week(5) 2013

Week 5, January 27 - February 2

Avery

Avery has decided that she wants to take a break from kung fu. She still enjoys class a lot, but I've noticed that she seems to need more of a break from activities than she did before. Dropping kung fu for a while means she'll have all of Monday afternoon off, which will be her only break in activities during the week. We never do classes/scheduled activities for her on the weekend, so the weekends are always breaks. 

Avery's reading progress is coming along nicely. She is more willing to try sounding out words to read them. And she'll randomly spell things for me in the car. I asked her to spell rabbit the other day. She, without sounding it out aloud, said, R A B I T. Which brings me to my question: how do I respond at this age? Do I say well done and leave it at that? Or, do I say good job, but it has another B in it? 

Avery's latest purchase with her allowance savings was a face painting kit. She loves it. First D tried to paint Avery's face when she asked. He painted the most pathetic version of a butterfly ever. She goes into the bathroom to look at it. I ask her, "What do you think?" When I get no response I ask meekly, "Are you a little disappointed?" She emphatically responds, "I love it! It's fabulous!" D and I just grinned at each other and shook our heads. That is one truly wonderful thing about having a dramatic and enthusiastic child: she LOVES everything (except when I say no, but she is a kid after all). Last night before dinner, Avery painted her own face. Then we painted my face. I think Avery must have taken lessons in how to make my nose look even bigger than it actually is. :) --- Tuesday

Avery is doing slightly better with Abbie. She's still afraid of Abbie when she comes towards her, even though Abbie typically just wants to sniff. She does a good job at just turning her back, but her body language conveys fear. I am having a dog trainer come over on Saturday to help us to help Avery get more comfortable with Abbie. 

Abbie

Potty training is finally going well. For the past couple of days we've had only one or two pees in the house. Both of those were excitement pees versus just going off and finding a place to pee. I'll take it! I'm optimistic that I might be able to schedule a full carpet cleaning in a couple of weeks. 

Walks are going great! I've been taking her daily, which is doing good things for me. I don't think I've lost any weight, but my pants fit and feel better. Abbie is a great walker. She pays attention and doesn't pull. She's not freaked out by noises or vehicles. She gets excited to see a jogger go by, but we're making progress on distracting her with good things (i.e. treats) when that happens. 

She knows two commands consistently: sit and look.  Look came about because I have tiny treats I use on our walks. I often toss them on the ground because it's too hard to feed her from my hand while still walking. Because they're small, she'd often miss seeing me throw it on the ground. She'd look at me waiting for me to throw it. I kept having to bend over and point to it. Pain in the butt. So I started saying look while tapping my foot next to the treat. It took a few days of doing it, but she now knows to look towards the ground and search for a treat, usually near my tapping foot. I haven't worked on any other commands. I think she knows what crate and bed mean (that we want her to go to those locations), but she doesn't follow the commands without a treat being guaranteed. 

Abbie has gained 7 lb since her first vet appointment (20lb --> 27lb). She's growing so fast. Most people we see out and about comment on the size of her huge paws. Avery says "her little paws are adorable." She's free feeder and typically doesn't eat the whole bowl at one time. The exception to this is when I put salmon oil on her food. I bought it to help with her coat and the small amount of dandruff she has. She LOVES it. My strategy now is to put it on a cup of food. Then put more food in the bowl without the oil. This prevents her from chowing down on all the food and will hopefully enable us to continue to free feed.  

The puppy in her is out, loud and proud. She's testing boundaries all over the place. Jumping up to eat scrambled eggs off my desk; jumping on the bed and knocking over water glass on the night table; D's lost three socks and I've lost one; the living room carpet has been further damaged with pulling of it up a bit; the cheap rugs in front of the doors in the kitchen will need to be replaced once she's fully potty trained. I'm still head over heels in love with her, so all this just makes me smile. 

Me

I've known for a while that I do best when I'm on some sort of routine, but not so strict that I want to rebel against it. It's a balancing act. With daily dog walks back in my life, it makes establishing a routine easier for me. I've implemented a few "rules" for myself to make my mornings more productive. First, no computer time until after Avery's been dropped off at school, the kitchen and living room have been cleaned, and Abbie has been walked (assuming the plan is to walk her in the morning versus a planned afternoon walk). I'm also doing my best to keep on top of clutter in the house so it doesn't build up. Discipline in these areas is not a strength (shocking, I know). So far so good. It's been a week and all is going well. 

