Well Drat!

Every day I write a blog post.   Every day before the end of the day I put something down here about what I’ve been thinking about or something happening in the lives of our family.  On a few occasions it’s been hard, but I’ve still gotten a post up.   Once, when I had unexpected abscess surgery and was admitted to the hospital after going to the emergency room and having a doctor tell me, “this is serious, we’re doing surgery and admitting you” I called my husband and asked him to bring my laptop in—because I had to write my blog post.

And then there are times—fairly rarely—that I just up and forget to do the post.   That’s what happened last night.  I don’t have a lot of readers, which is fine by me.   Truthfully, I envision this blog as me just talking to myself for the most part.   So this morning I got two text messages asking where my blog post was for yesterday?   Well drat, I forgot.  So this morning I’m writing the post for yesterday and cheating by backdating it to last night at 11:30pm.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t doing anything last night, I had been working hard on my computer; it just slipped my mind—which is unusual, as I’ve been writing a blog post every day since late 2011.  It’s ingrained behavior for me now—I don’t even think about it usually, it’s just what I do at the end of the night.

What was I doing?  Aside from the standard parent of a six- and seven-year-old child, I was doing homework.   I’m taking a braille class online and have become fairly obsessed with learning braille.   It’s more than just the alphabet, it’s complex while simple at the same time.   This is the first of a series of classes which will hopefully let me be fluent in braille.

This is the homework I was working on last night:

 

What does all that say?

Choco Peanut Butter Squares
Ingredients
1. 2 cups sugar
2. 1 51/3 oz. can evaporated milk
3. 1⁄4 cup peanut butter
4. 1 box instant chocolate pudding
5. 2 cups quick cooking rolled oats 

Directions
1. Combine sugar with milk and peanut butter in a glass bowl.
2. Microwave about 3 minutes or until peanut butter is melted and sugar is dissolved.
3. Add pudding mix and oats. Mix well.
4. Spread in an 8 by 8 inch pan.
5. Cool thoroughly.
6. Cut into 1 inch squares.

Shopping List  
2. 1 51⁄3 oz. can Carnation evaporated milk $0.86 
3. Jif peanut butter $2.93 
4. 1 box Royal instant chocolate pudding mix $0.953. Jif peanut butter $2.934. 1 box Royal instant chocolate pudding mix $0.95
5. Quaker quick cooking rolled oats 

It took me about a half-hour to write it all out in braille.   Which I’ll take as an accomplishment considering two weeks ago I couldn’t tell you the letters of the alphabet in braille, much less how to write fractions or currency.   But I have a long way to go to learn braille, but it’s fun.

The Big Boy Update:  We went to brunch at a diner that had Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl there to meet and talk to the children today.  My son loves the movies but he was apparently above it this morning, saying, “I’m just a normal, humble man.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been my mentor in the process of learning braille.   I don’t need her as much as I pretend I do but she loves being involved so I ask for her help often.   I’ll say, ”is ‘p’ dots 1234?” and she’ll say, “yes, that’s ‘p’”.   Or I’ll ask, “what’s period again?  I always forget” and she’ll say back, “it’s drop d, remember?” and I’ll respond, “oh, that’s right, so it’s 256 then”.