too fast just means that you can’t settle in, make sure you’re doing the pose correctly, with all its micro adjustments and muscle fatigue. But it was good to go for anniversary, and I really want to find a class that works for Steve. Maybe I’ll take him to hot yoga, since that’s the same poses every time and they are slow and drawn out. But still the opposite of easy.

Now I’m about to head to bed. Nick is still here but I think he def needs to head home relatively soon because he has to work, and Steve will probably stay up playing Owl Boy on the Switch, which we just got in the mail yesterday. Looks good so far!

Sunday part deux. Got up a little later than I would have liked, a bit after 10. Other than the fact that I should be going to bed in 12 hours, I was mostly okay with it because I woke up SO MANY times with terrible heartburn. Damn you eating slightly before bed! When did I get so old that I legit get heartburn from so many things and from not following these damn food rules, like when you’re not supposed to eat within a certain range of your bedtime?! Hate it!

I made us morning smoothies again, but this time I used a bit less water, and that made the smoothies more manageable. I didn’t have to cut down on the other ingredients so that was good. One side effect of the whole more vegan lifestyle* is the pooping. I already poop more often than the average person - you can guarantee that if I have time, I will poop twice before I leave for work, once at mid day, once when I get home from work, and once probably around dinner time. And that’s at a minimum. You might be able to say that my two morning poops are part of the same poop, and I’d allow it; I don’t have time to sit on the toilet for 45 minutes while my body remembers to move the next bit along. The good news is, I don’t have anything blocking me up, but it’s time consuming and like CALM DOWN BODY. I have never really been the kind of person who gets either diarrhea or constipated. Only when really sick or traveling. But with going ham on the fresh produce, I feel like I can poop every single time I go to the bathroom! This is really getting out of hand. XD I think i would be far less happy withy situation if I didn’t have a bidet. Seriously, if you don’t have one, look into one, get one immediately. No more insane, inefficient wiping! Just a few seconds of water and pat to dry and you’re good to go. Ahhhh.

Uh, so where was I? Oh yes, after breakfast. Steve and I wrote our respective entries for yesterday, which was a good lead-in for the real part of the day: anniversary. We showered and decided we were gonna go mini golfing at Can Can Wonderland. Yay! At the gas station I decided to double check the directions, and I noticed Google say that they are closed. Whaaaat? Go to the website and sure enough: Monday through Wednesday there is no wonderland to be had. Damn! Steve and I looked into a couple other places, but they wouldn’t be opening until 3. In the meantime, we wanted to get that ice cream we were craving. And by ice cream I meant soy ice cream. So we headed over to J. Selby’s. Steve rightly suggested we actually eat there since I was bound to hangry if we didn’t. Being mindful of our goals, I ordered the house salad and Steve ordered the vegan fried rice. Now, when I said “house salad,” did you picture iceberg lettuce, a couple tomato wedges and cucumber slices, a little red onion, croutons and ranch? Well, that just means you’ve never gone to J Selbys. Please behold the J House salad in all its glory:

Not only could this salad legitimately feed a family grazing before a holiday meal, but it was so rich with yummy ingredients that I could not have been happier. The dressing I got was a house-made lemon garlic tahini, and the croutons for the salad were also housemade. I ate probably slightly less than half. I did this by literally making my own mini salads using the plate that the condiments had come on, so that I could appropriately distribute each individual ingredient to my liking. I was very pleased with the result and the leftovers.

At some point during the meal it began to rain a decent amount, and Steve made a comment about maybe it wasn’t a mini golf day. Not to be deterred, I suggested we simply go to Mall of America to play at their okay course and walk around. Thankfully, he was agreeable to this and we headed out. The mall wasn’t super packed, and that was nice. It’s SO MUCH more tolerable on weekdays than weekends. We had a couple of false starts with the golf course but would circle away when we’d see like, a family of four just buying their game or a huge line forming. There were not enough people at the mall or playing the course to justify waiting behind people the whole time. That just allowed for some decent Pokémon Go (of course) and just general meandering around the mall.

Finally we got to play mini golf and I slowly and steadily kept falling further and further behind. At least for the first half. I was surprised to find at the end that I was only two strokes behind Steve (three if you don’t count a silly TERRIBLE mulligan attempt), who was still several over par. Not our best day, score-wise, but definitely top two experiences playing the course. The pars for each hole have clearly not been updated as the course has, because there are some ridiculous par 2’s that I would love to see someone get.

After mini golf, more Pokémon Go. I was able to secure a Latias this time, though it was still super close - I had been down to my second to last Pokéball. Phew. I did it! Lol.

Home was dinner - potato soup for me, relaxing with Steve reading more of Ben’s book out loud while I knit or comforted Grim. Ever since the tree fell on our house in 2015, Grim has been terrified of loud noises, and is the saddest most miserable cat in storms. When his anxiety gets too bad he usually will go downstairs and hide in the bathroom, but today he laid stiffly against me, pressing into my hand and being curled up so tight. No shaking this time though and he’s still on the bed. Noah and I texted a bit today about MyFitnessPal, eating and exercise, because being healthier is way more fun with friends.

Made a little progress on Steve’s sock. I thought I was closer to the heel than I was, but I was glad that I could just knit round and round still. His feet are so much bigger than mine, I constantly think I’m making them too big around, and then I put them on his foot:

All in all, I’d say a super solid anniversary. Definitely grateful to have Steve in my life and him to let me be a part of his. What a good life.

*most things I cook are vegan, or barely not-vegan. I don’t use eggs in my cooking and I rarely use cheese. If I do, it’s small-farm and not-cow if possible. When I get coffee though, 99% of the time I’ll just get half and half cream, because most nondairy dreamers are flavored and gross. The brand I buy for home is NOT heavily flavored and is delicious.

Today was the beginning of Second Weekend, yay! Steve has the week off and I have Monday off, but I’m also taking tomorrow off - I’d like to say it was pre-planning for our anniversary, but I didn’t actually look at the date before I decided I was going to take it off. Just luck!

We took our time waking up, and then I made us some smoothies following Rawvana’s 5-day plan. The smoothies are mostly “green” and I know Steve likes fruit smoothies, but I thought it would be fun if we followed the plan together for the week to jumpstart our health process. Guys, the smoothies are hilarious. They make 60 ounces of liquid. Howwww are we expected to drink that much at one time?? I hate consuming a lot of liquids at once, and if you take too long with smoothies, they get frothy and thick, almost chunky. Steve was able to get his down and then decided to go mow the lawn. I decided to get going on lunch and try to finish my smoothie. Lunch is a Mexican salad, and it’s really good when you actually measure the ingredients right. I had a mishap where I actually used way too much cumin for one set of the salads and it made for sooo much intense salty flavor. But it was all right. Even though Steve took over an hour on the lawn, I still wasn’t finished with my smoothie by the time he came in. He stood over me while I finished it (lol) and then we ate our salads. Other than the extreme saltiness, it was good!!