I am obsessed with Scramble and Seinfeld reruns at the moment. I can watch Seinfeld reruns and play at the same time since I don't have to pay full attention to the episode to know what is going on. 

I'd forgotten how special the relationship with a dog can be. Abbie and I have truly bonded. I love seeing her, I love feeling proud when she learns a new command, I love that she wants to be with me. I just love her I guess. I'm also talking about Eddie and Turtle all the time as a result of her arrival. She reminds me of all the wonderful things about Eddie in particular. It has always been easier to remember Turtle's great traits since the end came so quickly for her. With Eddie, I needed time to forget the last couple of years that just go progressively harder. 

Job

I've decided to get a part-time job. I don't want it to be stressful or at the level which I was previously working. The salary is unimportant to me, as is status. I just want something that is outside of the house and which gives me some sense of myself aside from mother and wife and CEO of CdT. Somehow I think that last title will not get me a job. I've found a few jobs to apply for, though I expect it'll take a while given how long I've not worked. I'm working on my resume now and hope to submit it to two different companies later today. While I don't relish the idea of a job search and interview process, I am excited about this change. --- Saturday

As far as what will happen with Avery's schedule, clearly that will depend upon what hours I'll be working. I asked Mom if she'd be interested in taking over some of the functional duties of Avery care such as driving to and from activities and sitting at times when I'm at work. She said yes. We have to pay her because neither D nor I would feel right not paying her for regular childcare and nanny-type duties. Mom managed to negotiate her hourly wage lower than the original offer. That woman has some skills! 

Random

I'm having a new deadbolt put on our front door. The current one just gives us so much trouble that I figured I'd just put on a new one. At the same time, I'm having retractable screen doors installed on both the front door and the door to the patio. It'll be nice to be able to keep the doors open in the summer while Avery is outside playing. Plus the benefit of fresh air. I'm more likely to open a door than a window for some reason. 

I'm obsessed with Diet Dr. Pepper at the moment. 

The day we picked up Abbie from the breeder (oh the guilt that I bought a dog from a breeder, but I wanted a GS damn it!) my navigation system failed me. We got lost in the vicinity of the house, but were basically driving in circles around the house. Anyway, whilst doing that we saw a camel just hanging out in this front yard. A camel. Last night at dinner, a coworker of D's was talking about driving somewhere near Canby when he saw some woman walking a lion. You leave Portland and you never know what oddities you'll see. Full face tattoos have nothing on walking a lion along a road, imho. 

Whale vomit. Who knew? 

week(3) 2013

Week 3, January 13 - January 19

I'm going to try something new, which is to keep most other posts isolated to a single topic. I've struggled with that in the past, but I do think it would make it easier to read, for me and other people. To attempt to achieve this, but still maintain my need and desire to blog the mundane (which I do so enjoy going back to read x years later), I'm going to blog that in a weekly post. We'll see how it goes. Who knows if I'll bother to add. This may be the only post since I'm not great at sticking with these things.  Here goes. I tried breaking it down by day first, but by topic seems more readable. I'll be experimenting with various formats, I'm sure. You'll be patient or just not read.

Abbie

Abbie and I, along with Mom, attended a controlled puppy socialization playgroup. It was very interesting and well worth the money I paid. I bought a punch card for at least 4 other groups, so we (Abbie & I) will be going to those. --- Sunday

Abbie and I walked a total of 2.6 miles. In the morning we did a cemetery walk. In the afternoon, while Avery was in her dance classes, we walked around the neighborhood near the studio. Abbie is such a good walker. It's a much different experience to walking challenging, pulling dogs.  --- Wednesday

I was able to attend another session for the controlled puppy socialization playgroup. This time, I went to the <25lb group. The first session was with 25-50lb puppies. Abbie wasn't quite ready for that yet. She's not fearful exactly, but she's underconfident. This playgroup was even more beneficial. I find it amazing that, by the end of the session, all the puppies are in the same room, off leash, and quite calm with each other. Abbie even played with a little black lab puppy who was much more confident than she. While I obviously don't yet know how these playgroups will affect Abbie's personality or interaction with other dogs, I will definitely seek out this type of group with any other puppies I may have in the (distant, distant) future. --- Friday

Avery

Avery did her second violin lesson in order to decide between taking violin lessons or piano lessons. She has been requesting both. Summary: the violin teacher was sick, sent her brother in her place, he didn't have the right size violin for Avery, since he was to be her piano teacher anyway, he did some piano lessons too, Avery chose piano lessons. Weekly piano lessons will start on Friday.  --- Monday

