Cream Cheese and Month in Review (Summer)

I was taught to reuse dishes growing up. If it wasn't too dirty, you rinsed it off or wiped it down. 

I carry on the tradition. I use the same knife for my cream cheese each day.

I wipe down the knife and put it in the fridge with the cream cheese each morning after I'm down. The same knife can last a month (or until Shane does a bad job of cleaning it!). 

Honestly, that strategy probably wouldn't have worked growing up. We had way too many people going in and out of the fridge. It's just Shane, Carrie, and I here, so it's easier to keep track of.

Monthly Summary:

February started off busy. The new quarter started at the end of January. One bad grade gave an F for the 2nd semester, so kids were extra motivated until enough grades came out that a missing homework wouldn't tank their end of year average! 

Wrestling went into post season. The season ended and I had more spare time...which I used to catch up on school work! 

Life typically calms down and gets easier as February ends. The days get longer and I'm home more, so Carrie feels better. That also means I'm available to make sure Shane goes to Youth Group and other activities. Soccer will start for him in March, so he'll get to feel like part of a team. I'm tired from the season and have to struggle along until Spring Break, but it feels good to be done. It's similar to being sore and aching from a good work out (as opposed to being injured from overdoing it).

...and we got yet another cat. Go figure. We're up to four.

One Week Later (Summer)

Yeah, kitten isn't going anywhere. Carrie has spent the past week caring for and socializing him (Yes, we have finally confirmed Black is a boy).

I came home the first day to find Carrie in the bathroom watching media and cuddling the little guy. I got many kitten pictures texted to me at work, too.

Kitten acted like he was in shock at first, but quickly bonded to Carrie. 

She became his safe space. He's more than content to wallow all over her and sleep in her lap.

If Carrie leaves him alone, he starts to pip and mew until she returns.

Which is where he gets his name: Piper. I named him that, because he piped up and sang out whenever I pulled Carrie away (Plus, I liked the nickname "Pip" for "Pipsqueak").

Pip was under-nourished by Carrie's standard, so he gets wet food. You'd think we don't feed our other animals by how they blitz around whenever it's Pip's mealtime!

Here, Carrie dropped a fork and it became the center of attention.

Everyone wanted in on the action (which I watched and photographed at first rather than picking up).

By the end of the week, Piper got playful.

Teaching a kitten that your body parts are toys makes for great pictures, but poor long term decision making. Enjoy the pictures for now. The other shoe will drop later.

I'm still not thrilled we have a fourth cat, it's a he, and he's in my bathroom. The reason I went and got diagnosed for an allergy originally was because Carrie brought home a male cat. He was an awesome, social cat, but my sinuses exploded. One of the allergists first recommendations was not to allow cats in the bedroom. "You spend so much of your time sleeping there, it's better to have it be allergen free."

Pip's not in the bedroom per se, but the bathroom is right there, if you know what I mean. 

Still, it's good to see him coming out of his shell. He loves Carrie and all the rubs. He pushes into her hand and purrs up on a storm.

Pip will outgrow the bathroom one day. Hopefully, he'll integrate well with the rest of the cats then. The dogs, too, for that matter. For now, he's a source of joy for Carrie as she brings him out of her shell and that makes him worth having around to me.

Video Game Statistics (Summer)

As a nerd, I love statistics. Steam did something new this year. They posted a Steam Replay for 2022 which was full of all sorts of lovely stats!

The game I played the most by far was Deep Rock Galactic (42% of total playtime). It's a 1 to 4 dwarf co-op mining and shooting bug game that I played with Bill and Shane. It was a social outlet for Bill and I where we'd meet up, shoot bugs, and decompress. Shane played on my computer until I bought a copy for him, so some of those percentage points are his.

Which brings me to the next graph: Playtime by Month.

