It’s Nearly Next Year

I had a meltdown today.   I won't go into the details, because it is never pretty hearing about a full grown, middle-aged woman having a meltdown, but it happened and now it's over.   I don't get it, we're at home, spending no time out, not seeing friends, school is out, life is simpler...only it doesn't seem to be.   I would expect to have more time, not less.   But every week seems busier than the last.   And today, for the umteenth day in a row, I planed on having a day where I could relax, work on 3D printing and for lack of a better phrase, "just do nothing."

Only it didn't happen that way.   And to be fair, I'm complaining and have very little right to because there are people who have bills to pay with no jobs or have jobs and can't take care of their children who need care or have many other things in their lives that give them even less free time than I have.   That being said, I still wanted to have a "me" day.   And it wasn't happening. 

My daughter kicked it off—the tantrum—or did I say meltdown?  Either way, I behaved in an undignified manner befitting of a fifty-year-old mother of two.   My daughter just would not leave me alone.   She had questions, wanted to be where I was, including following me into the closet.   I was trying to think and asked if I could have a few minutes of time and I'd be glad to help her out with anything if she could give me a few minutes.   Sure, she'd just be right there and wouldn't talk (she can't not talk.)  Then she was going to be just in the next room, then she was going to just be on the bed.    It was hours after morning had started and I wanted a few minutes to myself, not helping her with things, not feeding the dog, not cleaning up things, not making a list of all the things that had to get done during the day, and trying to figure out if I could get them all done—just five minutes.  

So I snapped at her.   I told her to leave.   I had been asking her not to wake her father up for several hours and she just doesn't get not waking people up.   At all.  Some days.  Her father got up at this point and I lost it, yelling out all my frustrations about how I had twenty-eight text messages, some from people I hadn't responded to in two days because I needed to respond properly and do some research before I could get back to them.   Emails?  I haven't opened email in two weeks.    And yes, I've done some 3D printing, but the printers have been more idle than active. 

Anyways, today was going to be my day.   After yelling about my frustrations I went to apologize to my daughter.  I wasn't yelling at my husband so much as yelling and having him listen to me.   He is great at listening.   She was in her room and she wasn't even upset.  She told me today was going to be my day.  She is a very kind and understanding child.   

She and I talked about how frustrating it was because she had no friends to play with.  The two friends she socially distance plays with were also isolating like we were so they could see family for Christmas.   But in the next few days, we talked, things would be different and both she and her friends could play again.  

I did get some time today, but I had to take a nap or I wasn't going to be able to make it until midnight tonight.   Which happens to be in twenty-five minutes.   We're going outside to see the light show my husband has made to go on the front of the house with the projector he's been using.   We're going to take out the reusable glow stick flashlight combos Uncle Bob and Uncle Brian sent for Christmas.   It's raining, but it should be fun to be out in the crisp night air for the start of the new year. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son's computer repair had another hiccup and he won't have it back until the weekend.   He was very understanding when his father told him about it.   He's rediscovered other means of screens he hasn't been interested in for a while since he got the computer and began playing Minecraft on it. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I wasn't the only one to have a meltdown today.   My daughter came downstairs to play the piano and ran into a chair.   A chair that was in the same place it always is.   We try to keep the house in as static a configuration as possible for her because it hurts to run into things all the time.   She yelled that she hated the chair and she hated our house and ran off upstairs crying.   I found her at the ice machine, scraping the ice away from the heat sensor with the scoop so that it would kick off new ice to be made.   She loves the fresh ice that comes out about two minutes later and catches it as it falls out of the augered hole.  I told her she could always yell if she was angry about being blind in the house here. She could get mad and get her feelings out.   It was okay to be angry.  It wasn't fair that she was blind and that I was angry too, I told her.   She hugged me and we talked for a while.   She was better after the outburst, but it still hurts, knowing she'll never be able to do things everyone else does with ease.

Long Awaited

My daughter and I have been preparing for something for over a year.   My daughter loves to sing and after asking me to do a large number of rounds I suggested a song I thought she might like, but I warned her it wouldn't be easy to master.   

This was sometime last year with enough months to practice so that if we got good at the song, we could sing it for Mimi for Christmas.   This particular song is a duet with both parts having some words the same but then diverging at other parts.   The parts where the song diverges has one singer singing many words quickly while the other person sings measured words slowly.   It's a tricky song to sing because if you listen to what the other person is singing, you can get tripped up and either forget your words or start singing their words. 

My daughter was seven-and-a-half when we started practicing the song, named "Peggy O'Neil."  I had been hoping for last Christmas and also hoping that our cousin/aunt Rebecca might be with us for Christmas at some point because it was my mother and her sister, Rebecca's mother, who had sung the song together when they were younger. 

Rebecca and I heard them sing this song when we were young and we would practice singing it, trying to get the words and tune and timing together.   I have very fond memories of my mother and Aunt Pat singing that song.   I can picture them in my mind, standing beside each other singing the song for us as we listened with rapt attention. 

Christmas came and my daughter and I weren't ready.   My daughter had some interest, but not enough to put in the practice to get the song down well enough to sing together.   She would forget after a lapse of time and we'd start back learning the song again. 

Over this year we've practiced again every so often.   My daughter has recently taken a leap in her singing skills in her ability to stay on key more consistently and to do that tricky bit of not hearing me sing while she sang her part.   

We wanted to sing the song tonight because Mimi and Gramps were going back to the mountains and we didn't know when we'd see them again.   She and I had been practicing and while she had her part down, I had to sing more quietly.   She also had problems holding to the tempo.   I had an idea of tapping her leg or arm while we sang to give her an anchor to hold on to.    That helped a lot, but there was one part she still got hung up on right at the end.   Still, we decided to do our song tonight and both do the best we could. 

After dinner, we told Mimi and Gramps we had a performance and had everyone come into the living room.   I told her I would stand by her and tap her shoulder with my arm around her.   I was prepared to sing my faster words more softly but when we got started, I knew she had it.   There was just this confidence in her voice.   She may be one of those people who does better under pressure instead of collapsing under it. 

She and I made it through the whole song and she didn't miss a word.   I was so proud of her.   The expression on Mimi's face of joy was something I wish she could have seen.  Mimi came up and hugged us afterward, telling us it was a surprise she never would have expected.   I wish Aunt Rebecca had been here, but we will just have to sing our song again for her when we next get to see her.  

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Sugar Rush Dessert:  After dinner, we invited my parents into the garage for dessert.   They wondered what we were going to serve until we told them dessert was fresh cotton candy, courtesy of the Christmas present my daughter had gotten from us.   We had purple (grape), Blue (blue raspberry) and pink (pink vanilla, whatever that is).   Everyone loved it, including the dog.   I loved it too, but I'll love it more when we can make it outside and I have less to clean up.   Sugar does not discriminate where it goes when you're making cotton candy. 

Cotton Candy

I have a sugar problem.   Although this post isn't about that.  I'm addressing my diet because it needs a lot less sugar in it.   Tonight was all about sugar though.  

We had a bit of a dilemma on what to get my daughter for Christmas for a while.   She wanted things like a wheelchair and other unrealistic things that were either too large, unattainable, or unrealistic.   Then one night she said she wanted a cotton candy machine.  

Now, this was a present I could get behind.   It was similar to the trampoline in that it was something I had always wanted as a child.   These days, things seem far more readily available than they were when I was younger.   Mass production and a general increase in commercialism maybe.   Or maybe I'm just an adult and I can buy things today that I couldn't afford with my allowance when I was younger.   

I don't think my parents would have let a cotton candy machine anywhere near our house when I was a child.  I was, "hyperactive" a label I don't contest to this day.   Oh, to be hyperactive again.  These days I just try to be active.   My daughter was onto something with the cotton candy machine though.   They wouldn't be that expensive and I'd get to have cotton candy.   Win all the way around. 

I looked into them and there were some little ones made for children.   I didn't want one of those.   The real ones weren't that much more.   It was not dissimilar to when we looked into getting a popcorn machine.   I thought it would be really expensive, but it was fairly reasonable and for the amount of popcorn we've made in it over the years, it was a downright bargain. 

So I got a real cotton candy machine and tonight in the garage we tried it out.   It wasn't as terribly messy as I thought it was going to be but it was exactly the amount of fun I thought it would be.   My daughter and I took turns making little bits at a time to figure out how the machine works.   She found out that the dog liked cotton candy and then proceeded to give her too much.   Fortunately, a lot of cotton candy is a lot less sugar than other sweets. 