Avery and Henry have both progressed quite far with their swimming. It's rather awesome to watch.  --- Tuesday

Today I watched Nolan after school. First, we all hit Burgerville since I'd not eaten. Next we went to New Seasons. There was no race car shopping cart available, so the kids had to settle for being in the main part of a regular shopping cart. As I pushed them around shopping, they pretended it was a pirate ship and they were hoisting sails, etc. I gotta say, they have the lingo down better than I do. After the grocery store, we all went to Pet Smart with Abbie. And finally, before heading back to the G house, we took a quick walk in a park with Abbie.  --- Thursday

I realized that Avery's shoulders were well above her shoulder straps. It's been this way a while, but I kept forgetting to ask my resident carseat safety expert (RHG) if that meant I should switch her to using the car seat belt versus the built in harness. Anyway, yes, it does. So I disassembled the car seat, removed the straps, put it back in the car, and presented Avery with her new buckling system: the car's seat belt. She was quite excited. And it's nice that she can now fully buckle herself in and out. She was able to do everything except release the bottom buckle on the harness of the seat (it is a really strong button you have to push just right). Another milestone. --- Thursday

Avery's first official piano lesson! After not even wanting to sit next to her teacher, David, during the trial session, she kept saying all day, "I get to see David!" She seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, remembered where middle C was, as well as how to identify all the other C keys on the piano. We'll see how it goes. --- Friday

misc

The Gs did a brunch date. Mimi slept the entire time. I sat by the fire playing on my phone while Avery, Elise, and Nolan played upstairs requiring very little effort on my part. That is an ideal babysitting session, tyvm.  --- Sunday

random

• Having Abbie has made me fall in love with my sweet ride (aka my minivan) all over again. It's so easy to get her in and out of the crate in the back. I can easily take her everywhere without dealing with a mess. I can fit all three kids (Elise, Nolan, and Avery) in the car along with her crate. So nice. I do love functionality. 
• We're in the midst of vacation planning for the year. We already have a long weekend trip to Cabo booked with the leadership team at D's office (sans Avery) in late February. I've never been to Cabo despite its relative proximity to Loreto. Our annual Vegas trip is, as always, on our radar, hopefully for July. We're also going to join Vic & Mike & Bear in the US Virgin Islands in April. I've never been there, so I'm quite excited to see someplace new. I'm also hoping to go to Loreto in May, but that may be pushing it a bit. I doubt D can join us for that trip, unless he works from Loreto part of the time. What to do with Abbie during these trips is the question. Ah well, it'll work out. 
• D is in Colorado for the weekend. I am so bored. I'm trying to think of how things would be different were he here. The answer is not much, but I wouldn't be bored. 
• My friend and neighbor, and mother of Lily, had her third baby girl yesterday. New baby! They named her Sadie Jeanne. She looks like a combination of her sisters. I can rarely see parental resemblance in babies, but siblings stand out. Funnily, I sent her an email that very day asking, among other things, when she was due. I thought for sure it wasn't until end of February. 

tables

office / crafting den
We have been buying tables galore here at CdT. More specifically  I have been buying them. And I've only bought two, so I'm not sure galore applies. But I bought them within days of each other for the same room, so that seems a bit galorish to me. Plus, I facilitated in Mom buying a new kitchen table.

First, I bought a table that I thought I could use as my sewing table. I measured my space and the table before I bought it, but what I didn't think of was the weight the extending table arms would bear on a constant basis. Both sides of the table can be lowered, making it a compact cabinet should I ever choose to go that route. The sides can definitely bear the weight of the machines for a period of time (weeks, months), but were they to be the permanent home for my sewing machine and serger, there would start to be sagging/problems. So it's now where I keep my paper cutter. I use the large paper cutter (thank you Dag & Rosie!) surprisingly often. Up until now I haven't had a flat surface on which to store it permanently, so it's been stored against the wall in various locations. I also use the surface when I'm doing a project to lay out my bits to be assembled. It's working very nicely.

And since, when I'm actually sewing, I like having the machine out and easily available, I needed some sort of table for them. So I looked on Craig's List and found this craft table. It's made of melamine, so it's very sturdy and well made. D was horrified as he thinks it's really ugly, but I'm all about functionality. So far it's working very nicely, though I haven't actually sewn* at it yet. I have used it to do some paper crafting and it works very nicely. The stools below also work quite well. The space on the left is Avery's desk in my office so she has a place to do her stuff when I'm in here.

