7 Quick Takes about Choosing a Christmas Tree, Solving Local Mysteries, and When the Nutcracker Doesn't Go the Way You Want It To

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

We went to a pick-your-own farm to get our Christmas tree. (Actually, we went to two but the first one weren't letting customers cut down any more trees until next year.) 

The teenagers helped cut down the tree and load it onto the cart while the younger kids threw snowballs at each other and were generally oblivious to what was going on.

At least they stopped complaining for a few minutes about being bored, cold, or thirsty.

There were so many cute little kids at the farm. We saw one dad with a hacksaw headed toward the trees and his preschooler toddling after him to help with the plastic toy chainsaw he was carrying. In the parking lot, a couple was pushing their little girl in a Cozy Coupe with a little 2' tree tied to the roof. It was an overwhelming amount of cuteness in a relatively small geographical area.

—2—

On the way home from the Christmas tree farm, Phillip commented, "You know, our selection process is the same every time we do this."

"We wander around randomly?" one of the kids guessed.

"Yes, but we wander around randomly with everyone pointing out ones we like, until finally we get to a tree where Mom says 'How about this one?' and that's the one we end up bringing home."

"Hmm," I said noncommitally, unwilling to admit that I'm bossy and probably hard to live with sometimes. "So you're saying that without me, we'd never pick a Christmas tree? You're welcome, guys!" 

—3—

Sometimes, we see this car driving around town with a personalized license plate that says 'CORN.' The kids and I have wondered what it means and speculated whether it's an inside joke, or if they really like 1990s alternative metal music but 'KOЯN' was already taken, or what.

But the other day I noticed the car parked near the barn of a small farm in our town, and I realized: the guy is literally a corn farmer. I love it.

—4—

My daughter comes home telling me the most ridiculous things. She says that "gyat" is new slang for "a big butt."

Call me old-fashioned, but in my day slang words at least followed a loose logic. They were short for something like "dis" for "disrepect," or they combined two words like "chillax." In some fashion, your mind could connect the dots without a lot of context.

But 'gyat'? It's just a bunch of random letters. Even the kids in middle school who are saying it will admit that they don't know why it means that.

Probably the etymology of 'gyat.'

—5—

I was sitting in a waiting room at my medical lab, and saw the best mom come in holding the hand of her disabled adult son. She spoke with so much kindness in her voice and took her time to talk with him about everything instead of just doing it herself.

When he needed to use the bathroom she suggested "Let's knock to make sure no one's in there first" and then waited outside in case he needed help. When he came out, she asked kindly, "Did you wash your hands?" and then when he wouldn't stop playing with the water she complimented him on doing a good job rinsing and guided him back out into the waiting room. 

She just did it all with such patience and love, like she probably had been doing every day for the last 30 years. It really warmed my heart to see. 

—6—

Some contingent of our family goes to see The Nutcracker ballet almost every Deceember, but this year I was super-excited because my 8-year-old is playing "Waltz of the Flowers" in a piano recital on Saturday. I wanted to see his reaction to hearing (and seeing) it live.

Working on memorizing his piece.

This year I splurged a little on Nutcracker tickets, picking a higher-end ballet that we ordinarily can't afford because (1) fewer of us were going this year, and (2) a few performances of the performances were offering half-price admission for kids.

So wouldn't it be sad if traffic the entire way from our house to the theater was so terrible that it took us over twice as long to get there as I'd planned, and we missed the first 30 minutes of the show?

—7—

Well, that's exactly what happened. I'm not going to say that I wasn't stressed out of my mind sitting in stop-and-go-traffic watching the ETA on the GPS creep later and later and later for the entire trip. I also won't say that the kids and I weren't disappointed to miss the first half-hour which included the entire Christmas party at Clara's house. But it turned out okay in the end.

I honestly felt a little better when we joined a dozen other people in the lobby who'd apparently had just as disastrous a journey and were waiting to get in late, and by the time they let us in and got to our seats we were just in time to see the Mouse King (my boys' favorite) and the dancing snowflakes (my favorite). 