I learned some lessons about temperature setting (or don't turn the one knob up too far or you'll fling sugar out instead of making cotton candy).  I got it stuck, with melted sugar in a mass on the inside.   What I found out though was that dealing with clogs and cleaning up was far easier than I'd ever imagined.   I mean so much easier than I had prepared for. 

You turn down the temperature some and then pour little bits of water into the sugar reservoir.   Water and steam, along with the now-dissolved sugar flings out onto the side of the basin.   You do this several times and the reservoir is clean.   Then you wipe around the basin to collect the sugar and flung water and you're done.   I marveled at how easy that part of the process was.  

Tomorrow, we're going to practice our cotton candy collecting skills.  I'm going to see if I can get the process down so I can avoid the mistakes I made today.    

My daughter likes the pink vanilla, my son likes the blue raspberry, I like the grape and the dog likes all three flavors of cotton candy.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Hostage Negotiation:  A conversation between my children tonight:  My daughter yelled that she had his bear blanket hostage.   My son yells back from the computer, "the only thing that matters in life is Pigstep!" Then my son explained to us how you could only use five seconds of the Pigstep song in a YouTube video without copyright infringement.   My daughter persisted with the blanket hostage situation until my husband intervened and asked my son if he was listening about the blanket.   My son said, "yeah, could you do something like force her to give it back to me?" all the while not looking away from the Minecraft game he was playing.  My daughter lost interest in harassing her brother and went over to see what her father was doing to rebuild the computer he had out on the table.  

That Makes Sense

My daughter doesn't want to learn things from me.   I think she gets this from me as I am fairly certain I was nothing but an insufferable know it all with my mother when I was a child.   If I get an inkling my daughter wants to learn about something or if she directly tells me she's interested, I'll try to explain, to teach her, and to do so in the most approachable, informative way possible while keeping her preferences in learning styles in mind. 

Invariably, and I really want to say "always" here but it can't be always.   It does feel like it's every single time though.   If I try to tell her about it she interrupts and tells me what she knows (which is a lot of times a complete guess.) If it's something physical I need to show her, she won't let my hands show her.   She won't stop grabbing and does the thing, whatever it might be such as untangling the string of lights.  I can't give her any advice because while she says she's interested, she's not interested in learning about it from me. 

We were talking about the "Doe a Deer" song from The Sound of Music tonight while we were folding laundry.   She wanted to learn the song, but when I tried to sing, every time she jumped in and just sang words and a tune that she was making up that didn't get close to the song.  She was guessing in a major was and wasn't going to let me explain without me getting firm with her. 

So I gave up and a few minutes later when she wasn't paying attention, I asked Alexa to play the original Julie Andrews version.   I didn't say anything while my daughter quietly listened to the whole song.   She wanted it played again, this time talking aloud to herself, saying things like, "that makes sense" and "because a doe is a deer" and other comments.   By the end of the song, she was singing along. 

I couldn't get her interested because of me.   Julie Andrews never fails though. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son did one of those fits again tonight when I said we had to fold laundry (meaning they have to fold their laundry).   He said I was ruining his day.   I told him he'd had a sufficiently leisurely day while other people worked hard and he'd better rethink his attitude or I was going Military Mom.   He folded his laundry without another complaint. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter might like The Sound of Music movie and they probably have descriptive audio.   She isn't interested though because she says movies are mostly for seeing.   

Almost Midnight…Again

I just looked up and it's almost midnight...again...and I haven't written a blog post today.   I wrote yesterday's blog post this morning, had it scheduled to backdate to yesterday (with full disclosure) and got "momed" by my daughter, asking if I could get her her next audiobook and I couldn't say no because she had gotten some Audible credits as Christmas presents.  

I thought I had posted yesterday's post today, but after my afternoon nap (I had woken up very early and had been working straight until mid-afternoon) my husband asked me about the missing post.   That's when I realized I had forgotten to post yesterday's post.   I hastily posted it without a comment about each child with plans on writing a longer, more interesting, here's what's been happening here kind of post this evening.   Only now it's almost midnight and clearly, time is up for today. 

The children are busy with their various things from Christmas and my husband and I currently have four 3D printers hard at work.   Two of mine are printing small filament spools to store samples or the last bits of full spools.   The third, new printer is working on a "torture test" which looks interesting enough to post a picture.   I've been running tuning prints to make sure it's leveled and the dimensional accuracy is, well, accurate.  So far, so good.  

The Children's Report, From My Mother:  My mother came over and played with the children today.   She emailed me, telling me about her day.   She sat beside my son in the living room and listened to him tell her all about the different worlds he's created in Minecraft.  Then he told her he was sleepy and could she play with his sister for a while?   My mother played, "Hotel Paradise" with my daughter for an hour.   They made up all kinds of stories about their hotel, featuring I'm thinking the new play tent with a tropical theme they got my daughter for Christmas.   My mother went back to check on my son and he wanted to show her how he played Minecraft but he would have to do so on his father's computer because his was being repaired.  My mother reported how my son came alive and was animated and talkative when he got into the game.   Both children didn't want Mimi to go when it was time for her to leave.   I think they want her to stay all day and play with them.   

Build, and Gah!

Today, I mean yesterday, I was busy building two things: the new 3D printer my in-laws got me for Christmas (yay!) and my daughter's Fairy Tent.   At the end of the day I went to bed and as I was turning out the light I realized I hadn't posted.   So I'm pretending like it was yesterday, backdating this post, and getting on with leveling the print bed on the new printer and kicking off some prints.   Other than that, it was a much calmer day than Christmas day was at our house. 

My Goodness Christmas

Every single year my husband and I say we want to have a more modest Christmas.   We don't plan on getting the children loads and loads of presents—they don't need them.   We give them, ahem I mean Santa gives them, one present each.  It's a large present or set of things that go together, but that's it.   Then we plan on getting them something from us.   That's our plan.  

Christmas turns out to be much bigger than we thought it would be every year though.   Santa brought my son one thing, a video game system.   And my daughter got some stuffed animals that danced and sang Christmas songs.   Hers was fairly inexpensive, his will be enjoyed by my husband as well, who will also play video games on the system. 

We got my daughter a cotton candy machine from us (something I always wanted myself) and my son some hardware for his computer.   I got the family a domino set for toppling dominoes.   We have some dominoes already and this set adds interesting things we can do to make the runs do fun things other than just fall over. 

Our Christmas was bigger because of the wonderful family and friends we have.   They sent my children presents and the things they sent my children loved.   My son is all about clothes right now.  There is a colored sweatshirt he wanted, and specifically, he wanted multiple patterns of that same sweatshirt.   He got them and he is thrilled about that as well as the San Francisco sweatshirt from his aunt.   There were lot of presents for my daughter that she could touch and play with.   She was very happy all day. 

So Christmas was more material and commercial than we expected, but it was from love.   And the children loved Christmas and all their presents today. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son was manic this morning, wanting to be involved in the handing out of the presents.  He seemed very cool before Christmas proper started, but when it got in full swing, he was just as excited as his sister was. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter was in control of the presents, and she took her job seriously.   When we didn't move along quickly enough or if someone hadn't had a present in a while, she was on the job.   I think she liked having the ability to contribute to the day instead of wondering what was happening all around her, like last year's Christmas.   It was empowering to her to know what most of the presents were, as she had helped me wrap and label the majority of them.

We Have That Too

I was doing some shopping on Christmas Eve for the children's stockings, fearing I had exhausted a lot of my content in their daily advent calendar that's one of the best parts of Christmas to my daughter.  I was going to go to Target or one of several other stores but I decided instead to go to the drug store by the Starbucks drive-through I frequent. 

I got a cart and went up and down the aisles, putting in chocolate, odd candy things and little Christmas toys that would fill up their stockings and a thought came to mind from years ago about my Uncle Jim.   He was a pharmacist and worked in a drug store that had additional things for sale, not unlike most drug stores in the U.S. today.   

There were numerous stories about my mother or aunt finding things and being excited about them, the one that comes to the forefront of my mind is the "Fuzz Buster" or some such name, that was a little spinning blade behind a metal grate.  You drove it around over your sweaters and it pulled the pills off it that had built up over time with wear. 

My mother and aunt were talking about what a great thing it was and how they'd found it somewhere (I don't remember the details, only that they were happy they'd found one).   My uncle came in, looked at it, and said, "I don't know what you ladies are so excited about, we've been selling that at my store for a while now."

Exact words said and specifics of the situation aren't completely clear, but that was in general what happened.   Today I was reminded of my Uncle Jim and his store that carried "darned near everything" because they had everything I needed and more to finish my holiday shopping.   