Next on our agenda was to go to Steven Be yarns, because they were having a 25% off everything sale. Steven himself was there, along with his mom, and she is a very old first-generation German immigrant. She even referred to her marriage as “I married an American”. She told a slightly awkward but funny story about how her friend or sister had encouraged her to buy Steven a Barbie doll, and she refused and bought him a truck that he never played with, so for his next holiday the friend bought him a Barbie, which he loved and played with and made clothes for. His mom had her own yarn shop and obviously passed all that down to him. They made a book together and it was really cute, but the items in there are too intense for me - extremely textured, chunky yarns, flamboyant colors and combinations. But the stories in there were pretty neat.

The thing that is just a little too much about Steven Be isn’t that the store is overwhelming with choices - because even though that’s true, I love seeing so many options and samples, it’s that everyone is trying to be so helpful that it feels like when you’re at a garage sale and the sellers are eyeballing you hard while you look at stuff and you feel a huge pressure, like they’re gonna take it personally if you don’t like everything. I ended up only buying one skein of yarn, a beautiful gradient that I wanted last time but was too expensive for a single skein at $61. With 25% off plus 2 more percent bonus, it was far more reasonable.

It was hot as as balls out, my car sitting at 103*, but we really wanted to do some Pokémon Go. This week’s Advneture Week, where you get crazy experience for spinning stops you’ve never visited, so we drove around that area of Minneapolis for quite some time to find stops. Oddly, we found a cemetery that was just FILLED with stops. Feeling a little weird, I drove in there and we slowly drove past the stops we could, but eventually we got out and walked around to get the rest. We marveled at some of the massive headstones, sculptures, and crypts that were there, noting that as people stopped being able to afford the luxury of headstones (or as cultural views of grave sites shifted), many more recent sites only have the small flat slab. It was an interesting way to spend a half hour! There’s even a gym in the cemetery?? Just seems a little inappropriate, but I’m not complaining too much, we got so much experience from that one area.

After that, we drove around a bit more, stopping at random place for more pokestops and debating whether or not to get ice cream. Initially we totally were going to and even came across a random ice cream shop, but literally when we were going that way, the weather changed to be ominous, windy and dark, and threaten rain.

So we finished the raid we were doing in Pokémon go and decided to head to The Wedge for a couple of things. As I was turning the car around, I saw a couple people walking down the street. My head thought, “oh, that looks like Aimee!” And it took a few seconds for me to realize Oh wait, that’s Pat with her! And THEN my brain started to panic, because we were turning around right in front of them and ohmygodwhatiftheylookintothecarwhatdowedothen?! Steve didn’t look up or over to see them, and they didn’t look into the car. We drove for a few blocks while my brain screamed with anxiety and adrenaline, and I debated whether to tell Steve. I made a basic pros and cons list, because I was the only one of the four of us who knew this happened, and what a crazy near-miss it was. We had JUST been on that street, and if we were 20 seconds later getting into the car or they were 20 seconds earlier, we would have walked right into each other. And it would have been the worst. I never want to run into either of them, anywhere. Too scary, too awkward, too terrible. In the end I decided to tell Steve, because I didn’t want him to think I was keeping something from and I also wanted someone to share in the “what are the odds”?!?! Because we were in the most random of areas, AND make a joke that the universe turned the weather so that we would leave the area before disaster struck.

After a bit of conversation and talking it through, I think Steve and I got to an okay place (it of course brought up a lot of thoughts and feelings for Steve), we got to the wedge. We picked up a few things, like half and half, sprouted bread, tea and crackers. After that we decided to head home.

Home was cooking dinner, which was a potato soup. For this soup I ended up using all of the remaining red bell peppers (pretty sure we bought 12), a bunch of potatoes and sooo many Roma tomatoes. While that cooked, Steve and I watched Hearthstone and played a game of rummikub, which I narrowly won after an entire game’s worth of being crazy behind.

We took the soup downstairs for more Hearthstone, and it was so hot for so long, lol. Finally we got to eat it and it was delicious, but a lot. It’s crazy how full liquids can make you. I bullied Steve into drinking all of his broth, to encourage water intake and flushing out his system. When he let his food settle enough he decided to play ITG. I think he had a decent day, he was playing some challenging songs the whole time, and some new ones we’d never seen before that seemed pretty neat.

I was working on knitting, but for some reason when I wound the ball I was using, there must have been a tangle that happened deep within the ball, because my yarn kept catching on itself and getting twisted. Instead of dealing with it and being more and more annoyed, I went to get to the root of the issue. Turns out something just went horribly horribly wrong, because I never did pinpoint on specific thing, and I ended up needing to cut the yarn because I needed to weave the yarn in and out of itself - it had just gotten so insanely twisted up! It took an hour and a half (aka the rest of my night) to resolve, but NOW the yarn is ready to be used nicely.

Also during the evening, after dinner, I gave Steve his anniversary gifts. As always, I had so much fun getting gifts for him. I like to vary it up between gifts on his Amazon or backloggery, unique gifts and gifts that are practical. For him this year, I got:
-tickets to a Final Fantasy music show that we’ve seen before, because it’s local and intimate
-new wallet, handmade from Etsy and Splatoon themed
-a new mug for his new job, with an Undertale theme
-a KitKat sampler from Japan, with really fun flavors
-the newest Kirby plush, ice Kirby (he’s trying to collect them all)
-a Hollow Knight figurine, super gorgeous and neat, also from Etsy
-a complete in box copy of Fire Emblem: Sacred Stones for GameBoy Advance. I was so damn excited for it because the box is like MINT, and I knew how much he’s been wanting this game.
-a card I ordered from Catana comics with a heartfelt message inside

He of course loved the gifts and was so happy about the card. We love giving gifts to each other and I’d been waiting SO long to give them! My big gift this year of course was this iPad I’m typing on, and I love it, but I know he was feeling a little weird about getting one big thing (he did the same thing at my birthday when he gave me my Apple Watch) because we’re so into these many thoughtful gift situations, but I am eternally happy about having both and it has just as much sentiment as the other ones. So much loooove.

My morning summed up:

1. Vincente in Reset (hiding in the chair)

2. Malik putting binder clips in his hair

3.Self-explanatory XD

4. Tre'Kari loves taking pics on my phone

The best part of my day was getting rid of my compliance stop signs, making phone calls and planning meetings. I talked with Vincente's mom today and she said he's acting up because he's been at his dad's a lot more lately and she going into the hospital for a week starting on Friday and he's really struggling with it. She sounded so sad, but we had a good talk.

After work I came home and napped a little, and then Steve needed to go get fitted for his suit for his friend Andy's wedding (he's a groomsman). That took us to Grand Ave, which then of course afterward we needed to eat somewhere on Grand, and we went to Cafe Latte. I got a cheese sandwich, salad and broccoli cheddar soup, with a decadent turtle cake slice for dessert. It was amazing. Cafe Latte used to be the "go to" place for the girls group to go in high school for birthdays. We would always either go there, for sure with Bre, Lindsey, and Holly, and sometimes Brittni. We would ALWAYS get the cheesecake. If we didn't go, the others in the group would pitch in for a cheesecake from there for the birthday girl. It was an exciting adventure because we lived just far enough outside of the Twin Cities for it to be out of the norm.

