Yo, February

28 Feb 2018 Leave a comment

by alightningbug in Games, Mom Stuff Tags: , , , ,

You were here and then you … well you are here still. But you’re never here as long as other months, and you’ll be gone in the blink of an eye.

I had a big birthday. It was the biggest one yet. Which is the case with all birthdays, but ya know, I felt this one more.

My little family ordered me a birthday cake off Amazon. As you do. Or as they do anyway. Normal people may not. Because, cake.

We have a store with a nice bakery across the street. You can literally walk there in less than ten minutes and most of that is waiting for the stoplight. But instead, my cake was shipped frozen in dry ice. Kind of like shipping steaks only in chocolate form.

It was fulfilled by David’s Cookies and arrived with dry ice warnings. Dry ice is cool! [Really, did I just write that?] So I didn’t mind the dry ice except that nearly all had evaporated by the time the cake arrived. The last swirls of vapor gave my shrink-wrapped confection the mystique of having journeyed through time and space. Which, ya know, it did.

It was a somewhat rich and dense chocolate cake, a texture that probably holds up better for long distance travels. The entire cake including the frosting and “Happy Birthday!” decorations made it through surprisingly well. I have one small piece left, and it isn’t even totally gross. Pretty darn good still.

Cake!

We went out to eat yummy food with yummy dessert. I got two bouquets of orchids because last year when flowers were ordered from Amazon they arrived wilted. Lovely but wilted. The company sent replacements. This year backup orchids were ordered, so I got double. They’re still quite beautiful as I type this! Along with roses for Valentine’s Day, I’ve been awash with flowers. I can’t complain one iota. The roses even sprouted new leaves. I’ve seen roses do that before, and I always find it somewhat magical. That last spark of life trying to find a way.

I got a new computer! But no, I’m not typing on it right now. February’s schedule was pretty much a mad dash.  So I still have some setting up to do.

February and January my daughter stayed after school nearly every day and went back for more on Saturdays after her dance class to work with her team on their robot and preparations for First Robotics. I popped in to help where I could. Robots are cool! But my main job was mom-taxi.

Their first competition weekend is only a few days away. This team worked so hard for so long — not just January and February but since the beginning of the year. The team improved over last year on many levels including being further ahead in the robot building process, so they actually got to test their robot more and work out some problems before the competition.

I hope that all their hard work pays off and that they have a fun and successful competition season! I’m excited to see the robot in action!

This time last year I barely knew what the Robotics club was working on, and I had no idea what competition weekend was. I’d imagined a small robot the size of a toaster and competition to be a few hours on a Saturday. But no. The robot is bigger than a push lawn mower and competition weekend starts on Friday night and ends Sunday evening. It’s like a huge sporting event but with geeky people.

In the midst of this, I’ve been playing in our pinball league, not one but, two nights a week. Because that’s logical. Crazy busy mom with no time, so I’ll just add another thing. But it’s a fun thing!  So I’ve survived so far.

Last weekend was Science Olympiad because, perhaps like her mother, my daughter signed up for more than she probably had time for. So we spent last Saturday at that. I accidentally missed registration for Pinburgh, a pinball tournament. So now I’m on the waitlist. Again. Gah. Serves me right.

And here we are at the tail end of February marching on ahead. Wish us luck. The good kind, please. Thank you.

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Summer’s Tail – Kicking and Screaming

16 Aug 2015 2 Comments

by alightningbug in Games, Mom Stuff, Plant Life and Balcony Gardening, Vacation, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s still hot like summer, but in many places kids have already gone back to school. Some as early as August 1. Summer is over for them. It’s the tail end for us, and I want to grab on to these last few weeks kicking and screaming as I lick the last bit of salt off my fingers before summer goes away again. My daughter can’t wait for school to start back up. She’s excited to experience her new classes and see more of her friends. I still have unfinished plans and goals and more tomatoes to grow!

We did some fun things this summer. We took a trip to Pittsburgh where I participated in Pinburgh, a pinball tournament. Pinburgh has been around a few years, but this year it was held at a huge new classic video game festival called Replay FX. I brought my daughter because, hello, video games and pinball! And they had other kids’ activities like a velcro wall, giant inflatable obstacle course, and slides. For a video game festival my daughter actually got a lot of exercise!

While Pittsburgh may not bring to mind the typical image of summer vacation paradise, there was much fun and our hotel room had extra niceties that kept us saying, “wow, cool!” This made for a fairly complete vacationy experience.

Our room had a motion sensor foot light (like a night light at the floor that turned on when we stepped out of bed), pull-down individual book lights on each headboard, and in the evening, when we returned exhausted from a full day of game play and activities, the hotel supplied milk and cookies (free of charge for kids 12 and under). It was great!

We had another very mini vacation this past Friday night when we slept over at the National Museum of American History as a Smithsonian Sleepover. Last summer we did this at the Natural History Museum and loved it. There are scads of activities and crafts centered around various exhibitions in the museum. Then folks get to roll out their sleeping bags and camp out under a whale or antique machinery as museum lights are dimmed. Continental breakfast is served in the morning. And it is all so way cool!

Next year my daughter will be too old to do either of these sleepovers (there’s an age limit), and we’re super glad to have done them. I’ve always loved the Natural History Museum with animals and minerals, but I forgot how much fun the American History Museum can be. I feel like we made the kind of memories that can last a lifetime, and I think (I hope) my daughter feels that way too.

Earlier this summer my daughter had camp, so most weeks I had to drop her off in the morning and then run out on my lunch hour to pick her up and drop her off either at home or somewhere else like another camp (from which I’d have to pick her up again later). Most of the camps have been wonderful! She’s learned more music and dance and even cooking.

For me, one or two days of driving at lunchtime isn’t a problem, but week after week gets tiring. Exhausting even. I need some down time, or I start to shut down. On top of it, I fell and injured my knee last March (for crying out loud) and it has been slowly healing. At the beginning of summer it was much better but still painful on a regular basis. Pain is exhausting. (I have much more empathy for folks who live with chronic pain.) I’ve been trying to fit physical therapy exercises into my daily schedule to help my knee heal. Here at the end of summer I finally feel like I can squat to take care of our balcony plants without groaning in pain at the same time.  Long and short of it, instead of writing and blogging more this summer I remained rather unproductive.

These last few morsels of summer I have no plans of driving anywhere at lunchtime — at least nothing major. I may still run occasional shopping errands or drop my daughter off at a friends house and such. But mainly I plan to eat lunch.  I plan to write.

I’ve set goals for myself.  I want more summer fun. Maybe a quick trip to the beach! Maybe tubing. Definitely more swimming. I want more tomatoes to grow! More peppers! I want to write regularly and am setting daily and weekly goals. Really, I want more summer!