The Big Boy Update:  The power supply on my son's computer is broken.   Thankfully he's not getting any computer games for Christmas.   His father found a power supply he could get locally and picked one up today.   My son, who didn't want a computer, he said, had to go an entire day off it—something that was very foreign to him.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted to go to sleep early today.  Very early, so that she could get up for Christmas.   She knows that Chrismas won't start until nine-thirty and no one is allowed to go to the basement where the tree is until we all go down together.   She's excited about her stocking though.   When I went in to check on her after our call with our cousins, she was upset because she wasn't falling to sleep and she wanted Christmas to hurry up and get here.  

Sweeping the Stairs

My parents are home tonight.   It's been since March since they were here at their house in the town where I grew up.   They still live at the house I was raised in when they aren't at their retirement home in the mountains.   The children, my husband, and I waited for them to arrive today, each of us anticipating their arrival in a different way. 

While we waited for them to finish the last miles of their trip, my daughter and I got things ready inside the house while my husband and son finished up some things outside in their driveway.   We made the bed, using linens we had washed just the day before at our house so we could do the loads without being at their house for a number of hours. 

After making their bed, I showed my daughter some of the updates we'd done, including new carpet runners heading down to the basement on the stairs.  She and I turned all the lights on and lifted the blinds so it would feel light and welcoming instead of closed up and dark.   And then my husband arrived with some food for a snack, which my daughter enjoyed eating at the pull-out seat in the kitchen that I had eaten at when I was a child. 

I went out front with a broom to sweep the leaves off the porch, stairs, and walkway.   There was a good covering and in the cold, wet weather, it was a bit slippery.    As I swept the stairs off, a sudden memory flooded me.   I remembered sweeping these same steps as a child.   I knew just when to pull the leaves down to the next step and when to brush them off the sides.   I knew the same with the walkway.   I was on autopilot from decades ago, when I was a child who wanted to help my mother get ready for guests. 

My parents arrived and we spent a bit of time saying hello and showing them the changes we'd made in their absence due to some mechanical issues they'd had.   We had made sure their internet and television was working and that everything was in order for their visit since they'd been away for such a long stretch. 

Then we went home, dinner plans canceled due to a later arrival than we had all thought might be possible the day before.   Tomorrow we start the holidays in earnest.   It's going to be a fun time having my parents here for Christmas. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son greeted my parents and was a gentleman, much taller than the last time they'd seen him, they exclaimed.   He showed off his tree climbing skills when we all went outside.   He's back home, playing video games now, relaxing for the holidays.   I'm going to relax once I get this post completed myself. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter cut her hair off.  Loads of it.   Far, far more than I wanted her to.   But she's happy about it and I have to agree, it looks cute on her.   This was the first cut, but only represents about half of what was cut off:

Filament Support Group

I don't do that much in the way of social media.   I mean I write this, but for the most part this is me writing into the void.  I know there are people who read the blog, and from time to time I hear something back either in person or electronically that lets me know the blog is read by more than just me.   I don't count this as social media that much though.  It feels like publishing but publishing your diary.   It works for me apparently since I've been writing daily since 2011.

I did join a small server related to 3D printing.   I don't know any of them personally and we're all over the world.  I don't know if the people I'm chatting with are men or women, old or young, or anything else about them unless they talk about it.  Mostly, we talk about 3D printing, sharing models, and prints of various models.   

There isn't a lot of talking, which is good, because I can keep up with the little bits of conversation each day without being overwhelmed.   Heck, I'm behind on email, text messages, housework, Christmas present wrapping, and getting ready for the holidays right now.  I don't have the bandwidth for lots of chatter.   It's a little group that works for me.   The people are happy and supportive.   It's just nice. 

I found out from this group that I'm not alone in loving 3D printing filaments.   There are so many interesting options, so many beautiful choices.   We started joking the other day that we were going to have our own Filament Addiction support group.   

There are also those of us who want to keep buying 3D printers.   I qualify for both support groups, I think.   

The Big Boy Update:  My son is turning on voiceover on his computer, which is the thing my daughter uses to tell her what keys she's pressing.  He's accidentally doing it while he plays Minecraft.   Something he's doing is turning it on.   When it happens he's in the middle of something and the computer keeps talking in a monotone voice for the next few minutes everything he's typing.   His father and I will call out, "turn it off!" and my son will say, "I don't know how I did it!"

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Tomorrow my daughter may have almost all her hair cut off.   We've been trying to convince her otherwise, but we'll see what she decides.   I hope she keeps some of it, she looks really good with her hair long.  

Due to Tired

Due to tiredness, this blog post will be short tonight.  I've been working at a site recently and while it's rewarding to see the progress we're making, I'm getting behind on other things here.   I got in, ate, and showered off, and then my daughter and I worked on the Christmas presents.   After I write this, I'm going to sleep.   Busy days are good things, but so is sleep. 

The Big Boy Update:  You can tell my son something, he can look at you and acknowledge that you both spoke to him and that he understands what you've said/told him to do/explained.   Two minutes later he'll have no idea the conversation happened.   This is what it's like when he's single-focused on something like the television—which makes it extra challenging to get him to turn off the television. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is so happy to be helping with the Christmas presents.   She couldn't resist and has told her father that the presents are labeled in braille only so that now she'll have to be Santa on Christmas morning.  

De-messing

That's not a word, but it's what it felt like we were doing all day today.   We keep a fairly tidy house, but the amount of mess that seems to accumulate astounds me.   When the children were younger, they would pull out toy after toy, many of them consisting of lots of pieces, and the children's mess would be a large part of things. 

These days they can make a mess, but they have to clean it up, albeit with reminders, and sometimes help when it gets late.   They get their own food some of the time and that should make things easier, but wrappers, cups, lunch dishes, and all manner of other food-related things that they should be cleaning up, but don't happen.   On the one hand. it's nice that they can feed themselves—although the quality of their selections is not necessarily good.  On the other hand, there's dealing with what happens when they feed themselves. 

Today, in addition to getting ready for my parents to come to town for the first time since March, we were getting ready for the upcoming holiday.  We were de-messing the house as well as doing the largest collection of laundry I think we've seen in these parts in a long time.   One thing or another had kept me from getting everything washed and things that had been washed hadn't been folded.   

We expect the children to fold their laundry, which is an exercise in patience on our part as we deal with the whining about the misery of the task.   Since my son is on holiday, we let him watch television while he folded his clothes from the five large loads I'd done.   

Four hours later and he was still folding.   Patience, I tell you.    He was distracted by the television, but I didn't mind so much because he was fine folding it.    He got it done eventually, had a shower complaining all the while (because he was tired), and then fell straight to sleep. 

Tomorrow and Tuesday my daughter has distanced learning school and then we're all off until after the new year.   I'm looking forward to Christmas, but I think I'm equally looking forward to after Christmas, what with the way things have been going here. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son's secret gift exchange went well on Friday.   His teacher (he had drawn her name) really liked what he'd made for her.   I think my son thought the best gift was the one he got from Tyler, who created him a huge Villager character from Minecraft.   It's sitting beside his computer where he plays Minecraft.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Did I mention my daughter wants to get her hair cut as short as a boy's typical haircut?   She has the most beautiful blonde hair that's long and has finally gotten thicker so it's not flyaway and fine.    I got her an appointment to get it cut on Wednesday and told Sue her intentions and if she could please help dissuade her, I would appreciate it.   I explained to my daughter that I would be glad to pay to get her hair cut twice if she would consider cutting something like six inches off and leaving the rest.   She's not sure yet.   I told her she can always go back a second time and that I would take her.  What she can't do is get the hair back once it's cut.  She's changed her mind in the past and said she never wants to cut her hair.   I don't want her to regret getting it cut after it's too late.  

Newly Undeserved

Today we picked up my new car.   Tesla got the car built and delivered in faster time than they originally estimated to us, although knowing how they try to make deliveries prior to the end of each quarter, we weren't too surprised.  

The Tesla dealership has moved to a new, vastly larger location, something that had been overdue for most of the time we've been owners of the cars from back in 2014.   There were multiple reasons for the lack of relocation, including dealerships fighting to keep direct vehicle sales from being allowed in the state.   But they're in the new spot now, with the large parking lot in the front and today, we drove the five miles from our house to find an absolutely overflowing parking lot.

When we got our first car there was a large amount of hoopla associated with picking up your car.  It felt a little like the red carpet treatment, which is nice when you're excited about getting a new car.   The second and third cars we picked up we were ready to take ownership and head home and even had to move things along by the time we got my husband's car, saying we didn't really have any questions.

Today, we couldn't find a place to park to come in to fill out the paperwork (there was still actual, physical paperwork to sign.)  The car was running a bit late coming out because they were still cleaning it because of the number of deliveries they had happening.   We were one of four kiosks working with someone to have their car delivered to the area in front of the building where cars weren't overflowing.