Amazing costumes, amazing set.

It actually turned out to be a lovely evening with my 3 youngest kids. They enjoyed the show and during intermission we got up and checked out the pit orchestra, where my daughter found a few stray pieces of confetti "snow" and took them home for souvenirs and I got a laugh out of the trombones all watching a football game during their break.

When the orchestra started playing Waltz of the Flowers in the second act, the 8-year-old flashed me a huge grin and thumbs-up... so even after the horrendous drive and the frustration of missing ¼ of the expensive show, I was still glad we'd come.

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7 Quick Takes about Claustrophobia, the Art of the Backhanded Compliment, and Adventures in Cosmetics

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

Well, I finished reading Parenting with Love and Logic. I may not have loved everything about the book (see my full review on Goodreads), but it definitely made me realize it's time to deal with a few chronic issues in the house.

One of them is being on time to church. Well, anywhere, really, but church is a good place to start. To my kids, "leaving at 11:30" means "start thinking about where on earth you left your coat at 11:30" and that's not really the same thing. So I decided to apply Love and Logic to the problem.

I informed the kids that this Sunday, the van would be exiting the driveway at exactly 11:20. Whoever was in it would get a ride to church, and whoever didn't would be walking there. Generously, I gave them copious warnings:

"The time is now 10:40. Be ready to go in 40 minutes!"

"Leaving in 20 minutes!"

"Ten minutes until departure: that means 5 minutes to finish up what you're doing and 5 minutes to put your shoes on and get in the car!"

"I'm going out to the car now, it will be driving away in 5 minutes!"

In the end, I drove away with only one of the four kids. And do you know what the 10-year-old said when he finally showed up at church, face flushed from walking 10 minutes in the cold? "Why didn't you tell me you were leaving?"

We'll see if his hearing is as selective next week when we do the same thing.

—2—

I haven't been able to wear my wedding ring since the swelling incident a few weeks ago. Not physically unable, but mentally. I've slipped the ring on my finger a few times, but each time I start to hyperventilate at how it feels a little snug going over my knuckle and then I yank it off in claustrophobic panic.

A few days ago I started reading Michael J. Fox's memoir No Time Like the Future, and I kid you not, on page 47 he falls and injures his ring finger, which swells until it necessitates an emergency visit to the hospital, by which time it's cut off his circulation so much they almost have to amputate his entire finger.

WHAT IS THE UNIVERSE DOING?! I'm already freaked out, there's no need to keep beating me over the head with this. Also, in a double irony, I was reading the book before bed but instead of getting sleepy I got an adrenaline rush with a side of impending doom.

—3—

The kids took down a framed picture on the wall, took off the back, and found this 15-year-old photo of Phillip and I hidden behind the one on display:  

My daughter gasped and said, "Mommy, you used to be so pretty!"

If she had more self-awareness, she would've looked at how exhausted and crabby I am now after a decade of dealing with her shenangians and drawled like Steve Urkel: "Did I do that?"

He gets it.

—4—

You know that product Poo-Pourri? You spray it in the toilet before you use the bathroom. Well, apparently the flowery bottles and logos only speak to women, and the company figured out how to make it for boys, too: you put it in a toolbox.

It's all in the marketing.

It's still going to be all women buying this product, but now they can get the "throw a monkey wrench into bathroom stench" version for their husbands or dads. 

Because I can't see any man buying himself a toolbox that says "Master Crapsman" on it.

—5—

For the last several years, I've gone through phases where I do go running for exercise regularly, but I've never been able to call myself a runner with a straight face. I don't even know if I want to, because that comes with all kinds of expectations like that I will run a 5K with you and I don't want to live under that kind of pressure. 

Whenever someone asks me if I run, I usually hesitate and say, "Well, I jog... but I don't like it." But I've been realizing that I think I can claim being a runner, if I want to. I run 2.5 miles a couple of times per week. I even did it earlier this week in 25° weather when it would've been way easier to stay inside.

I still don't know if I want to adopt this identity. I'm only saying that I technically could. I want to be enough of a runner to stay in shape and feel energetic, but not so much that I have an embarrassing poop story like most of the distance runners I know.

