DyeDay

We went out to eat on Saturday at the Dairy Market. Instead of heading home, Carrie drove to a CVS.

Gen and Chris picked up face masks and Carrie picked up hair dyes. 

Shane's hair had faded to wear it matched his eye color and Carrie wanted to reapply. She went with a temporary dye this time.

Which turned out to be a different experience from the permanent. It stained Shane's scalp! And then he started feeding off the energy and wiggling trying to see which only spread it around more!

Carrie sent me on an emergency run to Food Lion to find nail polish remover. I came back to find Shane in a shower cap and playing a game to keep busy.

Carrie was in the bathroom dying her hair. I got a picture I like, but she'd probably hurt me for posting....

So I'll start with the rinsing out instead. Carrie used the kitchen sink. She was first with Gen's help.

Shane was second.

The nail polish remover was super effective at cleaning up skin, but Shane was still a wiggle-butt and Carrie didn't want to go too close to the hairline.

Shane was looking green-green-green by the time we did horse chores! He'd managed to dye his eyebrows and more skin by rubbing his hands all through his hair!

And his pillow got a dye job, too! Carrie decided to sacrifice it rather than a pillowcase!

Poor Lillian

We did a lot of cleaning on Friday...

...because we had guests! Genevieve and Chris came by again. They had been planning on visiting friends in Roanoke, but when those friends cancelled they asked what we were up to.

Sadly, Lillian wasn't looking forward to any sort of trip. She crapped in her carrier on the way and smeared it all over herself. Gen gave her a preliminary cleaning at a Sheetz (Ha!), and then a final cleaning in our sink.

Lillian pretended her dignity was untouched, but that could've been lingering happy meds. 

She must've sensed my allergies, because she jumped in my lap and started trying to bunk my beard even though I did my best to ignore her. 

"Don't yawn," was the advice given. Chris said Lillian would shove her head in his mouth if he yawned in her presence.

Shane was already asleep by the time they arrived or he would have loved the potential for poop humor.

Some Light Gaming

My gaming habits had been limited to some occasional Hexcells, Tametsi, Desktop Dungeons, or the like. My free time had been spent exercising, resting, watching something with Carrie, watching something on my phone, or thinking about school. I got enough free time each day to be rested and peaceful at heart, but there wasn't an overwhelming amount of downtime.

With my injury, I got tempted by a flash sale on Steam. I bought a bundle of Civ 6 software for $15.

I played it almost every night for a week and got reminded of two things.

First, I love the beginning of the Civ games. The world is wide open, new things are being discovered, and I'm always tempted for one more turn until it's past time for sleep.

Second, the game outlives it's welcome for me. At a certain point, the turns take too long and I'm just wanting to get to the end! After a learning game, I beat the game as the Russians, but I think it took me at least 10 hours on a standard map. I was probably enchanted for the first 4 hours, interested for the next 4, and eager for it to be done the last 2. 

Shane has the game on the Switch, so I know enough now to advise him if he wants to play (though the cartridge is with Cole, if I remember correctly). I mentioned picking the game up on sale and piqued the interest of a few of my students enough to start some conversations, as well.

It was worth the $15. I even got a blog post out of it. I really enjoyed learning/discovering the changes the game made, but I haven't started it up again since. I could see going back to it eventually, but the pacing and the pay off thereof doesn't make it my first choice when I have downtime.

Injury Time Out

I'd been feeling good about exercising and spacing out my work-outs, so I was blindsided on Labor Day when my body told me otherwise. I started to do push ups and felt pain behind my elbows. It wasn't the dull ache like post workout and it wasn't a stinging sharp pain like a tear or immediate injury. But it was a signal. I went ahead and went through with my workout albeit a little lighter. I wanted to see if it went away as my body warmed up, but it didn't.

I pulled out my Google MD and made a diagnosis: Triceps tendonitis. 

So I pulled the plug on exercising. 

Honestly, I should have continued with the running and leg workouts, but I decided my body was telling me to take a break. I like being fit, but it's more important for me to be healthy and uninjured to deal with work, barn, and family. 

And now it's been three weeks as I write this. My triceps feel fine. There were some minor aches and twinges the first week when moving hay bales and the like, but I think they've been fine since the two week mark passed.