There was a car carrier bringing in more vehicles for probably the next day's deliveries.   It was fair dinkum crazy there.   Still, they took the time to answer questions and didn't mind as we inspected the car prior to taking ownership.   

It's mine and it's nice and it has so many new things in comparison to the four-and-a-half-year-old car I had before.   But it doesn't feel like I deserve to get a new car.  I destroyed mine.   That's no way to get a new car.  The insurance company paid us for the pile of wreckage at the body shop, which still has salvage value as much of the car was untouched by the accident, but it in no way covered the premiums we'd paid.   

I should have been excited.   But I wasn't.   I drove it home and went inside.  My husband spent about two hours on it, doing this and that, setting up things, configuring changes, putting all the things we normally keep in it like reusable grocery bags, the handicap placard, booster seats, etc.   He programmed the garage door opener settings and generally futzed around with it.   He took it around the block to see what it drove like and stopped in a neighbor's who had been considering buying one but weren't sure on color and ran into my best friend's family walking who stayed far away because some of them are just recovered from COVID-19.  Then he came home and talked to me all about it. 

I should be excited.   And I am, I suppose.   I'll be more interested once I start driving it.   I've been driving my husband's Model S for a month now on and off as needed, but today was the first time I got back into a car that looked for all intents and purposes, like the car I climbed out of with my children, on the highway, in the middle of traffic, after slamming into the car in front of me. 

I don't have PTSD or anything even remotely like it from the collision.  I'm cautious, wary, extra aware even.   But it was an odd thing today, getting in a car that looked like my car—that I loved—that wasn't my car, only it actually was my new car.   It was surreal.   It's a beautiful car.  Tomorrow I think I'll be more excited about having it. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son had now decided he wants to make YouTube videos.   My husband and I are trying to figure out how we can make this work for him given that he doesn't have the skills to edit videos.   We've got an idea that we're going to try and execute for Christmas which will include caveats to have him learn editing if he wants to put out more than the most basic of videos.   We'll see how interested he really is when he learns there's actual work behind making those cool videos he likes to watch. 

The Tiny Gitl Chronicles:  This is going to need a lot more writing, but that'll have to be for another day.   My daughter admitted to me today that she's scared all the time.  She's scared of running into everything.   She wishes she wasn't blind that if she could just see, she could do so much more.   I cried with her and talked to her.   I took a few videos of her at her worst and sent one to her therapist, whom we haven't seen in a long time, asking for an appointment.   If it's this bad with the Prozac, I can't imagine how bad it would be without it.  Some days my heart breaks for her. 

Bathmats

It's 11:58pm and I'm lying, pretending I'm writing this an hour-and-a-half ago, thinking my day didn't get that much away from me.  The project at the other house has been progressing and hopefully we'll have it finished in less than a week.   It's caused other things to take a back seat so tonight I tried to get caught up on a few. 

What I got caught up on was other things like talking to my son about the amazing Minecraft things he's been working on—amazing in his mind, although he is pretty darned good at Minecraft creations.   Then I had to check on the printers.   Of course, I had to make sure my other "children" were doing well and kick off some jobs for them to print.   

I had a crack in the screen of my iPad that Apple says was covered under warranty so tonight I went to pick up the new iPad and have been getting it reloaded and configured.   And then there were the bathmats. 

Tomorrow we're picking up my new car.  Or the replacement car.   Or the, "gosh it's nice to have a new car but I liked the old one and wasn't quite ready to get a new car yet but since the old one is smashed to bits, it looks like there's no other choice."   And before I get the new car, I needed bathmats. 

For the past four-and-a-half years there have been two white bathmats with non-slip bottoms, cut in half and with notches for the seat belts, under the children's car seats.   They are by now, no longer white.  Little feet, little shoes, legs with dirty pants as their feet got longer and hung down lower, all added dirt to those bathmats.   It was time, I decided, to get new ones. 

I needed a certain size in white with curved edges and strong non-slip undersides.   I found some that aren't quite the same, but they'll last for the amount of time we'll need them until the children don't need their booster seats anymore.   In the morning, I'll cut them to shape and get everything ready to put back in the car that came out of the old one before they towed it away last month. 

I should be excited about getting a new car, and I suppose I am, but I don't like that the path to getting this new car was by killing my old one. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son is out of school for the calendar year.   He celebrated by staying up late and playing Minecraft.   We have to remind him he's not a YouTuber and he doesn't need to tell us every single thing he's doing and how crazy cool it is.    We do listen a lot, and he is fairly interesting, but there's only so much Minecraft droning on you can take when you're trying to work and he keeps saying, "Mom, let so then I..."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter gets cold a lot.  Lately, she'll come into our bedroom and ask if I can turn on the heat.   She fell asleep tonight lying on the head vent in the floor.   She likes when it blows hot air, the dog likes when it blows cold air. 

Secret Santa

My daughter loves to help.  She loves to do anything that gives her the chance to be useful—especially if it's in a way other people can't be.   She is more into Christmas than the other members of our family, singlehandedly decorating the house by herself from bins she found in the attic.   She's been asking about when we were getting a tree, and thankfully my husband went to get one today because we almost missed getting one as most places were sold out. 

Tonight I asked if she wanted to help me wrap presents, or more specifically, put braille tags on the presents.   I had mentioned the other day about "being Santa on Christmas day" and she got a bit alarmed because Santa wasn't here on Christmas day.   I reminded her that the phrase meant the person who handed the presents out to people from beneath the tree on Christmas morning.  Oh, that was okay in that case, she decided. 

So tonight she and I hatched a plan.   All the presents have labels on them, only to find out who the present is to you have to read braille.   We have some presents which arrived in the mail already bagged with labels.  On those, we added a braille name so she, in the guise of Christmas morning Santa, would know who the present should go to.   The remainder of the presents, bagged by me in those reusable Amazon bags I wrote about last year, are only labeled with a braille label. 

She wants to tell her father about our sneaky plan.   I told her she could if she wanted to, but it might be fun to have him discover how he needed her on Christmas morning to help him do his traditional job of Present Santa. 

The Big Boy Update:  Today was '80's and '90's day at my son's school.  His teachers sent an email that that was a lot of time to represent in clothing styles, but that's what the class voted on.   My son wore some sweatband wrist bands and a thrasher t-shirt.  Other than that, he was a little too cool for school to wear anything else.  Tomorrow, a half-day, and the last day before the holiday break is pajamas day.   He also thought that wasn't something he'd participate in.  I told him to ask his classmates to see if they were going to come to school in their pajamas.   I'll find out in the morning if he's going to wear clothes or pajamas to school. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was upset tonight because she kept losing the runner tape she was using to tape the name tags on presents.   She said she hated asking for help all the time.   We talked about how she felt like a burden and how I could understand.   I told her how I had routines for where I put things, like my keys and purse, so I could find them later.   Still, though, how many times had she heard me ask where my purse was?  Lots, she told me.  I said that routine and planning would help, but that we all needed help from time to time.

Arlie’s Series

My daughter loves audiobooks.  Tonight, she started rattling off a story and my husband stopped her and said he would record it.   This is part one of book one in the new series by my daughter.  She's learned well how stories are both written and voiced.  She uses multiple voices in her narration.  Of note: my daughter does not have a British accent.   

She seemed to trail off at the end, with her story not fully formed yet.   After recording this she talked about her plan for the next installment.   I can tell you this: things are about to get exciting.   Questions will be answered, peril will ensue.  

Arlie’s Series, Book One: Lava Floor (Chapters 1-5)

The Big Boy Update:  My son doesn't do well after school at writing thank you notes.   He takes some ADHD medication for school, but only for school.   I think he's going to grow out of the focus challenge he has, but for now, that low dose of medication helps him work hard at school.   He doesn't want to take the medication off-hours or weekends though, which makes writing thank you notes very challenging.   His brain moves too fast in one direction and his hand can't keep up.  Throw in that he wants everything to be perfect and he erases and rewrites again and again and gets highly frustrated.   So, I made the call to let him make thank you videos to some of the people who sent him birthday gifts.   He said some very sweet things.  I'll try again next year with the note writing and see if things have synched together more.   We've been advised that's likely to happen as he grows.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter's balloon obsession is just growing and growing.   I know a little secret that she's getting some balloons as a present for Christmas, so I'm not letting her have many at a time here.   She wants to blow them up everywhere.   Although she's getting better at deflating them and cleaning up after one of her Balloon Bonanzas/

Sledghammer Therapy

Update on the muck I was in yesterday: it's gone.   We came back to find the sump pump had done its job and not a drop of water had gotten into the main areas of the house.   This was a good thing because I had spent a good bit of time de-mucking my leather boots and knowing how leather is, it's going to be days before they're dry enough to go a second round in the crawl space.   