The slots below the table will eventually house some wooden crates I bought. I measured the space and came up with the following dimensions as an ideal container: 11" x 10.5" x 2.75". I thought there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to find anything close to that size. I entered the size into Google and hoped for the best. I found the EXACT measurements I was looking for. Exact. I was just hoping to find some cardboard boxes I could cut down and re-cover, but wooden crates are even better. And the right size. Be still my beating heart.

I also got around to storing my fabric in a way that will allow me to see what I have more easily. I blogged about this method back when I bought the scanner that allowed me to go paperless. It's embarrassing the amount of fabric I have given the small number of projects I've actually done. Also, don't look closely at the fabric since most of it is quite hideous. Some was picked by Avery, some was bought because it was on sale, and some I have no idea how I ended up with it.

* It's been a long time since I've done any sewing. I find I really enjoy it when I do it, but I have trouble starting new projects.

thanksgiving
Mom joined the three of us for Thanksgiving this year. It was a really good Thanksgiving. D volunteered to cook, so he did the bulk of the cooking work. I did the stuffing-substitute and the clean-up. Mom cooked the pie and cheesecake, helped with clean-up, and took Avery out for a nice, long walk whilst D and I napped after eating. Pretty much a darn near perfect Thanksgiving in my book.

For the stuffing-substitute, I decided to go with risotto. That sounds really weird until you eat risotto with turkey and discover that it has the same comforting effect that stuffing does. So we had baked risotto (sooooo much easier than making it the usual way) with our turkey. I do miss real stuffing, but what can I do?

Mom made a gluten-free apple pie. I greatly appreciate it since the GF dough is a pain in the butt for Mom to work with. It's apparently just harder to manipulate. However, both D and I prefer the GF crust to a regular crust, so it works out nicely for us. Thanks, Mom!

ranking
I asked Avery to rank her current four activities in order of preference. I explained that I would try to schedule as many activities as I could, but that sometimes the class times conflict with each other or other activities, so I needed her ranking. Her results:

1. ballet (no surprise there)
2. kung fu (I was surprised this was #2)
3. soccer (I was shocked this was #3 - I expected it to be last)
4. gymnastics (I expected this to be #2)

I'm glad she's enjoying kung fu so much. 

invites

invitations & other crafty stuff
Yesterday I finished the cutting for both layers of Avery's BD invitations. After about ten iterations of design changes, tweaking here and there, and opinion soliciting, I finally arrived at something that felt right. I'm quite pleased with them, overall. I need to assemble most of them today.

final invitation with identifying details smudged out

Did you know that glitter card stock isn't exactly square? I didn't either. I bought 12"x12" glitter card stock thinking I'd just use my hand paper cutter to cut it into four equal 6"x6" pieces. When I then put the first layer of the invitation on top of it, it was ever so slightly askew. I had to alter my course, reduce the size of the backer slightly, then use the Silhouette vs the hand cutter to get a perfectly square cut on each one. Yes, I know it's for a 5yo's BD invitation and who cares, but it was askew! Askew I tell you!

Avery's teacher knows how I like to use my handy-dandy Silhouette, so she assigned me another project. I am to make name tags to go above their coat hooks. They have name tags there, but the pre-made ones that she bought are too long, so she has to stagger them a bit, like bricks. That configuration causes confusion about which hook belongs to which child. So I'm going to make them narrower and change the design a bit. I've decided to do them in the style of London tube stop signs. I'll start on those after I finish the invitations.

family activities
D has been gone a lot lately. He's working a lot, was gone on the NYC trip for quite a while, and we're just generally busy. For family date day on Saturday, we let Avery pick where we'd eat, and she chose Pastini - no surprise there. Then we went to see Wreck-it Ralph. D slept through the first half and I slept through the second half. The movie was actually quite good, so our sleepiness was other factors. D's not sleeping well lately and I binged on candy during the first half, so there was the inevitable sugar crash afterward.

In an effort to squeeze in more family time wherever we can, Avery and I will be meeting D for lunch today. That's good because it'll force me out of the house today. Avery and I have nothing else on our schedule. Tomorrow Avery has three back-to-back activities in the afternoon. Wednesdays are just busy.

activities
I signed Avery up for two back-to-back dance classes starting in January. Dance still continues to be the thing she's most interested in and most enjoys. I'm quite sure she can handle two classes in a row as far as physical stamina and desire to do them. I'm a bit worried about her crankiness level following those two things. I guess you don't know until you try it.