This was my bday cheesecake in 2008-

After Cafe Latte we made a pit stop at Mississippi Market Co-op and got some food to tide us over. Mostly fruits and veggies, and some other things like chia seeds, Ripple milk and agave. It was really warm today, 87F/30C, and it was so nice. Looooved it. I wore a dress and that really helped. Periodically I listened to snaps from Haley and Bethany.

After we got home it was already past 8. We went to the park for a little Pokemon Go, and then I watered the plants when we got home before doing a little Instagram scrolling.

Oh, and our leaning apple tree has started blossoming and it's adorable (don't you dare judge the apple tree; its doing it's thang!)

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It's really interesting how I generally struggled to write entries on a regular basis, but now that Steve and I write them together and make it a part of our routine, it's so much easier, and we enjoy how much we often find that we have to say about each day. Some things are pretty samey, but there are so many little details that get lost if you wait too long to write about them. I'm really enjoying that we are doing this.

I didn't get a chance to do any things of "substance" today, such as knitting, playing ITG or reading. But it was still a relaxing and fun day.

I'm feeling increasingly worse about my body though, I'm around the heaviest I've ever been, at 159lbs. My face looks fine and I think I wear it well, but I don't really like being as hefty as I am. Especially in the arms and belly area. This summer is the summer of getting fit again. Steve and I talked a little tonight about the fact that there's a good chance we won't actually make it out to Cincinnati this summer because of the timing of his new job (among other things), but we were planning on going to Disney World this winter with Ben and Sean and we have weekend trips vaguely planned. With that out of the cards, I think it will be a really good opportunity for me to get a handle on my eating and exercise legit regularly and not randomly.

Today found us completely unprepared to be adults. I wasn't able to get out of bed until 7:05, which is completely terrible for me but the cuddles were TOO good to pass up.. so snuggly. I was also up in the night with heartburn, and I had a thousand random nothing dreams that could have been real life mundane situations. We STILL had no coffee and we also didn't have breakfasts or lunches prepared. Nice.

Got to work at 7:30 on the dot somehow, but of course I walked all the way up the hill to discover I left my key card in the car, so Ihad to go all the way back down. Gym time was kind of annoying, the boys were all amped up at each other. Thankfully Todd has been coming down because he's got that louder man voice and also the man size so he can intervene much better. When it's just two boys I will step in (lord knows how many times I restrained kids or made myself a physical obstacle during my first two years), but when it's a group of them, the feeling of being ineffective is overwhelming. I realized that I've had to break up so few fights this year that I feel out of practice, which is a good thing, but it's a really strange feeling. Last week I stepped inbetween a couple of boys in math and realized how WEIRD it felt to be positioning myself between kids. I'm happy that it's not part of my daily job now, but it also makes me feel like I'm not prepared/ready.

Tealie and I had the kids present their projects no matter how much they had done. It was really awkward for some of them, having basically nothing even after a week of work. This is the second week in a row where we've been strict with the guideline of no extra time, so hopefully by the end of the next project the kids will get it.

I just could not wait to get out of there. Unfortunately for me but awesome for Steve, he decided to go in to work today. He got his background check back this morning and decided he would put in his two weeks' notice in person, which meant I wouldn't see him when I stopped home. Booo! But happy for him. He now knows he'll start on June 4, and he'll have a week off between jobs which is awesome. Yay!

Nokomis was pretty uneventful, only Jeremy came down today (Leon was absent and the girls were in lesson), so it was pretty quiet. He didn't have a bunch of work to do and he really doesn't want me to help him with anything unless expressly asked, so on the math stuff I have for him he only let me read the word problems and talk him through those. The 2nd and first grade girls were fine, and the kindergarten boys were same as always (bickering, whiny). My principal came in to congratulate me again and say she was so happy for me, and that she's going to miss me and that if my circumstances change in the future to come back and work for her, which again is a high compliment from her. She told me my going-to-be principal was poached by ISD 622 and that they better have offered me what I'm worth (even though she KNOWS that contracts don't actually work like that haha).

I left as soon as I possibly could because I was so tired all day that I was dizzy and disoriented. I just really have not been sleeping well. I came home and took ibuprofen for a headache and flopped into bed with Nero. Then Steve, Nick and I went game shopping. It was a bust, but fun to walk around and talk. We chatted about Game of Thrones, and how Noah asked the meanest memory card question yet that I have ZERO answers to. Got Catrinas and went to play Pokemon Go.

After we got back, Nick played Uncharted 2, Steve played more Prince of Persia and I tooled around on the computer, looking up iPads and LJ icons. It was super relaxing. I really wanted to knit too but I think my fingers need a day or two off, they're pretty sore and achey.

Steve and I dropped Nick off around 9:45 and caught a couple more Pokemon. We stopped at Cub to FINALLY get coffee (and snacks for my math kids). We were in a really silly place, just goofing off and laughing. It's been really nice and fun with him, he's so damn funny and I've been in some goofy moods lately. Like just joking and teasing, and somehow Steve is ALWAYS in the car when my low gas warning comes on, which is always funny. He pumps my gas for me most of the time because he knows how much I appreciate it, and he thinks I time it on purpose to need gas when he's in the car but I swear I DON'T!!!!! Lmao. It never gets old.

Breaking this one up by the topics I divided up yesterday!

Garage sales and Pokemon Go
Steve was interested in checking out the Madison garage sale scene, so we meandered about without much luck for awhile, but it turns out that we were just in the wrong area. We turned around after Steve looked up garage sales on Facebook or something (seriously, did you know that was a thing?? Weird) and we had more luck in a DIFFERENT neighborhood. He likes to go to garage sales to look for old games and systems, particularly with the hope that it's an older person (usually a lady who cleaned up after grandkids) or parents after their kids have moved out. I don't like garage sales and haggling makes me nervous, but I don't mind driving around and knitting and playing Pokemon Go, so I have fun too!

Sow's ear breakfast/Pokemon Go/New plague
We couldn't spend TOO much time garage sale-ing because we needed to eat and I had a knitting class scheduled at the Sow's Ear. The Sow's Ear, I've mentioned before, is an amazing Cafe and Knitting shop in Verona, WI. If you're ever near Madison, go there. Not only do they cater to people who love good yarns, they also have amazing drinks and food options. I ordered the grilled cheese on a french baguette and a cup of their summer asparagus soup, plus a hot chocolate with soy because YUM. Then Steve and I walked around a bit getting PokeStops and marveling at how there could be so many damn people on "Main Street," like calm down people GO! AWAY!!!

Knitting class and cute texts
My class started at 1, and Steve and I took bets on how old the other people would be. Steve guessed an average of 39 (with me bringing down the average, and I said 45 and older. There ended up being 5 other women in the class, the youngest of which was 40+. Three of the women were at least in their 60's. Everyone but the youngest was fine, the woman on my right was funny, and the woman on my left was kinda derpy. The youngest of them just had that annoying voice quality (think back to Yarnover and the fuckin' nerd ladies with their pressured speech and nasally voices) and she knit very slowly. But she was nice, and she showed us a stranded (colorwork) double-knitting project that made my colorwork look like a kindergartener's so I should stfu about knitting speed. Though she did make multiple comments about how fast I knit and suggested there had to be crochet videos for learning to crochet with your right hand and I should try to find them.