I brought my tall rain boots just in case and I know, I should have been using those rain boots in the first place.  But you know how it is: you think, "this won't be that bad, I'll just pop in and check things out."  The next thing you know, you're shoveling dirt and climbing around in mud.   Maybe it'll be the last time. 

We had to take a few pieces of furniture to the dumpster today.  Bookshelves that were on the outs a long time ago that held together only long enough to make it to the spot of dumping.   Blake said he wanted to hit one with a sledgehammer, for fun mostly, but because he'd seen some show on television where you could go into a room and smash up anything you wanted.   Sort of like the Fantasy Island of anger management or something.  

He found a sledgehammer and did, in fact, go to town on the poor bookshelf for a few minutes and then decided it was the kind of thing that was only fun for so long.   

Fast forward to tonight when I came into the kitchen to hear my daughter crying bitterly and yelling.   I had a call come in so I missed what the issue was at the time.   Afterward, we were spending some time in the living room as a family and I asked my daughter, who was piling on top of the dog, her father, and me, what she had been upset about earlier. 

She went quiet for the briefest of seconds so her father stepped in and said she had been upset because she was blind.   She wanted to make the gingerbread house that came in the mail from our real estate office as a kit, but her father was busy, she wanted to do several things, but all of them either required help or couldn't be done by her at that time.   She felt like if only she wasn't blind then she wouldn't be bored.   If she could see, then there would be other things she could do. 

I told her it was okay to be angry about being blind.   Somedays I was angry that I couldn't do anything to help her see.  That I wished I could do something.   She said a thing or two, but not much because she suddenly wanted to know if anyone wanted to wrestle.   She doesn't typically want to wrestle.   

She went over to her brother, but I could tell that wasn't going to go well and so could her father.   He said, "come over to the ottoman, there's something here for you."  She came over excitedly to find her father there.  He picked her up and threw her down in a wrestling-like fashion.   She giggled and laughed.  She wanted more. 

They had a good time and she got out what I wonder could have been very much like the sledgehammer and the bookshelf had been to Blake earlier today.   She's finally talking about being blind.   It's been a long path and she's not at the end yet, but it's another step towards acceptance. 

The Big Boy Update:  In the living room tonight my son called my daughter a, "little girl."  He expounded on this when asked, saying that ten-year-olds were two-digits old and weren't little kids anymore. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  When I was talking to my daughter tonight I told her I got mad too and that if I could, I would give her one of my eyes and take her eye in exchange and then we'd each have one eye we could see out of.   She said, "and I wouldn't let you do so."  I explained how we'd both be able to see because we'd have one eye that worked.   Her father told her he would give her one of his eyes too, if he could.   We said it wasn't something that was possible yet with science, but we could always hope so for the future.   I told her another story too.   I said that Uncle Jonathan had said when she was four that if he could give her his eyes so she could see, he would.   I couldn't tell her that story without crying.   She misses Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Margaret.   Damn, COVID-19, right?

Mud

I've been working at a house that has had some flooding.   Today, it rained and we hoped the changes we'd made would have stopped the water from coming in.   Unfortunately, we weren't that lucky.  However, we know more now than we've known before and there is good news in that while water is still coming in, it's only in the crawl space and is pumped out for us by the new sump pump. 

So good news, bad news kind of thing.   There were some tweaks though which involved me getting muddier than I likely have since I was a child.  When we realized there was water coming into the crawl space, I climbed in to, "assess the situation" as my father always says. 

Prior to today, we weren't able to see where the water was coming from.   Today, we discovered it was coming from underground sources, appearing through small openings in the walls of red brick mud behind the black plastic moisture barrier.  

It was interesting to see—water appearing out of nowhere, feet underground, trickling out of a solid wall of earth.   There were several spots, but again on the good news front, all but one was heading towards the low point where the sump pump was ready and waiting to send the water outside and away from the house. 

I got to do some digging, which was fun at first but fun things never last and it soon became a chore I wanted to finish.   Fortunately, I only had to dig a two-inch trench for a short distance, which shouldn't have been anything to complain about except the clay wasn't cooperating. 

I climbed over into the really wet zone to verify everything was all going to drainage plan and managed in the process to get exceptionally dirty.  After that, I climbed all around the perimeter of the crawl space to confirm that no water was coming from surface level.   I left a mud hand trail behind me that, had the substance been blood, would have fit right in with any horror movie. 

At the end of the crawlspace adventure, I got to do something interesting.   My husband gave me a bag and I got out of all of my clothes.   I had to hose water over my boots to get the zippers to unzip they were in such a state.   Clothes in the bag, I donned my extra tall, spare rainboots I brought for outside work, added on my raincoat, and wrapped a bath towel around my waist.   I headed to the car and looked like I wasn't nearly naked in case anyone was watching. 

I think I pulled it off 

The Big Boy, Tiny Girl We Missed You Comments:  Edna came to the house to clean today.   She hasn't been here for a while, since she got the diagnosis of breast cancer.   She said she wanted to come because she needed to feel normal and felt like everything was normal at our house.  She has spent too much time at home, worrying about what will happen with the surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation.   It's a small mass and she has a very good outlook, but it's still scary.   The children came in from school with their masks still on (common these days) and we all did the remote hello's and we missed you comments.  I've told the children all about her situation and they understand it's serious but treatable.  My daughter did ask Edna though, "are you going to lose your boob?"    Edna laughed and told her no, it was just the removal of a part of her, "boob."

Missouri

It's late, I'm tired and it's been one of those days, so I'm going to do one of my not-so-longwinded posts tonight.   The day started with my daughter coming in screaming and crying, waking my husband and me up.   Her brother had pinched her, she said, "hard!"

There was damage from the pinch, of which I have photographic evidence.  He was called upstairs, screaming and pitching a fit all the way.   They had had an argument over something really serious, life-changing, of the utmost import: who's chocolate in their advent calendars tasted better. 

I won't go into the details, because they border on the ridiculous.  No, they were ridiculous.  But to my children at the time, it was super serious stuff.   My son started the physical part, grabbing and not letting his sister go.  She pinched him, he let go, he didn't like that so he pinched her back. 

Consequences were given out and they had to fold their laundry before they could do anything else, on top of the other restrictions we'd put on their day.   At this point, my son was doing a fairly good job of talking things through with his sister, but it wasn't getting him out of the laundry.   

Two hours later and my son hadn't folded the laundry.  I have videos of him on the floor—MY TEN-YEAR-OLD CHILD—because it was such an awful thing to have to do on a Sunday.  He was sent to his room.  He threatened to leave home.  He was given his suitcase and invited to do so.   He said he wanted to Missouri, because it sounded like the word miserable, and that's how he felt. 

I told my son he could either leave home to move away or stay in his room until he folded his laundry and put it away properly.   And if he chose to stay, he would need to come to the basement to find me, apologize and to not put a single qualifier on it.   (He loves to put qualifiers on things, turning an apology into blaming instead.)

I thought he would be in his room for the rest of the day, but ten minutes later he came downstairs, walked into the room in a happy mood and said, "I put all the laundry up.  It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.   I'm sorry I was so mean and said the things I said."   I hugged him and told him I loved him.  He even hugged me back.   

And the rest of the day went smoothly.  No one fought.  Imagine that.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son is really quite good at designing things in Tinkercad, the online free CAD modeling tool targeted at children.  Tonight, he created a bowl for his teacher which is printing now.  It's an upside-down prism with another prism for a base.   He also worked on the goldfish model which will go into the bowl.  He's figured things out so quickly.  He wants to print goldfish with letters on them.  One for each of Alison's name and one for each in his first name.   Then, she can try and figure out the puzzle of what the letter fish spell when she opens her present later this week at school.   It's a very clever idea and he's having fun doing the modeling.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter came to her brother's defense earlier today when I was in the room with him.  She came in and tried to keep me away from him because she had heard a thunk and thought I'd hit him.   When I talked to her later I told her I would never hurt her brother and I tried to figure out what she'd heard.  Ah, I told her, it was the suitcase dropping on the floor from the shelf when he had said he wanted to move away.   It was so sweet for her to want to protect her brother.  She told me a secret.  She said, "Mom, I love my brother more than I love you.  I hope that's okay."  I told her it was totally okay and I thought it was wonderful she loved him so much.   I said it was also fine to love everyone just as much as you could, and that it didn't have to be measured.   Then, the dog jumped up to see her and she said, "well, I might love Matisse more than my brother."  I told her that was okay too.