Overall, I was pretty consistent throughout the year. The data's not perfect, though, because Shane uses my account, too. I know for a fact I played more during the summer. It doesn't show in the data chart, because Shane was traveling. The hours presented in the graph were all me instead of shared. I started to play Xcom2 again (9% total year playtime in under 2 months) and was worried I was sinking too much time into it. I forced myself to take a break from it. Also, I started and beat the First Trails game in that time period (8% total playtime). It was the game I played while staying near Carrie as she battled and grieved through Kitsune's story.

A stat that surprised me was the number of games I've played: 48. It made sense when I looked at the games played, though. 

1) Shane. He'll play a game a few times, say he's bored and want a new game to play. Examples: Slime Rancher, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Two Point Hospital, Rogue Legacy

2) Being social with Bill. We've bought and played a number of games together along with DRG. Examples: It Takes Two, Children of Morta, Castle Crashers, Operation Tango  

3) I bought the I Stand With Ukraine humble bundle. The humble bundle dropped a ton of games that I split between Shane's account and my own. Most were flashes in the pan, but there were a couple gems. Examples: Pawnbarian, Hexlogic, Cypher, 911 Operator, Tooth and Tail 

The next data chart will show I don't buy brand new games. I'm not sure what game I bought that would even be considered new, but it was probably a smaller indy game (maybe even something Shane picked up).

I tend to wait for a couple of years and a good sale to pick up a game. Sometimes,  I have a hard time during down a great deal. I have a backlog of games I've never played (some still from that Stand With Ukraine bundle!). That discourages me from buying anything new unless I really, really want it right away (Like Portal 2 back in the day!).

I have had a Steam account for 18 years. It started with buying The Orange Box way back on a Thanksgiving long ago. It started off small with most of my playtime spent elsewhere (like Battle.net), but gained legs over the years. Now, most of my gaming is done on Steam, because it's easy. I have a lot of stuff there. It'd be work to go elsewhere.

While nerding over stats, I poked around on the rest of my account. Steam has achievements which I find fun....to a point. I don't need to play a game to perfection (but I have done it). I like to grab achievements and they add a replay factor to me, but if they're too much work to achieve I won't waste my time. 

The game I've played the most by far is Desktop Dungeons. To be fair, some of that is because I've accidentally left it on and running many a time. My Puzzle Quest 2 playtime should be significantly higher, but Carrie and I used to both log on to play it. Steam would kick one of us, but the game would stay up. It only logged that person's playtime.

Steam didn't originally track playtime, because all the hours I spent playing Team Fortress 2 with my friends doesn't appear anywhere. We used to play Left for Dead (1 and 2), as well. Counter-Strike was a huge draw, but that was began well before Steam existed. 

My most played games tend to fall into several categories. Rogue Legacy is a notable exception, because the 150 hours is cumulative between Carrie, Shane, and I all playing it.

Quantity alone does not determine quality, but there has to be some quality for me to have played all these games so much!

My tastes have changed towards shorter running or at least bite-sized capable games. Hexcells, Tametsi, and Desktop Dungeons are all essentially puzzles. I boot up, focus on a problem, hopefully solve it, and then turn it off if I don't say "just one more...".

Meanwhile, the Total War and Civilization series are all about building massive empires over time. They are LONG games (and taught me a lot of history over the years!). I've barely touched anything like them for at least 5 years. I do remember flirting around with Civ 5 some, because Shane got it on the Switch. Last played was "Oct 3, 2020" so that checks out as "virtual school and stuck at home." I think Shogun 2 was my favorite Total War and that was last played in 2015 (and probably for a minute or two before saying "I don't have time for this" and turning it off!).

At some point, I'll do a "Top 10 Video Games post." I already drafted a bunch of book ones to fill in gaps later on the blog. Maybe an older, bored Shane will look back at the list and try a thing or two and discover some fun ways to connect to his old man.

1st Inaugural Girls' State Wrestling Tournament (Summer)

 Friday was the inaugural Girls State Wrestling Championship for Virginia.

Over 400 girls participated!

Lucy was our participant. She's somewhere in this section (blending into the background like she prefers!).

I scheduled a sub and took the day to go up, coach, and support her. It was a couple hours away in Northern Virginia.