—6—

We got our first real snow of the season. Of course, Phillip had stuck the shovels in the loft over the garage at the end of last winter, and since he'd already left for work it was my job to get them down.

Which sounds way easier than it actually was, because:

1. He'd put them up over the rafters where no normal-height person (including me) could reach them, and
2. Directly beneath the shovels was a gaping hole with a one-story drop to the concrete garage floor, from temporarily removing the pull-down stairs to fix them (although that happened years ago so it's becoming more permanent than temporary, but I digress.)

Anyway, here is the text I sent him at work that day: 

Sadly, his plot to commit life insurance fraud failed, and I retrieved a shovel and cleared the driveway without incident. He'll have to try harder than that.

—7—

Makeup question: how in the world does any woman find the right foundation color? I've always used the "guess and hope" method of holding random bottles up next to my face in CVS and trying to match my skin color, but it never works well. I always think I picked a good one, until I take it home and try it on and I look like a mime. (Sometimes like an oompa loompa, depending.)

After my last failed expedition to the cosmetics aisle, I decided to get little more methodical for next time. I needed to arrive with better data. 

I took a selfie, uploaded it to a vector graphics program, and used the color matching tool to get a sense for my actual skin tone. Pixels don't lie, and I realized that my skin is pinker than I thought it was. Which makes my past failures make more sense because I was consciously steering away from pink-leaning foundation, thinking that wasn't me.

Am I closer to finding my foundation color? Probably not by much. But I feel like I learned something, at least.

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7 Quick Takes about Thanksgiving Pants, Closing the Open Loops, and New Ways to Decorate Your Car for the Holidays

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

Happy Thanksgiving!

Phillip and our 13-year-old did the cooking. I washed the dishes and tried to keep the kitchen a workable space as they piled up more dirty dishes in the sink. Everyone else tried to make themselves scarce so they didn't get an assignment to help out, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't.

We had mostly our standard favorites (I love the cranberry-pear sauce more than anything), but the 13-year-old really wanted to make some kind of fancy fruit salad so she asked ChatGPT to design her a recipe. She made it and served it in a trifle bowl and I am all for innovation.

Thanksgiving dinner at the Evans house.

Let me talk about these pants for a minute.

They are the best Thanksgiving pants because they look dressy, but they're stretchy and feel like pajama pants... there could be no better pants to wear on a holiday that revolves around eating and taking a post-dinner nap.

—2—

This Thanksgiving was just me, Phillip, and the four remaining Evans kids still at home, which is just the way I like it. 

Sometimes I think people feel like they have to invite us over (because no one should be alone on a holiday!) If I was completely alone, I'd probably appreciate the invite; as it is, I've got my husband and 4 kids, and this is one of the few weekends a year when we just get to hang out together, instead of briefly waving to each other as we separately run to a million practices and banquets and meetings and appointments. Socializing with others is great, but this holiday weekend feels like a family vacation and I want to preserve that as much as I can.

This weekend is going to be heavenly. We're going to watch movies, do some projects with the kids that we never ordinarily have time to do with them, and possibly go launch the model rocket the 8-year-old got for his birthday and we also never had time to do. Maybe we'll get a Christmas tree, who knows? Phillip even went running with me this morning, although at 6'2" he barely had to trot to keep up (he probably could've just walked quickly if he didn't mind making me feel bad).

—3—

Sometimes it takes a while, but almost everything I've ever listed on Facebook Marketplace has sold eventually, no matter what it is. 

I just sold an ancient floppy disk drive that we found in our basement for $5. Which immediately made me think of this joke:

To be fair, I did meet the floppy disk drive lady at the grocery store instead of my house. Because I hate to judge, but if you're buying a floppy disk drive odds are that something isn't quite right with you.

—4—

I've been doing this new thing where I start every day by closing the "open loops" around the house after getting the kids off to school. 