Ten

My son is now ten.   It is hard to believe close to elven years ago I got pregnant and right after he was born got pregnant with my daughter.   Now I have a child who's a full decade old.  Time is a blur, although I can barely remember what it was like not to be a mother.   I do like having children and all the entrappings of parenthood.   Even if it can sometimes be maddening with all the testing children put you through. 

My son had an uneventful day with school followed by his requested dinner of P.F. Chang's.   His grandparents drove over for the ice cream cake he'd asked for and then he opened two presents: one from his grandparents and one from us.   We're letting him open one or two presents each day, so he can appreciate them more instead of the standard paper tearing off and then running off to play with the one that's the highest value at the time. 

Today, we let him play the Zelda game he'd asked us for.   He played it for many hours before we kicked him out and said he should play with Rayan, who had knocked on the door earlier.   He balked but once he was outside, with some music of his choice blaring on the speakers in the back yard, he had a lot of fun.  

He's grown so much and I'm nothing short of proud to be his mother.

The Big Boy Update:  My son's wish. when he blew out his candle, was to have his father download mods to games whenever he wanted them.   My husband said he might need to be prepared for that wish not to come true any and every time he desired a mod.   My son went with the, "but I have money for them saved up."  I'm sure he'll get some mods to games, Nana and Papa gave him a little "mad money" for discretionary spending, but my son's appetite for mods is great, and his time allotted to playing games is a limiting factor. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has decorated her tree in the front yard with all the large balls I got last year.   Save for two, which I found shattered into at least fifty pieces on the front driveway.  She was cross when I told her she had to get shoes on and help clean up the pieces.   She said I didn't want them to have fun.   She explained that the two in question were broken at the bottom of the bag when she pulled them out and that it had been fun, smashing them about on the concrete.   I told her it was okay and that I was all about fun, but that messes had to be cleaned up by the people who made them.   I helped her clean up the pieces while she told me all the fun they'd had smashing them to bits.

The Long Ago Hat

Pst...it's yesterday.   Pretend it's yesterday and I'm writing this and I didn't fall asleep at seven-thirty last night and wake up hours after midnight when it was too late write anything here.   Thanks.   I appreciate you keeping my secret.

I was at my parent's house yesterday, checking on this and that.   We're all hoping they can return for Christmas.  It's been a long time since we've seen them and I would love to have them here for Christmas. My children, husband, and in-laws all hope the same.   

While I was there, I opened a cabinet and saw something in the top shelf that I recognized.   You know how your brain can tell you you remember something, even if it was decades back?  Well, I pulled over a stool, climbed up and pulled it down.   It was, indeed the thing I thought it was.   I'm guessing it's from the 1980s and every so often my father would put it on.  

Even though it was in a cabinet, after all this time it required a bit of dusting off, and even so, I was glad I had my mask on with the carbon filter inset.   Here, is the very special hat my father would sometimes wear when (I think) he was working in the yard in the rain...

Stylish, no?

The Big Boy Update:  My son is now ten-years-old.   He refused to be greeted with birthday wishes this morning, insisting it wasn't his birthday.   By the time school was out with a celebration of brownies for his class that his father made, he was ready to have the rest of the world acknowledge he'd entered into double-digit age.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has spent a good part of the week in BOG (Beginning of Grade) assessments.   She wasn't overly keen about taking the tests, not because they were hard, she said they weren't, but because it took her away from being with her classmates for their normally scheduled day.   There is a lot of interaction with her friends, even if they're socially distanced.   She enjoys that part of school very much after being at home for so long. 

Tinkercad

My son's class is doing a secret gift swap next week with the students and teachers in his classroom.  Some of the students coordinated the event and my son was excited to come home yesterday with Ms. Alison, the assistant teacher, as his secret person.   

There are some rules about your gifts.  First of all, don't tell anyone who you have.  Second, the gift must be made by you.  And third, it should be in a brown paper bag and brought to school with the recipient's name on it on Wednesday of next week.   

I thought it would be a good opportunity to give my son a lesson in Tinkercad, an online 3D modeling tool that easily lets you create things that can be 3D printed.   The tool is targeted at children, although both my husband and I use it because it's so simple and straightforward that creating things in it is quick and easy.   It doesn't have as robust a collection of tools and features, but we're not doing things that merit that level of sophistication yet. 

My son did the bit where he rebels, makes excuses and throws a fit because he doesn't want to do something new.  Once I got him understanding that there was not going to be a choice, he sat down and proceeded to get the program and its features faster than I could teach it to him. 

Ms. Alison has several things she likes, but KitKat bars was, by far, the easiest to model.   I showed him where to find the shapes and helped place a trapezoid on the build area.   While I was looking up the dimensions of KitKat bars, my son was adding elements, scaling things, rotating other things, putting text on things and generally investigating the program. 

He got the modeling so quickly that once I showed him how to size and position the first long, thin tetrahedron that makes up one of the KitKat bar segments, he finished the remainder of the four-bar shape hiself.   

I taught him about grouping and merging objects.   Then I told him you could subtract material too.   We created some text saying, "Happy Holidays" and then set it into the bar.   With one click, the words were subtracted from the model and it looked like writing on a candy bar.  

He finished off the words and then added a moustache to one of the middle segments and sunk it into the chocolate area.   We saved the file in printable format and he picked out a color of filament he thought woudl be good for a Kitkat bar.  I told him the model would be ready in the morning and we could work on the next model tomorrow night. 

The Big Boy Update:  In a hour my son will be ten-years-old.  For eleven months, I'll have children of different ages.   Tomorrow will be a decade since I had children.   That really does not compute in my brain. It can't be that long ago.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is much more interested in what happens in cars after the colision.   She asks, "what was that," "why did you brake just then," and other questions that indicates she's paying more attention than she has in the past.   She's not having PTSD, she's just suddenly more aware.   It helps her understand what's happening when the driver drives a car.   Up until now sometimes I think she just pictures us in the car and had little mental image of what happened outside it's walls. 

Bad Bearing

There was a sound that wasn't right with my Prusa printer.   It's fairly new but I work my printers pretty hard so I looked around and thought I'd identified the problem: a bad bearing.   The bearings are tricky because if they're over-tightened when installed they can deform and over time, even over a short time, they can fail. 

One of the bearings was giving off black residue and after taking the print bed and sub-bed I could reproduce the grinding sound in the area of the bearing in question, so I set about replacing it.   There are bearings in all three axes and I think I lucked out that I had the easiest axis to get apart.   The machines are easily repaired and are even sold as a kit for people who want to experience the full build themselves.  And when I say full build, I mean a day-and-a-half's work, building the machine screw by screw, piece by piece with comprehensive documentation. 

It wasn't hard, it just took a bit of time.   I'm now recalibrating to make sure the first layer is at the proper distance from the extruder nozzle.   I didn't get anything printed today, but I learned a lot about the machine.   It was sort of fun in a way.   I don't want to work on cars or other large pieces of machinery, but I do like working on 3D printers. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son's birthday is later this week and for the first time, we won't be going to celebrate with him at school.   For his school, we send in homemade something or fruit, prepared safely.   For my daughter's school, it has to be pre-packaged and this year can't include food at all. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is very happy it's now cold enough so she can turn the fireplace on.   She gets cold easily and if we didn't put a temperature requirement on it, she would have it on when it's fifty-eight degrees outside.  

My Husband

Tolerates me.   Laughs with me.   And laughs at me.   I had gotten in from working in a crawl space and was carefully taking everything off to put it in the laundry.   I am sure I asked a rhetorical question aloud, but my husband, ever the helpful scamp, sent me this picture from the next room:

I've loved those shoes, but after this renovation project, I'm getting some new ones.   They will be officially retired to the trash can. 

b My son is on this major mission to get his father and me to play Minecraft with him.   He is asking if I can install software on my machine so I can run the particular mod he wants us to all play.   We aren't opposed to playing it with him, the problem is we have so much to do right now.   He doesn't understand, and I know it's important to him.   We're going to make time for him this weekend.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wanted me to print some instructions out on the embosser for her so she could put a KiwiCo crate project of a Divinci oven together.   I looked at the instructions and it was 85% pictures.  It was hard to explain to her that she couldn't be successful if I translated the words into braille.   Hard in that I didn't want her to be disappointed.   I told her when I got off the call I was on I would do the project with her.   She liked that idea even better and I think ended up not being disappointed because she couldn't do the KiwiCo box project she didn't realize I got for her brother because it wasn't going to be easy for her to do.   She loved making the kitchen model and ran to show her father when she was finished. 