It was a great tournament. The air was welcoming, the sportmanship between wrestlers was evident, and the skill levels were varied enough that there were learning opportunities for everyone.

Boys and girls are built differently. The rules for wrestling favor the male composition (less body fat, more upper body strength). On average, boys start early, have an advantage, and there are more of them present on any team. 

Don't take that as a knock on female wrestlers. There are women wrestlers who could rip off my head and spit down my neck. When I coached Middle School Wrestling, the first time I heard a young boy said "I'm wrestling a girl" I told him he'd better treat her with respect and something like: "Some girls come to try out the sport and quit, but the ones who stick around can become beasts. They're used to being underestimated and will take it out on you." 

Some ladies out to experience the sport of wrestling and the deserve respect for it. It takes courage to try a sport in general, but more so when you feel like you're out of place or in the minority. 

The ladies who stay (like Lucy) demonstrate the tenacity that wrestling requires made it through the season and ended up here, at the Championship. 

I won't narrate the whole tournament here. I will point out one quick thing here: One of the area's females have an advantage over males is flexibility. There were so many situations I was afraid someone was going to get hurt only for them to pop up like nothing happened! Half-Nelsons were far less effective than cradles. As more ladies wrestle, the athletes will discover the styles of wrestling that best suits their set of strengths. It'll be interesting to see them develop over time.

Lucy was a 2nd year wrestler. She was more timid about wrestling actual matches last year, but she went through many this year. Before the tournament, she went to Albemarle High School to train with their wrestler and the female from Charlottesville High School who made it through the season. Honestly, it was a great experience for building camaraderie throughout the local wrestling community.

Lucy went 2 and 2 at the Championship. She alternated wins and losses. Both of her losses were competitive. She was down by a single shot in the round she was eliminated in. The other girls stance was strange and you could tell Lucy was scared about shooting (while Rico and I yelled ourselves hoarse). After the match, I told her I would rather see her lose 5-2 because she missed the shot than 3-2, because she didn't take it. Either way would be a loss, but it was better to take the shot and miss than wonder "what if I'd just..." 

It wasn't meant as criticism, either. It's a life lesson. Failure happens. Sometimes it will happen when you try your best and do everything right. It might not, though. It will always happen if you're too afraid to make the attempt. Sports can be good teachers of that lesson. 

Overall, I thought Lucy had done fantastic and told her so many a time. 

It was a long day and a wonderful note to end the season on. Rico, Brian and, I were all there. Lucy's mom came and cheered her on, as well. We left proud and Lucy felt accomplished. Lucy's mom bought us all hats from the Championship that I made sure to wear at school the following week for Lucy to see.

There are several girls who want to wrestle next year, so I hope Girls' States is an even bigger event next year.

Now and Then (Summer)

Foxtail. Carrie's old nemesis. 

Carrie was very concerned about foxtail on our property when we first moved in. The seeds have barbs that can hurt horses. Carrie was hypervigilant. She set about to rooting up and destroying as much foxtail as she could. She enlisted everyone she could in her war against the weed.

There was an awkward foxtail moment with Kyle (the contractor who finished up the barn after the fence fiasco and later ran away to Kansas or somewhere else). Carrie had bought hay bales from him, but specified she wanted it as foxtail free as possible. He brought the hay and it wasn't up to her standards, so I had to tell him to take it back. I didn't think the hay was poisonous to horses, but if it was going to cause a mountain of anxiety I didn't want it here.

Over time, Carrie mellowed on the subject. We've never had a foxtail incident we know of. If we have, it's been minor and sorted itself out (like a canker sore). I feel like it's one of those things that as long as there's not an overabundance of it, there's no worry. We haven't allowed it to grow unchecked ever since Carrie's early purges. If we got bales in a hay shipment that were heavy with foxtail, we'd pick out the heads. I remember sorting through many a bale to throw away seed heads, but I couldn't find a post on it anywhere (possibly because it's not something Carrie would want advertised). Brand new barn owner Carrie would've thrown them out, so that was real progress.