I haven't got back to exercising yet, though. Partly that's due to my left arm. I think I have Golfer's Elbow from the tests/etc I looked up online. My guess is that in addition to the normal strain from exercising, I've had bad form and tended to curl my left wrist when doing bicep curls. I get small flashes of pain and tenderness around the bump on my inner elbow. The pain is minor and doesn't affect me save I know it shouldn't be there. And while it's nothing concerning now, I don't want to push it too soon and grow it into something worse.

So the habit I started in April has come to a full stop. 

If the left elbow pain doesn't heal, I may need to check in with a doctor. I've avoided doing so before now, because I presume the first piece of advice will be "rest it and avoid overusing it." If I show up over a month later saying, "Yeah, I did," I can save a copay and skip to whatever is next (Hopefully not "Let's spend some money and really look at it!")

I probably should start running and working out unaffected muscle groups again.

On the plus side, the energy and time I saved let me play some Civ 6 and get back to writing! I've made a lot of progress since I started playing catch up (This is the 23rd post within 5 days of starting up again). 

Gross Stuff

In the last post, I asked what the next surprise would be. Most are good, but some have been gross.

It was a mixed pee to find Aria's pee on the packaging for a blanket. Cat pee is terrible, but the packaging was plastic and nothing touched the floor.

It feels like there's an accident about once a month. Usually after Shane has forgotten to or done a terrible job cleaning the litter boxes. 

I hope the drowned rat falls under the "once in a lifetime" frequency.

It's a good example of why you have a routine to check things even if normally nothing goes wrong. Weird things sometimes come!

Carrie made Shane swear not to tell or mention the rat to anyone. Not at school, not to the boarders, not to Grandma and Grandpa....., but I never made that promise! I think it's a good story! Barns develop rodents. I'd say we should have a barn cat, but Carrie's proven that any cat on our property will come inside and four is enough for me, thank you very much! We need to refill our other countermeasures.

We scrubbed out and disinfected all the buckets afterward. 

 Getting the heebie-jeebies can be motivational for cleaning!

Surprises!

I was a little bit worried about Carrie's health and energy levels plummeting once I returned to school, but she outdid herself twice already.

The first time was when she revolutionized the dumping grounds. Do you see the hole in the tree line?

For the past 6 months, this area had been our overflow waste dumping ground. It started in March. It was meant to be a temporary measure, but has continued to see use (even after the ticks came out).

I swear I have a before picture somewhere, but I couldn't find it. Then again, maybe you didn't want to see an area covered with decomposing poo and soiled stall shavings amongst the foliage. You wouldn't be able to see the full extent of the waste due to all the tree branches.

I'd complained to Carrie that it's a hassle to use it. I have to simultaneously duck under branches, avoid undergrowth that can hold ticks, and wade through waste to get far enough out for fresh ground to dump on. 

Carrie listened. She took down the lines, mowed, and bushwacked a path. She used the mower to grind everything down, so that it's basically dirty dirt (ha!). She even used the chainsaw to clear downed branches and trunks to made for easy walking. It's the kind of project that takes way longer and far more energy than an observer would expect.

Photos don't do the best job of communicating space (especially amongst nature), but trust me: It was impressive. I was impressed.

Schlepping tons of mess with shavings we can't spread in the yard still isn't my favorite task, but Carrie removed the forest related hassle from the equation.

I do worry that Carrie doesn't always pace herself. When she hits a project, she hits it hard until it's done or she hurts herself (sometimes both). It's the equivalent of starting off a long-distance race at a spring. Carrie doesn't pace herself out over days or even within the same day. It's all or nothing!

The next week, I came home to an empty garage. The door was open inviting me to park at leisure.

That's going to be a huge benefit come freezing temperatures. I didn't have to worry about scraping frost during virtual school, but I would have faced it this year.

Only now the garage is ready for use!

Maybe the fog inspired her. With summer ending, the mornings are starting to get cooler most weeks.

There have been some impressive fog banks. 

It's not every morning and so far Shane hasn't needed to wear a jacket to the bus stop, but Fall is coming.

Any maybe more Carrie surprised will come, too. There's been 4 weeks of classes and 2 out of 4 I've come home to find a major project accomplished. What do you think the next surprise will be?

Bday Party Weekend!

We didn't go to Sarah's just to visit Maya.

Or to introduce her to Shane.

We went there to see kids!

Shane went a few weeks back for Lilly's birthday, Sarah's oldest, while I visited NOVA. This time, it was for Wyatt's birthday!

After being in the house for all of a couple minutes, the kids were out back on the playground. Which was fine by me, because I plopped down in a chair on the patio to keep an ear out and play on my phone.