Two Things Said

It's been one of those long days and the number of little conversations my husband and I have had catching each other up on what's happened during the day and I just feel like getting the filthy clothes I have on from cleaning up at another property off and soaking in the tub.  Oh jeez, sorry for the mental image.  Oops.   Anyway, here are two things my children said that I wrote down because children are so much fun sometimes.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was angry this weekend because get this, we said he couldn't have screens.   He gets plenty of screen time and he's quite adept at the things you do when you're on a screen, be it the computer, the Xbox, the Nintendo Switch, or iPad.   It had been probably a half-hour before he came to me and said, "I'm one of the most bored people in the world."   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got in the car after school with Blake and me.  She told me I'd forgotten something important in her backpack: some play-doh for a STEM project she had done today.   I told her I had read the email and had forgotten it but I'd get it for tomorrow.   She said, "It's okay, my boyfriend helped me out."   Blake and I looked at each other as I asked her if this was the same boyfriend that had been her "crush" last week.   She said it was but when I asked if they had been kissing she said, Not during COVID, mom!"  Blake then asked another question.   He said, "Does he know he's your boyfriend?"  The smile on my daughter's face did not diminish one bit as she said, "No."

Unexpected Announcement

We had my daughter's annual IEP meeting last week.   Maybe some people think about them as meetings to dread attending.   In our case, it's a happy time where we get to say hello to my daughter's teachers.   This year, as with most things involving meetings or people being together, the meeting was held via Google Meet. 

We got into the call and were moving along at the fastest pace a snail can go.  Fast, because we didn't have any issues and the meeting was going along at a good clip.  Slow, because there is so much that needs to go into the IEP documents themselves that it takes time to go over everything. 

My husband and I just attend.   The teachers have written everything up after having observed my daughter and finding out where she has gotten with respect to her prior goals and what they think she should accomplish over the following year.   It's a lot of words that equate to a lot of work to prepare for.   These are the same teachers who have to do the actual teaching themselves.   They have to find additional time to write up with it is they plan on teaching in the future. 

We got to the adaptive P.E. teacher.   I don't know her well, but I really like her a lot.   As Mary Jane was talking about my daughter's goals, she stopped and said, "I won't be working with her myself because I'm going to be staying at home for the remainder of the year and helping remotely."

Something was wrong.   I could tell.   We have another teacher who's pregnant and it makes complete sense to have her stay home.   Mary Jane took a deep breath and said, "I've been diagnosed with leukemia."    

None of the teachers or the vice principal on the call knew.   We didn't know what to say.  How can you possibly comfort someone on a group call through a computer and even if we had been there in person, we wouldn't be able to hug her.   I felt awful for Mary Jane. 

She started to cry and said she told herself she wasn't going to cry.   We all said things—I don't even remember what now.   Mary Jane tried to make us feel better it feels like because she told us it was a better situation than it could have been and that she should be back in the fall after treatment.  

I hope things go easily and as comfortable as possible for her.   I think Mary Jane is wonderful.   My daughter thinks so too. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son is just not going to let us know what he wants from Santa.   If I had a great idea of something he'd like it would be one thing, but I'm fresh out of ideas right now.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wouldn't tell me what she wants Santa to bring her either, saying Santa will just know.   Then, this morning, she had decided.  Fortunately, the thing she wanted (not a wheelchair) I'd already gotten yesterday.   She loves Christmas-themed, dancing, singing plush animals.   I'm going to regret the cacophony once she opens them up, but at least I got her present from Santa covered.  

Anniversary Out

It's our eleventh anniversary, but I had dinner out tonight with my closest three girlfriends.  There was complexity in scheduling the four of us and what was a brunch got rescheduled to dinner and I didn’t bother telling them it was our wedding anniversary or we might never get together. 

My husband and I didn’t mind because we're celebrating tomorrow night at Nana and Papa's house with taco dinner—one of our favorites.   Tonight it was cold but we ate outside with blankets on our laps.  This was only the second time we've been out in a long, long time and coincidentally it was with the same people last time.  Their situation was  much the same with not going out.

I had a drink and I rarely do that so now I feel overly tired.   Before I go to bed, though, I feel I should say that I have a wonderful husband.  And I mean that quite literally.  I wonder all the time how he has such a kind personality, never gets frustrated and puts up with me.  Eleven years, all good. 

The Big Boy Update: My son doesn’t believe in Santa, but he doesn’t want to lose out if Santa really exists so he keeps trying to trap me into admitting we're Santa.  So far, he hasn't tripped me up.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter totally believes in Santa and all the mystique surrounding Christmas.  She won’t tell me what she wants to ask Santa for, because she says he'll just know.  Maybe she's trying to test me after all?

When Prints Go Wrong

Sometimes I get stuck in the land of 3D printing.   It starts out small with me going downstairs to kick off a print.   Prints take hours.   For instance, I'm working on a pencil holder for a teacher gift right now.  In the end, it will hold a handful of pencils or other writing implement-type things.   The outer shell is finishing a seven-hour print in a few minutes.   The interior will take another five hours.   The print will be beautiful when it's completed and will hardly look 3D printed because I'm printing it at a high level of detail that equates to longer print times. 

I get stuck because I want to start a print but I need to change to a different filament so I have to wait for the machine to warm up so the filament can melt enough to release from the nozzle.   Then the new filament is inserted and run for a bit to purge to the new color.  

While I'm doing this I go to the computer and slice the model, make slicer setting changes, and slice a few more times usually until I get the result I'm looking for.   If the model will be decorative I want it to have very light layers so it has a delicate look, like in the way a translucent tealight candle holder might look.   

In other cases, the piece needs to be structurally sound with many wall and perimeter layers, more filled in in the middle, and thicker layer heights printed each layer.   Tonight I've been printing a wedge part my husband designed to fit under a shelf he was going to have a good bit of weight on.   

After picking the settings I need, I ask the software to "slice" the model up into lines that the printer will use to have the extruder lay down melted plastic on top of melted plastic, ultimately ending up with something that looks like what you were hoping to make. 

In any print, the first layer is the most important.  It's the most important an order of magnitude higher than any other layer.   Every other layer is built upon the first layer so the first layer sticking to your build plate is paramount.   If the plastic doesn't stick, you have a big mess when you come back. 

I get stuck because sometimes I wait to see how the first layer is going.  Sometimes I have to restart the print, and that takes more time.   Sometimes I have to make changes in the slicer and resend the model to the printer.   And sometimes I just watch because it's interesting to see. 

Today, after verifying multiple times that there were no problems with the print, I left the room.  I was printing the shim my husband had designed.   He told me he needed me to print something after I'd changed to a nozzle that wasn't going to work well with his needs.    I thought I could make it work though.   

There was a lot of plastic being laid down at once.   A huge amount.   I had changed setting to accommodate as best I could his print needs with the new nozzle that was 250% larger than the one he really needed for his model.   I had this though.   I know a lot now, right?   Surely nothing will go wrong.   Even though everyone has things happen.   It's just the way things go with 3D printing.  

I went upstairs to do something in the garage or talk to my husband or get the mail or maybe all three.   I was gone for a good while and when I finally came back downstairs I walked into the mechanical room to see the build plate completely missing from the machine.   I have no idea how something caused the strongly magnetic build plate to fling a few paces across the floor, but it had happened. 

There was filament in strands all down the side of the printer.   I hastily stopped the print.  This is the model and the spaghetti filament surrounding it.   If I hadn't caught it when I did, there could have been five times that much filament in a pile.  

The model is the rectangular thing on the left.   It looks like there is a second one under the first one.   There was a force pushing the model to the side so the layers kept getting offset.   The squiggles in the center of the model are what "infill" looks like.  In this case, it was 15% of the total center space with a gyroid pattern.   Exciting stuff, no?  

The Big Boy Update:  My son is very insistent that his father and I play The Legend of Zelda: Breadth of the Wild.   He really wants us to play it.   He's offered up his Switch and is even willing to help us if we have questions.   He loved the game very much.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter came home from school and I asked her if she did anything fun today.   She said she did, that she used the Dice Dozer in her VI class.   The Dice Dozer is a 3D printed model I printed for her teachers.   I've been printing a good bit for my daughter's class.   It doesn't get old though, hearing that people like the thigns you print.  

A Door to the Past

This is a title I mean quite literally.   Today I was over at my parent's house, looking into how water has gotten into their crawl space in the past in an effort to try and make sure it doesn't happen again.   Construction of a large home on the adjacent property which lies uphill from their house which brought with it a significant amount of impervious ground has been a cause for concern. 