Battling fear/anxiety is a two step process. There's the initial crisis that has to be overcome. If handled well, the next process is long road to familiarization. We now know what level of foxtail is and isn't acceptable on our farm and take measures to ensure it doesn't become a problem.

I've learned a lot about hay over the years we've been here! It started with the foxtail. We bought budget hay with lambsquarter another time (That turned out to be more work than it was worth). I figured out the hard way hay could get tangled in the spreader, and Carrie educated me on the dangers of fescue with pregnant horses. 

If you're living, you're learning! 

Swooping in (Summer!)

I mentioned Carrie putting up a camera in passing on the kitten post. We now have a motion sensitive camera covering the barn that will shoot a notification to our phones. The idea was for Carrie to get alerts and be able to see if we ever got visitors if we were away.

We weren't expecting this guy to register as a visitor.

Awesome pic, though!

Farewell, Max (Summer)

Max's passing was such an event, I assumed I'd already written on it. By God's will, it happened on a teacher workday. Shane and I were both home. All three of us loaded Max up and took her to the vet.

We'd known Max's time was short. I'd broached the topic with Shane in advance. Max has been with us for Shane's whole life. A loss of a pet is a time to grieve. Grieving is hard, but necessary. It's important to give yourself time and learn how you grieve and what your needs are in those moments. 

The three of us took Max into the room together. Carrie asked me to take Shane out of the room for the final decision. He didn't realize what had happened until we left without Max.

Carrie wrote a post as part of her grieving process. I'll republish it here.

17 years.. Max gifted me so much of her time.

The day I found her, she was a stray kitten at a farm I was visiting for the day. The farm owner was free lunging a stallion and she came bolting in to chase the end of the lunge whip. I quickly picked her up and she stayed with me the whole visit. I never let her go, she came home with me that day from that farm in Maryland.

I was engaged, and found myself selling my house in Richmond, so, where did she go? Soon to be hubby, Mike, became cat sitter and she went to live with him. There are few people out there who think that it's a good idea to harness and walk a cat. My husband was one of those. He would put a harness on an excited Max and take her for walks in the apartment courtyard. She was always eager to go.

Expecting Shane and my hubby said I was in nesting mode. I needed to make sure the baby room was ready. Max dutifully guarded (and claimed) Shane's crib. I ended up getting Shane new bedding after he was born and let Max keep the original to snuggle in.

Attended Cousin's wedding, and brought back baby Bucket. Max was a tolerant dictator, but the two were quite happy together playing around the house and getting into mischief.

She saw Shane grow up for the last 12 years. He has not known a home without her. Her gentle presence and kindness with him was always evident.

Always eager to explore every room, nook & crany and meet every visitor with a bright greeting. We called her the room ninja, as she was eager to bolt into every bedroom without warning. After a while, she'd loudly meow to let us know that she bravely subdued the random lone sock or belt, and then be met with pets and loves.

Max, you were such a part of my life. You stayed and comforted me through times of sorrow and grief, and shared in my happiness and joy. I look for you, and you're not here. The house has a noticeable emptiness... My heart is breaking... I love you, little girl. 

I grieved, too. I could feel everyone's sadness, so it was a weighty day. Personally, Max was the first cat I decided I liked. I tried to walk her on a leash while Carrie and I were dating and I was cat-sitting her. Once upon a time, I wrote up some of her story.

Carrie posted a bunch of pictures on Facebook that I'm reposting here in memory of Max. She was a good cat. Rest in peace, Little One.

Oh no...(Summer)

We had a frequent visitor in December. There was a stray tortoiseshell we'd see wandering through our front yard, the arena, and even on our porch. Carrie tried, but the cat never let her come close. She'd bolt the moment a door opened or someone made prolonged eye contact (Kila barking and trying to play probably didn't help, either).

You may or may not know this, but tortoiseshell cats are almost always female. It takes a genetic anomaly to even allow for a male to be a tortoiseshell. 

Female cats can be mamas.