The stitch I was learning was Brioche, and I'm REALLY glad I learned it in person before trying to learn it via videos or words. It's basically a type of ribbing, but the way instructions talk about them is way more complicated than the act of brioche. It has a very easy and repetitive rhythm, and once you get a couple rows, you can just SEE the stitch and just remember which ones you yarnover on, which you slip, and which you work. It's also really neat because it's technically reversible. I started my practice with a yarn I thought would look good and knit up okay, but I didn't like the black contrasting... it's too bold. I'd want something else I think to finish (though the yarn is Mano del Uraguay and sooo soft).

Steve had gone out to more garage sales during this time, and he actually found some awesome deals. He ended up with a complete NES system in addition to several games - two of them BOXED, which is super rare to find at a garage sale. Usually Steve ends up finding video game boxes on ebay, and NES ones are not easy to come by. He's actually just finishing up getting boxes for all of our SNES games, so it seemed fitting he'd finally found some for the next system he needs to collect for.

He texting me such cute texts about how much he loves me knitting and how taking knitting classes is ideal girl behavior. I missssssed ideal girl stuff. When we first started dating he would point out things I did that were "ideal girl behavior" - things that he didn't necessarily KNOW of, like didn't have a list in his head, but things that definitely count towards comprising the perfect girl. Apparently knitting (/having a passion for a hobby) is one of them. ^_^ All I want is his looooove and support! He's VERY good about supporting my endeavors, love him so much!

I got to talking to the woman next to me about how beautiful her yarn was (from KnitCircus) and she said they have kits specifically for the cowl we were working on at their store, and I HAD to go check it out. It was 3:30, and the store closed at 4. I quick packed up my things, raced out to Steve and explained the situation, and we booked it out.

Omg what happened Knitcircus exploded from a small store to a store filled with yarny treats
Last year Sean and I went to KnitCircus and it was definitely in a different building, this store was MUCH bigger and had so many more options. It was to DIE for. They have the best gradients and rainbows and mixes of colors, and their yarns are already wound for you. They're pretty spendy but SO worth it. I was in yarn heaven.

I found some yarn for the cowl I wanted and we realized we were pretty tired after so much stuff in the day, and we headed back to Castle Seanjamin, put on some Hearthstone, and I cuddled up into Steve's perfect nook and we promptly fell asleep. It was a good nap! We woke up rested and hungry, and I suggested we try Dumpling Haus, a place we've seen on the way to The Great Dane a bunch of times. I was intrigued!!

Dumpling dinner/socially unacceptable food behavior
Steve of course didn't remember that I've talked about this place a bunch of times. It just sounded so good!! When we got there, the place was PACKED. There was ONE small table left and I claimed it, and Steve and I each ordered a set of dumplings (Bao) plus dessert bao (nutella) and Steve ordered pork and greens wontons and chicken fried rice. I also ordered the tofu soup. The bao was perfect and light (I got veggie and it tasted like Spring). My soup was exactly what I was looking for as well. I knit while we waited.

There was a man and his child eating next to us, and I thought they were very normal but Steve did not get good vibes from the dad. He just seemed serious and probably the kind of parent I would be - he didn't freak out or even say anything really when the kid knocked over his pop, just suggested he get more paper towels. He mentioned more than once that he didn't like wasted food, and when they left, the child had left one bao untouched, which I thought was strange. Like, they could have easily taken it along and given it to family (who they were talking about) or saved it for later! I asked Steve if he would eat it if I grabbed it off their plate (I assumed it had meat in it because most of the food there did), and he said he would if I was brave enough to violate the social code of not taking food from strangers' plates. They had been seated less than a foot from our table; we basically ate together! I had no problem snatching the bao off the plate and plopping it in with ours. It turned out to be pork, and Steve ate it happily. I have never understood why it's so frowned upon to take someone else's leftovers, especially if they're completely unsullied. :P

Witness to an accident/co-op/COPS
Full and happy, we decided to go to Willy's Co-op right after dinner instead of the next day, just for time's sake. I really wanted to stock up on their vegan jerky, which is AMAZING and I haven't seen it anywhere else. On the way, we were at a red light at a really weird intersection, and we watched an SUV sideswipe/half T-bone a sedan with two women and a child. The child was in the seat where the SUV hit, but it looked like he had slowed enough and she was turned enough that most of the damage ended up on the tire well and did SOMETHING so the trunk popped open. Steve was driving and observing to make sure the family was fine, so I was completely impotent when the SUV just DROVE! AWAY!!! What the fuck?! Like, the damage to the SUV was at least as significant to the sedan, and he didn't even check to see if they were okay???? WHAT THE FUUUUCK!!! I was so stressed out, I am such an "action" person when it comes to emergencies. My brain works in such a way that it immediaely develops a bulleted list of things that need to be attended to and wants to DO them. As a passenger and also in a situation that I really couldn't be helpful in after a certain point, it was a frustrating situation. The people in the sedan were okay, I think they were just really scared and upset.

Got the jerky, got some coffee, got a water bottle and some treats - vegan gluten free dense soft muffin for me, and vegan banana muffin with peanut butter frosting (literally his perfect dessert)

On the way back to Castle Seanjamin, we passed no less than 6 cops on this 5-miles stretch of road. The first was a cop pulling someone over who was next to Steve. Then we passed one speed trap with an undercover SUV, and then at the next exit there were TWO cops (one undercover charger and a regular cruiser), and THEN we saw TWO SEPARATE people pulled over, within a hundred yards of each other, plus another cop just driving (probably after just having pulled comeone over). It was madness. WHY SO MANY COPS. CALM DOWN.

Dmac/ITG/knitting
When we were on our way back from the co-op, David (Dmac) asked if we wanted to play ITG with him. Of course! Though I also wanted to be KNITTINGGGGG. It was good. We played a bunch of songs from the Fantastic Beats pack, but Steve and I weren't having off-days exactly, more like Ben's machine just feels sooo different from ours now... it's really weird, and we were both late ALL the time, which NEVER happens. I just couldn't find the sweet spot and would insanely overcorrect. Just strange. But we all had fun, talked to Dmac about the popularity of Ultimate Frisbee in Madison and his tryouts for teams, and he ended up getting a really good score on an ITG Rebirth song.

During that time I started my Knitcircus cowl and it's been beautiful so far. After Dmac left we showered quick and hopped into bed!

Oh, and we've also decided to rename from couple complaints because we don't really complain much - we just initially stole Ben's book titles (College complaints, corrupted complaints, cubicle complaints and "Compendium of Complaints" - all of the books). Ben has a really funny way of talking about things, and I never really think of them as *complaints,* more like musings and thoughts. Like he doesn't strike me as a negative person and he's quite funny, but I GUESS he's complaining? It's just not how I personally view complaining. lol. So I think we're going to rename to couple chronicles. Fits better. :)

All in all, it was a busy, but relaxing, and just basically a perfect day. Wow. Love this boy, love this life!