Instead of starting on the to-do list in my head, I look around and check off the to-do list in my house first: what's left out on the counter or the table because it's in the middle of a project or because I don't know where to put it or because I've been putting off the next step I need to do with it? Before I start anything else, I need to do that stuff.

Closing those open loops first thing in the morning feels good because then I don't have to look around and see what the Minimal Mom calls "the silent to-do list" staring at me all day long. 

—5—

On the highway the other day, a car passed me that was fully decked out in colored LED Christmas lights. 

I tried to take a picture but I was a little slow and my camera isn't great at night and I was also focusing on other things like driving 60 MPH, but you can kind of see it here:

Better than plush antlers and a reindeer nose attached to your van.

Watch this video if you want to see more clearly what it looks like (and how they did it).

—6—

Although I haven't quite reached the level of the driver that spent hours fully wrapping his entire car in Christmas lights before it was even Thanksgiving, I've been pleasantly surprised with how on top of Christmas preparations we are so far. 

I've already ordered and received our Christmas cards and decided on several presents for extended family and experience gifts for the kids (a few of theses have even been bought!) 

Of course, it always starts out this way and I think, "Yep, this year I am totally going to be on top of everything" and then the perfect storm of unpreparedness comes later. But I can enjoy this feeling while it lasts.

—7—

I got sucked into reading this crazy followup piece on a family who sued their I.V.F. clinic for switching their embryo with another couples', and both of them birthed and raised each others' babies for several months. The long-form article is about a million pages long, but it was so interesting I couldn't tear myself away.

The way the couples chose to handle it, and the complicated emotions they went through in doing so, were so interesting that I kept talking about it over dinner, so the 13-year-old asked if she could read it, too. 

I gave permission but she only made it about a third of the way through before getting bored and petering out. I guess you have to be a parent to really get invested in the story.

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7 Quick Takes about Carving Pumpkins (Better Late than Never), Dollar Store Surveillance, and Take Your AI to Church Day

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

I somehow misplaced a letter from our bank that listed my 16-year-old's PIN for his debit card. When I finally found it, I wasn't sure where the 16-year-old was at the moment so I just yelled into the other room, "I found your PIN number!" in the hope that he would hear me.

Without looking up, his 8-year-old brother reading a book on the couch responded: "The 'N' stands for number." 

Fine, whatever. Just remember who taught who how to use a spoon.

—2—

For years the teenagers have carved pumpkins at a church Halloween party, so we never did it at home with the younger kids. Quite frankly, I was avoiding it. Whenever we tried it in the past, the kids were too little to handle knives and wouldn't touch the seeds so Phillip and I were basically doing all the scooping and the carving, and the kids would just get bored and wander away leaving us with a big mess to clean up.

However, my 8-year-old mentioned a couple of times that he really wanted to carve pumpkins this year, so when I drove by a place giving away free pumpkins last week I picked one up for each kid.

Turns out it's WAY easier now that they're older. The 8- and 10-year-olds did practically everything on their own, I just got to watch them and roast the leftover pumpkin seeds.

Here is my favorite jack-o-lantern, designed by the 16-year-old after a character from a video game called Plants vs. Zombies:

The older and more crumpled he gets, the better it looks in my opinion.

The 12-year-old designed the cutest frog you ever did see:

So I won't be scared to carve pumpkins with the kids again next year. I'll look forward to it because I know it's enjoyable now, and they'll even help clean up when we're finished!

—3—

I saw this fake security camera at the dollar store:

As hilarious as it is brilliant.

I love that it does absolutely nothing, but in order to give suspicious people the illusion that it does something, you need to add batteries to power the red light on the front.

—4—

Phillip and I are starting to feel like two ships passing in the night, so we did some brainstorming about how we can spend more time together. Adding traditional date nights isn't an option because (1) one or both of us need to be home to drive kids to activities every night, and (2) we're too exhausted to add in another thing even if we could.

We decided that twice a week, we're going together to pick the 8-year-old up from gymnastics instead of taking turns doing it. The gym is 30 minutes away, so that's a whole hour round trip.

On Monday we mostly talked business and scheduling for the household, and on Wednesday we just had a conversation like two people who enjoy spending time together and it was probably the longest conversation we've had in a year.