There were some tadpoles that captured everyone's attention.

The kids poked, prodded, and tired to take care of them by adding water to their habitat from the pool.

"There's chlorine in there!" Shane said. "You can't do that!" (Which seemed wise to me, but Sarah said that they'd found tadpoles in chlorinated water before. I can't remember the exact phrasing, but 'tadpoles can handle some chlorine' was what I took away from it).

As more families arrived, the kids piled into the pool.

Shane does a fantastic job of revving everyone up.

He loves it until he hits his limit and then has no idea how to de-escalate the revving! You'd think he'd have learned some calm play skills by now, but it high-energy all the time and every time until the ensuing drama forces a break!

The kids came inside for a kebab lunch. In case you didn't recognize her with wet hair, that's Landie!

Sarah had three dogs including two giants who could have easily served themselves from the table if they were poorly trained.

Once the kids were done eating, it was cake time! Wyatt requested Sonic the Hedgehog decorations.

I only took a few pictures, because Wyatt was so excited he didn't realize his pants were sagging (I only wanted pictures of the horizontal smile which weren't available from where I was stationed!).

It was right back outside after cake. No adults wanted to follow at first, so the kids had to settle for Battleship until the pool was open again.

I went outside and set up station in the shade. I wasn't really worried about the water and was mainly there to photograph and prevent Carrie from having any anxiety about the water. I'd intervene if someone was in danger, but my goal was to stay out of playground politics.

Which of course started up right away. One little boy, Toa (?), was all about having a water gun fight. Shane obliged. Lily, being younger and not as athletic, would frequently appeal to me to make the boys follow rules of her choosing. When I wouldn't help, she'd try to enlist another adult!

To be fair, the boys weren't the best at watching out for collateral damage. Sometimes other kids would get blasted in the face as the boys tried to use them as cover. Still, I don't believe in adult intervention when kids play until it doesn't suit them and then immediately restarting when its to their advantage. 

The kids were clearly getting tired after nearly 3 hours, but it was still going well enough to continue.

I think some of the other adults were surprised I didn't intervene with the second slide went on top of the first!

Frankly, it seemed like fun. I did a quick check to make sure it was stable and no one would fall backwards from a height and then let the play continue unabated. The slides didn't really match up, so there was no risk of excessive acceleration.

What did cause acceleration was Shane turning the green slide into a water slide. He and the other boy loved it. They put a floatie at the bottom to make a pad and it seemed fine to me. 

Unfortunately, it was a little fast for Lilly. She wasn't expecting it and it scared her. She hit the bottom with both legs locked straight. Instead of bending her knees it made her stand up and she fell forward onto her hands. There was no big impact, but you could tell it shocked and probably embarrassed her. She ran inside crying that Shane forced her to go down the slide. More adults came outside and the game was over.

It was a good time to wrap things up. Like I said, the kids had been playing well and wild for nearly 3.5 hours by the time we called it quits! Younger kids run themselves ragged and get grouchy without them knowing why!

We left so glad that Sarah had invited us. It was a fantastic, fun social opportunity. Ellie commented that she appreciates how Shane is always so good with kids younger than him. It seems like he's wild, but he makes sure to be gentle enough to not hurt the other kids.

Spelling!

I got a kick out of this spelling test. Shane only got 6 out of 10 right, but he was close with all of his mistakes.

But what I'm laughing about is the teacher had to write his name. He must've been too busy drawing the giant plant monster!

And that monster probably made the quiz's owner easy to identify for the teacher! 

I thought the quiz was so funny I put it on the projector for my students to remind them of their 5th grade experiences.

Pick a Pawpaw

Mary, an old co-teacher of mine, gave me a pair of pawpaws. They're an indigenous fruit that I'd somehow never seen or heard of. I showed them to both my A and B day classes (mostly because I forgot to take them home) and used them as a learning opportunity. 

I took them home to share with Carrie and Shane.

Carrie was not eager. She hates mangoes and the pawpaw's flavor profile is described as a something of a cross between a banana and mango. Shane was hesitant, as well, but that might have been from seeing Carrie's reluctance. 

I liked it, but I was the only one. Carrie took a small bite and then immediately went to brush! Shane took a bite and then went, "Nah."

I was hoping to find something magical and new, but it didn't work out that way. I did enjoy the thrill of the discovery and thought it was a story worth sharing! Who knows? Maybe you'll see a pawpaw at a local farmer's market, try it, and love it!