She also loves kung fu. Randomly through out throughout the week, she'll ask, "When's kung fu?" or "What about kung fu?" I still don't think she's put together that the punches they practice in class are meant to land on people. Same thing with kicks. But those things are like 5% of the class. Most of it is focused on learning how to fall and roll, physical agility, things like that.

Several new kids have joined her kung fu class, among them two other girls. Avery and another girl kind of gravitate toward each other, but I can tell Avery now feels totally at ease with all the boys in class. Coincidentally, Nolan's BFF, Gabriel, just joined the class, too. Avery knows him well since he goes to her school. Gabriel's mom told me that whenever Avery is around Gabriel, she's always looking out for him. When he came to join the circle at the beginning of class, Avery loudly introduced him to Sifu Wally. That was sweet, but unnecessary since Sifu Wally teaches Gabriel's two older brothers so he knows him well.

Avery always seems to have a really good time at gymnastics, but it doesn't seem to be something she misses doing if we skip a class. I'm trying to get her (and Henry) enrolled in semi-private swim lessons in January. I guess if that doesn't happen, then we'll do gymnastics again.

Soccer is something she enjoys, but I think only because it's running around in a gym. I don't think skills or the game of soccer appeals all that much to her at this age.

tantrums
We had a major one the other night, but it was mostly my fault. Avery had a ton of activities that day and I knew she was looking for some way to release everything.

Other than that, it continues to go well. I find the tantrums much easier to deal with now that I feel like I have a direction on how to deal with them. Not that things were ever bad between Avery and me, but I feel closer to her. Like the friction is off because I'm not walking on egg shells, and I'm not upset at her for acting illogically.

finger

ouch
Avery got her ring and pinky fingers of her left hand stuck in a very heavy steal door on Wednesday afternoon at a community center. She was with Rachele (who feels horribly, but whom I don't blame in the least) and RHG said that when she eventually got Avery's finger out, it was totally flat and gray. She also said it was one of the heaviest doors she's ever seen. Poor Avery. I'm not sure for how long, but Avery was standing there for more than just a few seconds with it stuck, so it was pretty traumatic at the time. Once RHG was able to free her, she called me and told me to start driving to the urgent care, then rushed Avery there. They x-rayed her hand which revealed that nothing was broken or fractured. They put on a splint - which looked more like a cast - and sent us home. While Avery cried a bunch (as well she should have) when it happened and at the urgent care, but since the splint's been on, she hasn't complained once. After the fact, she's always a trooper.

We went in for a follow-up appointment with a specialist. There was no need to x-ray it again. He removed the splint and Avery said it didn't hurt. She said it felt like a rubber band. She favored it a bit for the rest of the day, but Saturday she was using it almost normally.

I found it interesting that both the nurse and the specialist asked questions in such a way that, upon reflection, they were looking for any signs of child abuse. Of course, I'm thankful that do that because I want them to identify any child abuse going on with children, but it was a bit odd to realize that is what was happening.

apple picking
Avery & I, Mom, and Christie & Henry all went apple picking at Kiyokawa Family Orchards on Thursday. Avery stopped by school to have her picture taken with the class, then we drove to pick up Christie & Henry and head up. It was during this drive that I realized my sweet ride (and all other minivans) are missing one key feature: the window partition - you know, like limos have. It would be so nice to just to lock out any bickering between kids. I swear that Avery and Henry bickered more during that drive than they did the whole time we were in Mexico together.

Mom made me a gluten-free apple pie with some of the apples we picked. I just ate two pieces for lunch. I like Mom's gluten-free crust better than her non-GF crust! Mmmmm. Pie.

Mom's birthday
Yesterday was Mom's birthday. I underestimated how Avery would react when I explained that Mom and I were going out to celebrate Nain's BD. That is, she was upset. So, I quickly threw together a lunch celebration wherein Avery and D baked Mom a cake whilst I cooked lunch and bought Mom's gift (a bird bath). Avery was all over it. She insisted that we each lunch in the dining room, not the kitchen. Then she set the table all by herself. She also chose where everyone would sit. Needless to say, Avery sat at the head of the table. Finally, she insisted that we put candles on Nain's cake. We put 7 on to represent each decade.

Nain and Avery on Nain's BD.