—5—

This text came to my phone from an unknown number.

If I work 10-20 minutes a day for 50 weeks a year, that's a salary of $75,000-$450,000. In other words, what an awesome opportunity! I've already sent Daria literally all of my personal information. I can't wait to get started.

 

—6—

In reading news, I finished The Day the World Came to Town (a heartwarming true story that happened during 9/11) and started Parenting with Love and Logic (I read a ton of parenting books but for all the times I've heard this one recommended I've never read it). 

After finishing the first three chapters of Love and Logic, I think I can sum up the book as "Don't make your kids wear a coat if you want them to learn to make good decisions."

Which is good advice and totally true, but I would add one thing. Still ask them to shove it in their backpack, just to show their teacher that she doesn't need to send a note home asking if you're aware of the no-cost winter gear for student families collected during the school's annual coat drive. (ASK ME HOW I KNOW.) Maybe that's the "logic" part of Love and Logic and I still haven't gotten to that chapter.

—7—

At work, Phillip is in charge of making sure that his company is fully utilizing AI in what they do. As a result, he's always thinking about new ways to use it, even when he's at home.

So when it was his turn to plan the Family Home Evening lesson, it surprised exactly no one when he decided to give it using AI.

First, he picked a session of general conference and asked AI to summarize each talk. Then, he fed the summary paragraphs into an AI image generator. He asked it to show the pictures at random, and the kids tried to guess which talk went with each picture.

Some of the pictures were as weird as most AI-generated pictures tend to be, but others turned out interesting like this one:

Supposedly illustrates this talk.

In any case, using A.I. was a pretty cool idea that kept the kids engaged and interested. I'm going to have to remember this the next time I give a youth lesson at church.

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7 Quick Takes about Couple Photography, Pelvic Floor Triumphs, and Requesting Funds from No One in Particular

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

What a nice couple... until you see the MAN HANDS! 

Taken during a Sunday walk.

So I guess I'm still looking for a nice couple shot of Phillip and I, but we could probably crop this one and it would be alright.

—2—

Just a few days later, I really did have humongous hands. Or at least a big, swollen ring finger.

I don't even know what caused this.

On Wednesday morning, I woke up feeling like I'd punched something and injured two of my knuckles (I hadn't), but I didn't think much of it until later in the day when I realized that my finger was so swollen I couldn't get my ring off.

If I thought about it too much, I started to feel claustrophobic (Help! I'm stuck in my ring and can't get out!) I tried to stay distracted for the next few days so I didn't freak out, and also reminded myself that in the worst case scenario, Phillip buys way too many tools and probably has a dozen different sizes of wire cutters downstairs.

Luckily, though, the swelling started to go down a little today so I probably won't need them.

—3—

I've been doing a workout video a couple times a week for about a month now, and afterward I always feel such a strong sense of accomplishment... for not peeing my pants during all the jumping jacks!

I feel like I should get one of these worksite signs that says __ Days Without Accidents and hang it by the TV.

—4—

My son pointed out something in the van that he noticed for the first time, and he just laughed and laughed.

If you don't get it, think like an 8-year-old and it'll come to you.

—5—

While on the road, I also saw this vehicle. Something about how the bed sticks out past the taillights on both sides, combined with the fact that there's literal junk in the trunk, makes it look like this truck has a big butt.

Possible inspiration behind the lyrics to the country song "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk."

—6—

Going gluten-free didn't solve the 16-year-old's stomach issues, so instead of taking random stabs in the dark and guessing at what foods might be the problem, we felt like it was more methodical for him to go on a strict elimination diet and then start adding back in one food at a time.

So for the time being, there are only 38 things he can eat. If you don't count oil, spices, and things like baking powder, it's only 27.

He claims that he doesn't mind. For one, he can still have bacon. For another, he has homemade potato chips for dinner every night. I always knew he was a pretty glass-half-full kind of kid, but this is going above and beyond.

It was Phillip's birthday last weekend and we even figured out how to make a cake out of those 38 ingredients that honestly was really good!