Sunday morning, Carrie told me that she thought she saw something run into the pole barn. She thought it was a kitten, but she was running off to foxhunt with Jess. I decided to look into the sighting and put away the ladder Carrie left up after installing a camera (efficiency!).

Our barn is cluttered. There's a lot of mess which left a lot of places for a cat to hide.

I almost missed it, too. While rummaging around, I caught a slip of movement out of the corner of my eye. Without that movement, I wouldn't have noticed the cat.

Unfortunately, the hay barn is highly advantageous ground for critters. Besides the clutter, the gravel can be dug away from the sides for quick egress lanes.

The kitten ran. It was way too fast for a silly human and took refuge in a drain pipe.

Which was it's undoing. Humans aren't the quickest or strongest, but we think and use tools. I bent the pipe up at both ends to prevent a quick escape and carried it off. The old bunny cage was in the barn, so I put one end of the pipe into it and shook. Laura and Amy were doing chores, so I called Amy over to help close the cage quickly while I held the opposite end sky high in case it tried to shoot out like a rocket. 

The kit held on long enough I was starting to feel bad about terrorizing it when out popped, not one, but two kittens.

The gray one was the one I'd seen running around. The black one was unexpected. Gray ran around, full of energy while Black cowered in a corner (probably traumatized from its world being shook quite literally).

It was nearly time for church, so I took a picture, sent it to Carrie, and drove off with Shane. We had plans to hang out with Dylan in the afternoon, so we weren't going to be home anytime soon.

Normally, I let Shane have some say in where we go if we get lunch, but I wanted a burrito! I picked Qdoba.

We had to kill a little bit of time, because of their family logistics and arrived a little while after. Carrie got home and texted me that she'd seen the kittens. 

We were both on the same page: They were NOT coming inside. I had thought it would be more of a discussion, but Carrie firmly agreed with me. Two kittens were way too much.

Shane and I went to Dylan's and I was in a good mood. We'd gone to church, eaten good food, were at a friend's house, I'd accomplished a feat in Carrie's eyes, and she didn't want any extra animals.

Ironically, we were immediately greeted by a new animal at Dylan's: Kyrie.

Kyrie is a golden-doodle. 

Goldie has been having health issues. It looked like the end was drawing near for her. John and Kelly decided it would be better to introduce a puppy to the family now before the kids had to deal with Goldie's passing.

Time warp fact: Goldie's doing much better now! Go figure. She gets along well with the puppy, so there's no drama there.

But back to the present: John bought a firepit from Costco. 

He was thrilled with it and all the kids roasted marshmallows.

The kids played with the dogs, we hung out on the porch, and a fun time was had.

Little did I know the situation was rapidly changing at home. 

It started with a text.

Carrie was worried about the kittens and wanted to give them food and water. Grey attacked when she opened the cage. It tore into her hand and escaped in the confusion. She sent me a picture of the injury.

Now Black was alone. It cowered in a corner, small, and in the cold.....and then in the house.

Carrie was fine with leaving the kittens outside with each other (they'd lived outside all this time already!). But Black was tiny, full of fear, and it looked like Max (who passed away Jan 24th)).

When I called to check in Black was inside in our bathroom.

Carrie couldn't imagine leaving the kitten outside and I wasn't home to discuss/stop the migration. Instead, it got embedded like a tick and I found myself picking up necessities on the way home.

Shane was up for the adventure, at least.

He was excited.

I let him carry the supplies into the room, so that he could see the kitten himself.

Black buried itself under the blankets Carrie put out.

She peeled them back to reveal the tiny thing.

At that point, we didn't know if it was male or female. Carrie guessed from it's development that it was born around or a little after Christmas (aka not too long after we'd started seeing tortoiseshell wandering around).

Little Thing didn't jump at the food when Carrie put it out. It stayed curled up and frightened. 

Carrie eventually got it to eat some by offering it by fingertip. Black actually backed up onto the plate of food before taking a nibble.

Carrie spent most of the evening in the bathroom cooing and comforting the kitten. Grey got his claws into her hand, but Black's claws sunk into her heart. We're back up to four cats and there's nothing I can do about it!