Uh oh, today was another morning where the sleep was just too damn good and suddenly it was far too late for morning coffee. The good news for me was that I had a paperwork day today and as such, didn't actually need to be at work by a certain time. On top of that, I'm done in a month with this district completely soooo.... I may not be the best employee right now.

I ended up doing a lot of catching up with typing, and it was frustrating that there was always a piece or two I needed that I couldn't just get by, say, testing a kid. I needed information from specific teachers. So I sent some emails and wrote what I could find. Overall it was a really boring day so I spent a lot of the inbetween texting Steve and tagging him in memes, and chatting with Bethany and Haley. It was a really good day for talking with Steve via text, but he was gone for FAR too long. Thankfully I'm gonna figure out a way to have lunch with him tomorrow, because god my days are lame without him! My principal at Nokomis emailed me congratulating me on "picking a great leader" of a prinicipal for next year, because everyone knows everyone in education. She also told everyone at their staff meeting, so I gotta prepare for questions over the next week or so.

Before noon Steve sent the confirmation that he got that job at the U of MN!!! I'm SO happy for him and SO proud. The university has a ton of perks that the hiring manager filled him in on, such as good healthcare, free undergrad degrees and 75% reduction in cost for graduate degrees, and even though his job is basically the same as what he does now, he's getting even more money (and he already made a decent amount). Even with my reduction in pay by switching districts, we still come out ahead. It's funny that his hiring manager was so eager to share the perks, because my new principal did the exact same thing when he offered me the position - he talked about how good the healthcare is in particular plus the district contribution. St. Paul does similar but the healthcare isn't as good. For example, vision isn't covered at all, but they do cover most of the premium. Now Steve doesn't have to give a shit about his job anymore, or, he can give even less of a shit. He's defintiely Michael Scott after Michael gives his 2-week notice:

So. Of course we were both excited all day to celebrate. When I told Bethany and Haley about it, of course Haley wanted to come to dinner, and I felt bad turning her down because she really WAS happy for him and we hang out with her so little these days. Once Steve got home we got WAY too snuggly and fell asleep for about 45 minutes, and it was much needed. As it's after 11 and I'm definitely going to regret staying up so late, I'm thinking I'll likely need a nap tomorrow, too.

Haley, Steve and I went to Acapulco, and Steve soon told us Nick was going to be able to make it after all. Haley made a small scene by really wanting a booth and barely waiting for them to clean one off before sitting in it, and it was really funny with Nick having to sit by her. She alternated between talking about her ex/boyfriend, asking inappropriate questions about Nick's sex life, demanding he show her his Tinder account after he told her he saw her on there (he refused and stood his ground), eating her food messily, and passing around pictures of her butt in a thong and having us vote on them (I'd voted earlier and the boys ended up picking the same one as I did). Nick was really funny because he seemed VERY nervous about looking at the pics until I gave permission. Honestly I do appreciate it, because I am weird about Haley sometimes but she's not like, a THREAT or anything. She never does these things in like a malicious or sneaky way, she legitimately is curious. It's really hard to explain because she obviously wants people to think the pics are sexy, but she's not being annoying about it. UGH I CAN'T EXPLAIN IT. Like there's a difference between her and other girls. Like the intent. I don't know. Either way, I guess I'm protective of her AND my friendships and I'm not worried about her with Steve or my friends. It was an amusing time and I'm glad she felt animated and talkative today.

She left after dinner but Nick came over. The boys played handhelds and I decided to play ITG. The first couple of songs I did terribly on, but after a few more I really started warming up, and I ended up doing pretty well. I finally got the star (96%) on Anubis and Summer in Belize, improved my Hand of Time to above 97%, and got the tri-star (99%) on The Game. We recently read in Ben's book, written in 2013, that he had just gotten his 2nd quad (100%), so we went to his Groovestats to see which song it was. It was The Game. Only 25 more excellents to improve and I'm there!! lol. Damn you Ben and your amazing accuracy!! Nah, I'm proud of the improvements I made, and I felt really good about the play today. I even tried a few new 12's and even though I couldn't pass them, it really felt like a stamina/getting tired issue vs ability. None of them seemed too hard, footwise, just my ability to not get tired out. I have optimism of being able to pass another 12 soon.

It's worth mentioning that I beat Steve at Rummikub yesterday, but it was a really good game. We'd been operating on the system of the 2nd person being able to take one last turn after the other person goes "out," but yesterday was the first time we played without that rule, so the game became much more intense and nervewracking, lol. I'm still only beating him by a few points, but that could change at any time!

I made the mistake of staying up past 11 last night, and this morning I could NOT drag myself out of bed. It was basically impossible. Thankfully I had my work training today, and even though it started the same time as school, I was still able to sleep in a lot later somehow. Probably because I didn't put on any makeup or shower, and I wore a hat. lol.

Brian was harassing me about some special ed documents over email before I left, and then he CALLED ME even THOUGH he knew I was at my training. TWICE. I was sitting in the very front and the trainer lady kept standing DIRECTLY behind me breathing down my neck (and spent a lot of time just being by our group), and Brian did not help my case. I definitely got the feeling she was trying to intimidate me somehow, and I'm really not one to be messed with when it comes to that stuff. I was knitting the whole time, but I was also doing the work. I didn't need to look at my work, and I ended up starting and finishing an entire fingerless glove today, and it was the first time I'd ever knit a glove starting with the thumb and attaching it to the ribbing. The yarn I'm using is gorgeous and vibrant; it's a hand-dye I got at the Sow's Ear.

We were surely the most remedial group (me, Tealie, and Rachel): Tealie can NEVER not talk at things, I was knitting, and Rachel is a space cadet. It was a pretty redundant training anyway. We did get our next project updated using their conceptual framework and added into their resources page, so we weren't total jerks.
Oh, and if you want to see my classroom (with the lights on, ew - we NEVER have the lights on) and Tealie, here's a short video that was filmed of her last week!

We had to leave a bit early to go to Jocelyn's budget meeting. It DOES sound like they got the money for a half time Montessori coach, so Tealie's gonna see what that's about. Steph was clearly upset about the Montessori 101 class and something else to do with electives, but Parkway isn't losing much staff positions next year, and the ones they're losing are due to misuse of funds anyway. She didn't let anyone know who is leaving, and I finally got the opportunity to tell Jenny that I was leaving. She had a Jenny-style sad reaction (a little tearful) and said she's extra sad because she had been secretly hoping I'd be able to co-teach with her next year. A high compliment, I must say. Jenny is such a sweetheart and I miss her a lot. But she understands, and is supportive and happy for me.

I came home, texted with Bethany and Haley about food, weight loss and Haley's boy drama before kind of napping for an hour and a half while Steve played ITG. He improved some tough scores and I'm disappointed I wasn't awake for them, but I'm proud of him and there will be other times. I was too tired to function!