—7—

I found this in the house the other day, folded up on the computer desk.

I have no idea who wrote this or what it was intended for. I just hope it's not addressed to me.

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7 Quick Takes about Remembering Our Ancestors, Fixing My Mistakes, and Pant Sizes I Didn't Know Existed

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

We have 0% Mexican heritage, but that did not stop us from creating a Day of the Dead ofrenda in our front hallway.

Día de los Muertos was on November 1st and 2nd, but we had to set up our ofrenda on the 3rd because that's the only day we were all home at the same time. 

That's how we do most everything in our family, celebrating birthdays and holidays whenever we can make it work for our family. Bonus points if it's in the same general calendar vicinity of the actual event.

The kids liked hearing stories about their great-grandparents as we put this together.

It was also because I was late to the game printing out pictures and ordering fake flowers from Amazon. Which, by the way, SMELLED LIKE ROTTEN FISH. I was warned about this; some of the reviews mentioned it but it was way more putrid than I imagined. 

I set the flowers outside for two days, sprinkled them with baking soda, spritzed them with vinegar and Febreze... and eventually the smell faded. Or maybe I'm just nose-blind now and it's a good thing we never have people over.

—2—

My 8-year-old usually brings lunch to elementary school, and I told him he could get milk from the cafeteria to go with it if he wanted. He wasn't sure how to do that, so his middle-school sister came over to explain it to him.

She was describing where to go and where to find the milk, and he interrupted her saying, "They moved things around and the cafeteria isn't set up like that anymore."

"Well, how is it set up now?"

He tried to describe it and answer her followup questions, but I could tell they weren't really getting anywhere. Eventually, she got frustrated and exclaimed, "Well, I don't know how anything works anymore, I'm officially old."

Is it bad that I think these are some of the most gratifying moments of parenting older children??

—3—

After a year, we finally fixed the massive crack I put in our kitchen countertop by stupidly leaving a hot griddle on and forgetting about it. 

We tried a DIY solution but it didn't work, so we knew it was time to call in the pros. The guy used a lot of tools and special equipment and was in the house for about 4 hours working on it (including drying time between coats) and it was totally worth it, in my opinion.

Slightly different lighting due to the time of day, slightly different angle because I'm a lazy before-and-after photographer.

Here's a close-up, and you can really only see where the crack was if you (1) look this close and (2) are purposely searching for it:

The view with your nose 2 inches away from the surface of the countertop.

—4—

This week I've gone over to help a friend clean out a stuffed-to-the-gills desk and closet, and I think I missed my true calling in life to be a professional organizer. I've been super-excited to go over there and help her make more progress, and I come home on a high after doing so. 

When we finished the closet, she was ready to go do something else and I had to pull her back to admire her handiwork, which is my favorite part of the organizing process. "Look at that! Look at that beautiful, organized space you made!" I cried, throwing the closet doors open wide and gesticulating at it wildly. 

I think I got way more satisfaction and enjoyment out of it than my friend did, and it's her closet.

—5—

My 16-year-old son is growing too fast, and I just bought him a pair of 29x34 dress pants. I didn't even know they made that size. Here's where we bought them:

Product image from Amazon.

They're actually a little roomy in the waist but he's just going to have to wear a belt. There's no way I would ever be able to find a 28x34.

My husband, in the meantime, is having a hard time digesting the fact that he may not be the tallest person in the family for much longer. He's still 3" taller than the 16-year-old, but they have the exact same inseam. (I guess he's just growing from the bottom up.)

—6—

The 8-year-old was packing his own bag before we headed to gymnastics practice the other day, and I told him I appreciated that he was doing it without being reminded or asked.

He smiled and told me, "I'm rizz-ponsible." 

I don't know if I can handle Gen Alpha.

—7—

At the gym, they were giving out free pumpkins left over from a Halloween activity, so we took a few home.