For our daughter-mom celebration, I took Nain to dinner and a foot massage. We didn't hit the afternoon movie as planned because I was exhausted and napped all afternoon - bad daughter!

scanned out
I have scanned almost everything in the house. I now wander aimlessly looking for what other paper I can get rid of (this is only partially a joke). I think a lot of the appeal to me is that it's something where I can make fast, visible, tangible progress ... unlike parenting where results of hard work aren't as easy to correlate to said hard work.

I am proud that I managed to NOT scan all past receipts. I decided that would be just an activity of scanning for the sake of scanning. The likelihood I would ever need to reference those receipts is pretty close to nil. So I bundled up the receipts and will put them out of sight until such time as I am ready to recycle them. From here on out, I'll scan in any receipts for products I might have a need to return (meaning, I won't scan in grocery receipts, but would a receipt for a birdbath or stuff like that).

If any friends need any scanning done ... :)

Paperless

scansnap obsession continues
Since I got my new toy and figured out all the software quirks (I needed to upgrade my OS since the software wasn't compatible with lion so now I'm mountain lion), I have been converting our house to paperless at an astounding rate. I've done about 95% of my filing.

Upon my enthusiasm for making so much progress so fast, RHG said, "But now you have to organize them all." That's the beauty people - not really. See what I did was this:

1. scan - scanned in batches of paper from my paper filing system which was already pretty organized. 
2. name - after each batch was done scanning, I gave it a name with keywords that I would likely search on. For example, invoices for my car are name "car honda service invoices." Sometimes I included the date in the file if it was relevant. 
3. file - I dumped those PDFs into one folder. I'm done with creating a bunch of folders for different topics. I rely almost exclusively on the spotlight search to find files, so why file them? It was a hard habit to break from my early days of computing where every file was organized in folder upon folder. Now I use some folders, but very few. 
4. create searchability - Of course, you can't search the contents of a PDF, which I'd like to do. So now I'm doing batch processing to get all the PDFs OCRd. OCR = optical character recognition. In laymen's terms, OCRing a PDF makes the contents searchable (at least the parts that are in typeface). 

It feels so good to have all this paper that was just sitting there taking up space gone. I actually looked forward to getting the snail mail today. I normally avoid it because it's just.more.paper. Argh! Now I can immediately process the paper and recycle it. Woohoo!

This has seriously made me so happy. Every time I'd read reviews for the scansnap on various organization sites, they would absolutely rave about it. I figured how great could it possibly be? It's a scanner. Big whoop. Well, it's so awesome because it's like the people who designed it knew exactly what their target market wanted! 

What I have now done is freed up an entire filing drawer. To do what with you ask? Store my fabric!

Image and idea from Sew Many Ways

That's my next project ... after I'm done scanning every scrap of paper in this house and chucking it. And yes, I am doing periodic data backups. 

Avery's itinerary today

• school
• buy new leotard for dance since I screwed up and bought a purple one and pink is required for her new dance classes
• go to our feelings helper (this is a subject of a future post - when I feel like it)
• go to theater class
• dinner & frozen yogurt
• home

Tomorrow is just as busy. 

snappy

ScanSnap s510m
When no one responded to my query about how long one should have to pine for a toy before caving to comsumeristic instincts, I took that to mean that I was fated to buy my toy. I considered buying it new because I can always convince myself I need the latest and greatest technology. However, since the one I could get off of Craigs' List cost me over 50% less, I went with that option.

My new toy, which I've wanted for years, is a scanner. But not just any scanner. A Fujitsu ScanSnap!  Mine is an older version of the one I linked to. I'm absolutely thrilled with it so far.  I've wanted to go paperless for years, but unless I had a fast scanner, that was not going to happen. I have just breezed through a massive pile of papers. This stuff makes me giddy!

And it's so freakin' easy that I'll be able to quickly scan documents that come in. Paperless will happen!

D's response: [inner eye roll I couldn't see, but knew was there] "how much did it cost" [I answer] "that's not too bad. whatever makes you happy." And that, folks, is the way to make a spouse happy.

Kung Fu
I somehow managed to completely forget about kung fu class and, for some reason, they weren't on the calendar. Today, as we left soccer, Avery asked when she got to go to kung fu again. It hit me that her class started in 45 minutes. So, after a quick stop at the grocery store, we zipped over and she had a great time.

Other minutia

• I cooked dinner for the second night since being back from Mexico. That must be some sort of record for me. 
• I have no desire for more minutia because I am happily scanning away. Wheeee!