Dinner tonight was rice and canned indian for Steve, and a homemade tofu soup for me (with broccolini, napa cabbage, carrots, and bok choy), an herb and greens salad with Drew's roasted garlic and peppercorn dressing, and a little bit of rice and tamari.

After this, we're gonna have a little date of playing a bit of Rummikub and then reading some of Ben's book in bed. Hopefully we'll get some real Z's tonight. It's gonna be tough to leave this spot though because of this huge orange purr machine nestled deep against my arm.

Monday coffee time was a success. Steve didn't have to wake up right away because he was working from home, and really would just be sitting anxiously waiting all morning for his final interview. I showered and mildly cursed Steve's name when I discovered he'd removed the razor from the shower, but then just shrugged and framed it like less time in the shower/more time with Steve. Today was supposed to be the hottest day this week, in the 80's. We sipped our coffee (a day old, because we didn't drink much of the last pot we made and couldn't really justify throwing it out), chatted a bit and snuggled. All too soon it was time for me to go, the second-hardest part of my day after waking up.

When I got to school at 7:20 (a few minutes late, naturally), I learned that someone had thrown some dairy product in our garbage and it didn't get changed and baked in our room all weekend, so the room was absolutely saturated in that old-milk/mold smell. YUCK. It was terrible. Going against the general perfume-free rule, I sprayed the entire room like 3 times, which our kids were all grateful for. Just pure awfulness.

I went and did my Monday gym supervision and Todd was there today with his students, which was a nice change of pace from just the 6th graders and I like chatting with Todd far more than I do with Brian. The boys played some 4-on-4 and everyone was having a good time right up until the end, when Chaz escalated for no reason (as usual) and pushed Dyshawn, who is a year older than him. Dyshawn turned around as a warning to see who pushed him but didn't even look mad, though everyone else was on alert because that was a clear provocation. I think Dyshawn is the kind of kid who can judge who's worth his time, and Chaz, while scrappy, definitely isn't. Because this is such a frequent problem with Chaz, everyone ignored him and left, which was a relief.

1st block was WAY too hyped up for a Monday, and we started a new project*. It's usually the favorite of the year and Tealie and I made it up 4 years ago, called the Real Life Project. It uses percentages, proportions and a bunch of other random math and requires students to compare two jobs, find a house/apartment, car (or calculate for public transport), and groceries and figure out whether they can afford their expenses. Invariably the majority of kids look up impossible professions, such as a sports figure or actress, but having to choose 2 usually means the second option is reasonable - today some examples included Uber driver, cosmetologist, McDonald's employee and nurse. Tealie and I spent a good chunk of the hour just getting students settled, but eventually 95% of them got to work and started getting excited about it. Second block was uneventful, just working on equations still. It was especially quiet because Konmeng was gone from period 3 and Tre'Kari wasn't there for period 4. Dyshawn told me he had a dream that Doug (one of my colleagues) got into a verbal argument with another student and he said something like, "I didn't want to have to cuss but can you please just shut the fuck up" XDDDD I love how that was such a big deal to him, when more than half the stuff he says any time he opens his mouth is foul and inappropriate.

Steve was at his interview when I stopped by home, which sucked, but I sent him a bunch of encouraging texts. I got fresh coffee and watered my hanging plant before heading to Nokomis. I had a pretty chill day with the 4th and 5th graders as they all had independent work to do, and they came late so I called Steve when I knew he was done with the interview. He was told by the hiring manager that (AGAIN) it went well, so Steve spent the rest of the day hoping for the final call. The guy messaged him on Facebook in the evening to say that he and the director hadn't had a chance to touch base but that they would soon. I'm 99.9% sure Steve will get offered the position. It really sounds like he will.

My 1st and 2nd grader also went really today. We practiced "short i" words something fierce while I typed up my sub plans. The 1st grader has no cognitive issues, only social, so I just give her an extra dose of academics while I work with the 2nd grader, who definitely has some sort of visual processing disability, which I discovered when I was doing her initial testing and qualified her for Special Ed a couple months ago. She regularly confuses b, d, and p and she is smack dab in the average cognitive range, very socially adept, and tries so hard. I see her face when she knows her brain is jumbling up words, and she is very self-conscious that she can barely read. So I'm making her hit words HARD. Her mom is annoyed that we're working on "basics," but she goddamn NEEDS the basics. Not that she doesn't *know* these simple words, it's about training her brain to see the letters correctly.

My three young boys (K and 1st) were okay today, Kamron cried once as usual lately and for literally no reason - I told him he couldn't take all 6 of the koosh ball fidgits (Larmar only wanted one) - but I never take any of that crap and he stopped pretty quickly. It's so funny when one of them acts up because the other two always act EXTRA like, "I'M not being a baby, but SOMEONE else is" about it. Can't WAIT to not have to work with little kids anymore. Hate it. But Kamron still gave me two hugs when he left (he always gives me one, and then often gets some distance away and then comes back for another) and said "I'll see you TOMORROW" like a thousand times as he walked back to his classroom.

As soon as I booted them, I raced home to Steve. He had to do one more meeting so I layed on the floor by the window scrolling through Facebook until he was done, and then I went and tried to nap unsuccessfully for a half hour before we left to go PokeHunting at Mall of America (or MoA, as we know it). First we went to the local stops, got coffee, and headed to Level Up. Normally on Mondays we go game shopping with Tyler, sometimes Nick and rarely Quimby. Today was canceled, but Steve and I still decided to look at the better of the two stores. He did end up with a Wario game that just came in, and it was sold to Steve for only $6 even though he guessed to the clerk that it would sell for $10 (and he told me after we left that it's worth $12).

MoA was fun, we stopped at GameStop before heading to BurgerBurger (their impossible burger in a lettuce wrap is amazing and they have good friesand dipping sauces) because I hadn't eaten basically all day save for some fruit. After that we wandered the mall and did a 3-star raid and had silliness when our dumb in-game characters were all wonky because of bad service. Even though there were several others clearly playing as well, we never all lined up at any of the various raids, which unfortunately never exceeded 4-stars. We were really hoping to get a 5-star raid with people because Latios is going to stop being a raid boss soon. Alas.

We got some disappointing Macarons that we discarded after trying the flavors, Steve got a bubble tea, and we generally had a nice romantic time wandering the mall. It's such a more bearable place during the week... far less people.

After that we headed home, and after I watered the garden and let my feet rest for a few, it was meal prep time! I made our breakfasts for the week and two sets of lunches:

Chia Pudding is a staple breakfast. I often wake up hungry but Steve struggles to eat food that doesn't make him nauseous in the morning. Chia pudding works for both of us because it's easy, versatile, and doesn't cause Steve to feel ill. AND it can be made ahead of time, and is in fact encouraged to do so to allow the seeds to plump.