My 8-year-old claims that he's never carved a pumpkin (that he remembers, anyway), and I feel bad about that. We didn't get around to it this year, and for that matter, we didn't get around to dying Easter eggs, either. As the youngest of 6 kids, his main memories of childhood will be driving around to all his older siblings' practices and games, not doing fun seasonal activities.

So we won't carve jack-o-lanterns until a week or two after Halloween, but again, see Take #1. That's just how we do things around here, or they don't get done at all.

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7 Quick Takes about Stealing Pants in Reverse, Becoming an Award-Winning Chili Chef, and Getting Suspicious Looks from Birds

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

My college daughter mentioned that she was being woken up by the light through her window, so I thought it would be nice to order her a sleep mask and see if that helped.

I did get her one, but not this specific one because the product image for it looked like the entire family was wearing bras on their faces:

—2—

Last month I took my 16-year-old son fall clothes shopping, and they forgot to remove the ink tag from one of the pairs of pants he bought. The store wasn't conveniently located to me, so it took several weeks to go back and have them take it off.

While I was at the customer service desk having the tag removed, my 13-year-old looked around and bought some clothing for herself, including a pair of pants that we got home and realized STILL HAD THE INK TAG ATTACHED.

I do not have time for these shenanigans.

This time, I stopped by a different location of that store to remove the tag while I was driving home from my 8-year-old's gym, and the second I walked in the door the theft alarms on either side started going off because of the ink tag. 

—3—

A few months ago I picked up a self-improvement journal at the dump (long story) and have actually been getting a lot out of it.

First of all, I tracked my water intake for a month and realized I was dehydrated. The goal was 8 glasses per day, and at first I could barely choke down 4 but it got easier with time. By the end of the month, I was regularly finishing my fourth glass by 10:30AM.

(Full disclosure, once the month ended and I stopped recording how many glasses I had, I stopped drinking as much.)

Second, I made a daily exercise plan and have been sticking to it. I run a mile a day and take the same route every time, but today I ran farther than usual and looked it up on a pedometer map when I got home. And do you know what I realized? This whole time, I've actually been running two miles instead of one. Today, I ran for two and a half miles. 

Before, I'd just assumed my "mile" jogs took so long because I was the slowest runner in the world. This actually makes a lot more sense.

—4—

We went to our church's annual chili cook-off competition, and Phillip decided to enter this year. He's never cooked chili before, but if you know Phillip you know that something like that wouldn't stop him.

First he looked up a recipe that seemed promising, and then he asked AI for tips on cooking the best chili. And do you know what? He won.

If you want to know, AI suggested not cooking the meat before adding it to the chili. You just put it in raw and simmer it for a long, long time until the meat is cooked through. And according to the chili competition judges, it worked.

—5—

For Halloween, we used to have a big noisy gaggle of kids to take trick-or-treating, but this year it was just the 8- and 10-year-old. The oldest two are in college, the 16-year-old was working, and the 13-year-old went out with her friends. Frankly, it was a little boring. I think next year, we need to go trick-or-treating with friends because it was just too quiet.

The 10-year-old was a bank robber and the 8-year-old was an ear of corn. I was the proudest of the corn costume, a little because it made several people laugh and ask "Are you... corn?" and mostly because of this awesome hat I made:

Made out of scrapbook paper following a YouTube tutorial.

Do you know how long it takes to follow an 11-minute video on how to make this thing? Two hours. Remind me to take it with a grain of salt run away screaming the next time I see a DIY tutorial with the phrase "super easy" in the title. 

—6—

My progress learning Spanish is so imperceptibly slow that most of the time, I honestly don't think I'm making any. But every now and then, something happens to show me that I've improved and I'm genuinely shocked.

This week at the grocery store, I overheard an English-speaking couple asking a Spanish-speaking employee where the garlic is, but they couldn't understand each other, so I asked the employee for them without having to stop and think first about how to say it. 

—7—

Birds are funny animals because their eyes are on the sides of their heads, so literally every time they look at you they have to cock their head and give you the side-eye.

My 16-year-old showed me a side-by-side comparison of our bird Pringles and Duane "The Rock" Johnson, and asked if I saw any similarities between the two:

What do you think?

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