For Steve's lunches I made a Butternut Squash and Pasta with Cheez sauce. I'd say it's some of the best vegan cheesy sauce I've ever made, omg. Instead of making separate vegetables I just used the leftover squash as the main veggie, and it looks amazing. Whenever recipes call for a certain amount of nutritional yeast, I always add more because YUM. My sauce was insanely thick so I ended up actually using almost double the water, added slowly, and it was perfect.

For my lunches I made a Mexican-style couscous. Always a delicious and flavorful meal. I usually use a bit more broth than called for and I add turmeric to everything. I also just used the entire bell peppers instead of half.

I made all of these at the same time, and Steve helped with the dishes when I was in the final stages of cooking. It all took just over an hour, and I'm not even a particularly fast or efficient cook. With practice I've been able to reduce my time in the kitchen, but a lot of that has to do with choosing relatively simple recipes (aka a few main ingredients) with several spices and use of salt and pepper even when it doesn't call for it. It's amazing what a huge difference it makes (thanks Blue Apron for teaching me that!!).

Finally, I snapped a photo just because-

It's mirrored because I took it in the Snapchat camera but still :D

Off to snuggle cats and a boy!

*After MCA's (standardized testing) we spend the rest of the year on projects that are varying degrees of math-focused, and most years is a really fun, busy, creative and honestly kind of relaxing way to end the school year.

This morning when I woke up, I was pleased that I woke up naturally, even if I still felt quite tired. I expected to it be kind of late for how much of the "waking up and going back to sleep" cycling I did before I finally decided to stay awake. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was only 9:15; plenty of time to get ready and get brunch at Ward 6.

Steve and I got ready and headed out after locating a couple of our reuseable bags. When reuseable shopping bags first came out, I didnt really have an interest in them. When my mom got into selling ThirtyOne bags, she gave me one of hers to use, and it was so nice! But I would ALWAYS forget it in the car and have to use disposable bags anyway. Now it's gotten to the point that if I forget my reuseable bags, I either try to carry it all in my arms (often) or, if I have too many food items, I buy another reuseable bag (less often). I know that we own at least 5, more like probably 7 or 8, reuseable bags. So why is it that we can only find 2?

After we got to Ward 6 we did a little Pokemon Go. Today I wore a new dress I got on sale at Express, which meant I was wearing "nicer" shoes, my wedges. These shoes are of good quality, but even so, they still wear at my feet after awhile. Today was really good though. I had no probems walking around, but I did definitely need to consume food, as the Hangry Monster was roiling on up. Got my usual Belgian Waffle. It was very good today. If they put the toppings on my waffle, I get the tiniest drops of fruit compote and whipped cream. If they put the toppings on the side, I get an actual serving of both. The fruit is always delicious - Ward 6 sources locally and organically as much as possible. Yum.

At some point Steve and I got on a bad train of thought, and things quickly spiraled. He made a comment that he thought was kind of a sharp joke, but was actually just sharp and mean, and suddenly I was crying. He seemed caught off-guard, but I had been sensing some anger underneath his presentation all morning. We tried to talk about it but we both just escalated until he tossed his card at me to pay and stormed out to cool down. When we left we talked some more, somewhat calmer, as we went and took a couple gyms and did a raid at Metro State. Eventually we reached a place where we were okay moving on with our day and talked a little bit more as we drove to the store. Once we got to the Wedge I think we were recovered. It had been a little while since we'd had a slip like that, and that's okay. It just serves as a reminder that Steve is still struggling (as am I), and we need to be mindful and open. It's obvious that I'm continuing to be more open; I was as surprised as he was that one comment, in public no less, made me cry on the spot.

Shopping was good, we got most of the necessary foods for meal prep. Every store we went to was packed though, ugh. We agreed we need a new plague. We were pleasantly surprised when our bill somehow totaled only $77. Sweet. Steve got an americano from the cafe and I bought some Honest T. When I was drinking it I was thinking the drink could used a touch more honey, not a lot more, but I could barely taste it. At some point I read the label: Unsweetened. Hm, makes more sense now.

There were still a few items we needed when we left the Wedge, so we went back to Woodbury and went to Whole Foods. That trip was short and sweet, and finally we needed to stop at PetsMart for oooone more thing. Oh, and Cub... and the Dollar Store... and Menards. I don't know how we did all that and still managed to make it home at a decent time. Steve got the groceries away and then we took a sex break (amazing) before heading outside to read Ben's book. Steve read a few chapters while I sunned myself, and then we traded and I read a few more. It was awesome.

When the sun started to get too low we came back inside and Steve heated up some food and we took another sex break and that was awesome. Steve has a final interview/meet and greet tomorrow to see if he'll get this job he really wants at the U of MN. I'm 99% sure he will get it, because it sounds like he's not even really against anyone, just that the director wants to meet him before the offer is formally extended. So I ironed his suit for him so he'll look extra sharp tomorrow, while he started some ITG. He had a really good set, improving a bunch of scores. It was really fun watching and supporting him, and I enjoyed seeing him feeling good about his play. While he did that I worked on my Mother's day gift and got a good chunk of the colorwork done. There are going to be a LOT of ends to weave in, but hey, at least it's knitting up quick!

Today was the first Saturday of garage sale season, which for us means that Steve woke up early (for a weekend — it's still two hours later than we wake up for work). We meant to get up at 6:30 for coffee time, but we went to bed past midnight and I continue to suck at sleeping.

My tracker caught 2 times of me being awake. Usually my sleep tracker doesn't even recognize when I'm awake, because I don't move around enough. As I said, I usually find myself staring into the dark. You will note the 158 audio catches, which include snoring (from either of us), but are usually me tossing and turning. The light sleep is often me being awake. I've tried calibrating it multiple times to track my wakefulness, but the app just won't believe me when my heart rate isn't spiking. /rant

You'll note that I have a giant orange bar on the right. When Steve left, I decided to go back to sleep until 9, at which time I'd go to the farmer's market. Instead I laid there anxiously as Connie, Grandma, or Ronnie came in and out of the house 100 times as the garage sale got underway. I stubbornly stayed in bed anyway, desperate for more Z's, listening to Day9 play Hearthstone.

When that didn't work, I invited Haley out with me and went to pick her up. She was in a decent mood, updating me on the Derek situation and I updated her on the garage sale situation. She also described her horrible experience at the doctor about her possible fibroids or cysts, and I started to actually feel faint/dizzy/gray as my trauma reaction to anything in the cervix/uterus area spiked.

We got a parking spot a bit away but not terrible, and we wandered around the market. It's still too early for most of the produce, especially with such an extended winter and literally no spring, but the flowers were out, and that's what I was there for. We started at the front, which is comprised of vendors of various goods - clothing, jewelry, honey, meat, cheese, bread, sauces, tea, etc. I bought some sticky rice and veggies from my favorite Hmong food place (and they put out a new curry spice mix to go with their sweet potato noodles so I bought both), and Haley bought a lemon poppyseed muffin. She also bought a mug from our "Mug Lady" before we went back to the flowers.

This year I decided to go with a brights theme - orange, red, and yellow. I bought some Dahlia, Merigold, one other, and I bought some medium-sized white flowers as filler to mix it up. I hadn't cleaned out my garden at all yet this year so I wasn't sure how many perennials had come back, and I didn't want to buy too many. Haley and I spent a lot of time going back on forth on what was ugly and what wasn't. I also ended up, for the first time, buying a plant that goes in a hanging pot and should cascade out of it. When I asked the woman if it could be indoors, she got REALLY weird about it and stammered that they only raised plants to go outside. ...okay, that's what I was asking. Haley has a bunch of plants that go indoors in hanging pots. Her response had the tone of complete shock at the idea of an indoor plant, like my question was WAY out of left field. Steve has called me out a few times lately for being unnecessarily snappy to customer service people (I dispute one for sure) so I made a concerted effort not to react to her and just said thanks (in a not-bitchy tone) and said I'd put it outside.

After the farmer's market I dropped Haley off at home, got gas and a car wash (discovered that my driver window has several weak spots in the seal, lol), and bought a hanging container for the new plant as well as compost and potting soil from Menards. When I got home I had to quickly drop all the stuff off before driving Steve and myself over to Baker's Square for lunch with Steve's parents and grandpa. This is a bi-monthly thing, as Steve's grandpa is 90 and still living independently and his parents live 4 hours away. Before we got there Steve and I made our "Bingo cards" on what phrases or topics would be brought up at the lunch.

Steve's mom won the bingo game, though she doesn't know it. At the end, we were doing the Minnesota Goodbye aka standing outside of the doors of the restaurant, half blocking them, and continuing to talk while edging in the direction of our cars before coming back in for hugs, and Mama Aker started shotgunning phrases and topics at us, as if she remembered about it and needed to squeeze in as many phrases as possible. She ended with, "I haven't seen you in so long I was gonna ask if Steve got a new girlfriend!" and right at that second, a woman was walking toward the door. Mama Aker pointed at her and said, "You really should get that shirt!" The woman's shirt read, I didn't want to come. We both burst out laughing, knowing how fucking good she got me. It was amazing, I'm proud of that super sick burn. Shows me that Steve and Amy didn't get their humor from nowhere.

After that, Steve and I got Starbucks (he got his usual Americano and I got the new cold press with foam drink) and I took us to Half Price Books. I didn't find anything - I was looking for a specific sock knitting book - but Steve ended up with a couple cheap games.

We headed home and hung out outside while the garage sale wrapped up. I started weeding the garden: cleaning out the leaves, clipping the dead perennials and moving the old stuff out of the new growth, managing the ants with my cinammon spray, and ignoring my cousin Danny's awkward stares as much as possible. Steve sat nearby. They started packing up, and Danny and Ronnie (Danny's dad) started bickering about whatever, and I didn't see what happened but Ronnie is so damn unstable and as he tried to stalk up the driveway (at best he can manage a painful-looking lurch) he lost his balance and fell on his "good" side. It was extra embarrassing because grandma got all stressed and he couldn't stand easily and Danny just stared and there were people AT the garage sale still looking. It was sooo awkward. He was at least agreeable for a few minutes to sit down, but he almost fell at least two more times before they left. God! Just stop!!! Soon after that it started lightly raining for no reason so we had to bring everything in while my aunt and grandma muttered about mold... kayyyy. It let up soon enough so we could finish packing up the stuff and I could get back to the garden.

They got everything out of the garage to take to Ronnie's to try to sell there, which was surprising and a huge relief. Connie still has stuff in our guest room, but not nearly as much and she's promised to get it all out in the next couple weeks. So I finished the garden. It looks good, but I think will need a couple more flowers. Oh well, guess I have to go to the farmer's market again (yay!).

I got done planting with 10 minutes to spare before my tutoring lesson with Riria (she's been my student for almost 4 years). Lesson was good, but her connection wasn't great. We finished Charlotte's Web and I made the mistake of asking if she had an English book she wanted to read, and of COURSE she chose Hachiko, so I'll probably cry.

Nick and Scott came over, I ordered a pizza and Steve went to get it while I finally took pictures and posted my haul from Yarnover on Instagram and updated my Ravelry. Soooo excited. After that I came down here with the boys and started my newest project. I REALLY want to start like 2 different shawls and another pair of socks (and I have Steve's socks on the needles), but I was a responsible person and cast on for Mom's Mother's day gift: Curious Cats fingerless gloves. I'm already done with the cuff and am about to start the pattern. The wonders of worsted weight yarn and larger needles!!

During that time, Nick started Uncharted 2, Scott played something handheld, and Steve fell asleep (he had a big day!). We chatted about woodshop classes we took in school and other random things. Eventually Steve woke up from his nap, we all talked a bit more, and then it was P-gas time*. Steve and I had planned to go Ghost Hunting in Pokemon Go tonight, but we're both too beat. There will be other nights for spooky romance!

*P-Gas = poison gas. A method of kicking his friends out since the beginning of time, wherein at a certain point in the night the room fills with a toxic gas that forces everyone but us to evacuate. Steve has prevented so many tragic incidents from occurring by being vigilant all these years.

A couple years ago, Ben lent Steve and myself a book that was a compilation of letters he wrote to his friends and family during his first year of college. He sent it as a kind of newsletter that summarized his daily life. He called it "college complaints," and it was hilariously steeped in the deep-seated but kindhearted annoyed way that Ben has. His family had it published for him, and the rest is history. However, he only wrote through the Spring of that year, and they abruptly end. This last time that we visited Ben and Sean, it was revealed that Ben began writing again a few years later, and THAT time period is now ANOTHER book of complaints. Reading it has inspired Steve and myself to try to write our own versions — me on my LJ and him on Google Drive — for at least 100 days (stretch goal being a whole year). We're thinking it would be neat to see if we can write for basically 100 straight days, and also we are interested in comparing our views on the day as well as our writing styles. We're gonna call it #couplecomplaints. So. Day 1.

Suddenly, I was awake*. This week has been insane with regards to waking up. The cuddles in bed have been too good, and I've been struggling HARD again to stay asleep at night. I notice that 5-7 times a night I'm just staring into the dark, awake. It's offered me more opportunities to rotate and snuggle Steve (or make him snuggle me), but in the morning it's hella frustrating to be so damn tired.

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February 2022

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Page Summary

44//Larvitar day, Jack's grad party, cafetalk and Howl’s moving castle
38//Home again, home again
37//Weaving class and amazing bakery
33//Last classroom day with Tealie
32// Last Monday in SPPS
30//Closings, cuddles, and cute couples
29//Work and work gathering
28//Teaching, yoga, and dance games
27//School year home stretch, emotions, friendships and knitting
26//9-year Anniversary, MoA, and a little tmi
25//Healthy food, visit to a cemetery, and giving gifts
13// A day mostly in pictures
11// Such a tired day
9// 9.9/10 day, so much to talk about
6// So damn happy for Steve, a good ol' Haley time, and a productive ITG day
5// Extra tired and work training
4// Insanity, romanticality, yummality and some vanity
3// Brunch, Sun, and Grocery shopping
2// "I didn't want to come." Tired, sassy, and productive
1// Couple Complaints

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