Their house is one they've lived in for close to sixty years.   I was brought home from the hospital to there and grew up living at that one address.   Some children were moved around a lot.  I was never moved at all until I up and moved myself out as a college.

My father is a collector.   As a younger person I always marveled at the way he always had the thing I needed if I asked for something.   I still have that fascination about him even today.   As I've helped out recently I've found things from my personal childhood as well as general things my father collected.   There was an area he kept the soundproofing ear protection for when he was blowing leaves or mowing the yard.   He had four pairs, all of which he got at yard sales.  My father loves yard sales.   There's nothing like finding a good find for a great price. 

It got me realizing that while my father was a collector, he also didn't like to throw anything away if it might have a future use.   He's not a hoarder, he just likes solid, quality, old or interesting things.   Today, when I was in their crawl space I recognized something though.   Something that spoke to me from decades back and said, "you know me."

I moved off the ceiling tiles and brushed off the debris with my "cobwebinator", the broom I was carrying around with me, and discovered this: 

My parents redid some of their home in 1980, when. I was ten-years-old.   This is the front door, distinct in style, that I remembered.    It's been sitting in the crawl space, still solid wood and ready to be put to use after forty years in hibernation.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was doing schoolwork at home yesterday.   He did something when he didn't know I was listening that I know he wouldn't be allowed to do.   I heard him say, "Alexa, how do you spell efficiency?"   Although, I had to admit he was using his resources efficiently by asking.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter came home today and said she had the best lunch.   She hasn't been wanting to have the school lunches recently.  Initially, she insisted on it.   I asked her if she liked what she had and she told me, "Matthew, aka my crush, told me it was going to be mac-and-cheese."   Then she told me, "well, one of my crushes."  How many did she have, I asked.   "Only two.  The other one is Thomas."

They’re All The Same

Those of you who read this blog know that I'm quite passionate about 3D printing.   There is a closet full of filament of all different colors, materials, blends, appearances, and structural properties.  I "ROYGBIVed" the closet last week, ordering the filaments by color instead of brand and type.   When I step into the closet, I'm happy.   There is just so much in the way of possibilities with those filament spools sitting on the shelf. 

I went in yesterday and my hand missed the light switch as I shut the door.   For a moment, I was in darkness.   I had an idea that this is what the closet looks like to my daughter.   I kept the light off and reached out to touch the filament.   There are so many different textures in them that I thought it might be interesting to have my daughter pick a filament she wanted something printed in based on feel instead of me describing colors. 

Some of the filaments look shiny and some are more matte.   There are the metallic filaments (that are still plastic but have that look.)  There are rough filaments because they have flecks of things in them.  Some filaments feel more brittle and some feel silky smooth.  

As I felt each spool I felt for those differences.   The first three felt the same.   Then it was ten, and then fifteen.   I knew the distribution of filaments and I should have encountered several different kinds by now.   I knew in general where each filament was.   I had gone through twenty spools before I found the one brand I knew would feel different because their filament has a sand papery feel. 

And that was it.   That was the only one that felt any different.   All those filaments felt the exact same in the dark, even though visually they looked like they were very different.   Maybe my daughter would be able to tell some difference, but I was disappointed.    So many colors, and to my daughter, it's all the same.  

Is that how life feels to her?  Is it all one shade of dark?   She talks about colors.   We explain things in colors.   But she won't ever know colors.   It was a bit of a sad moment for me as I stood there in the closet that has always made me feel happy. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son had his first day of distanced learning today as an Upper Elementary student.   The school, administration and teachers have been preparing for this possibility since May.   He was able to follow his standard class schedule with Zoom meetings some of the time and independent work at others.   He got a little worked up at one point because he needed to send his teacher an email and so far, has had no experience doing so.   He is quite adept on his computer, but email was a whole new world to him this morning.   

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has distanced learning one day a week.   It is completely self-paced and the students know ahead of time what's expected of them.   She worked quickly through a lot of the material with some nice long breaks, but it was still a good bit of the day working on things she'll turn in tomorrow when she gets back to school.   Her peers turned most of their work in online in Google Classroom.   Her work is largely in braille and is hard to do on a computer.  

What Remains Behind

I drove my car for over four-and-a-half years.   That's half the lifespan of my daughter.   I loved driving my car and had many, many good memories of being in it.  

As I was leaving the scene of the accident before my car was towed away I got the knife out of the emergency kit and cut the one remaining part holding the emblem in on the steering wheel.   The airbag had town along pre-set lines as it burst out to protect me from the impact.   That logo, that I had looked at day in and day out, for some reason I decided I'd wanted to keep. 

I've never lost a car through such a tragic end.   Tragic for the car, unscathed for those of us inside that it protected.   I don't know what I'm going to do with this little memento, but I'm glad I thought to take it. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son was out of school today.   There was a student who without knowing, came to school for two days last week positive with COVID-19.   We weren't sure this morning if there was a possible connection from that student to my son.   The classrooms are all distinct with their own HVAC systems.  They keep doors and windows open with the current weather or cracked if cold.   Strict protocols are followed by all students and staff.   No interaction between classes happens.  Each classroom enters and exits from its own external campus door.   However, if there were siblings across the two classes, there could be an issue.  Thankfully we found out this evening that there is no connectivity.   The school is switching to distanced learning for the balance of the week while the classroom in question have tests performed and a full deep-cleaning is completed.   My son didn't mind a day off.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has a rolling backpack and the dang thing is still hugely heavy—and full.   She has one asynchronous day each week which means there is still a huge amount of materials moving back and forth with her.   I'm so glad we have this new option because it's a lot of weight she doesn't have to tote around on her small frame. 

Too Many Emails

I am pitifully behind on email.   Every day I make an effort to get to the computer, open my inbox(es), and beat back what feels like the never-ending onslaught of emails.  Gmail does quite a good job of filtering out spam so it's not that, it's just a lot of emails and they all need at least a minimum of time to handle. 

Some of them are companies I've purchased things with that I need to go through the, "no, seriously, unsubscribe me from your mailing list, I'm sure you have excellent offers but I'll come to you if I need anything."  Or at least that's what it sounds like in my head when I'm looking for the small, light grey unsubscribe word hidden in the bottom of their emails.  I do my best to remember to always click the, "no thank you, I assure you I'm not interested in receiving your newsletter and I don't mind missing out on your deals" checkbox when I sign up/purchase/create an account on sites, but I either miss that box (a lot) or companies like to double-check, confirm or change my preference at a later point. 

Those emails are easy to bulk delete.   It's the emails that each needs to have something done to mark them complete and move them out of my inbox that takes time.   My husband has thousands of unread emails in his inbox and the ones he does do something with, he just archives them afterward.   I sort everything I want to keep into appropriate folders.  

My husband's reasoning is sound: Gmail is Google's product and the search capability is just as good.  Should he need to find something he can just search for it in that large folder that is "All Mail".   Only that doesn't work if you don't remember enough details to search or if you want to know all the companies you've bought 3D printer filament from (a search I did recently for a friend who wanted suggestions on good brands to buy.)

Suffice it to say, over six-hundred emails in my Updates folder alone, and my head is already threatening to get a headache, thus postponing the email management and having the list even longer tomorrow.   I have a bill I need to get to one of our tenants that's multiple months old.  I let him know and he said he was fine whenever.   He's a good guy. 

Today I made a dent.  And a dent is a victory I am happy to be claiming.   I have work to do at a property this week and I have got to get this inbox under control so I can have that happy feeling that I associate with it.   For me, there is nothing quite like the feeling of an empty inbox.   Knowing I've gotten back to those that have sent me emails and have done the work needed so that I can do the responding.  

Tomorrow, both children are in school again and I plan to attack full force my inbox.  At least for an hour or so.  

The Big Boy Update:  There are express expectations on travel and visitors from my son's school.   This is not a position the school enjoys.  It is uncomfortable and they don't like getting in the middle of how people live their lives, but there is so much connectivity in siblings, teachers with children in other classrooms, and classmates of siblings that one infected family could affect a huge portion of the school in a worst-case scenario.   Several students told their teachers today about the Thanksgiving celebrations they enjoyed...with more than ten people in an enclosed area wearing no masks.   It was alarming to the teachers.   Emails were sent home to each of the families, who responded with information regarding the situation and why they judged it to be safe.   It's a different time right now but one thing hasn't changed: children will always tell on you.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter went to school today for the first time with a rolling backpack.   Her's was so heavy, even I didn't want to put it on my back.  Braille versions of textbooks are huge and heavy and for now, until her materials can be fully contracted and on her refreshable braille display, she's going to have a lot of braille to bring to and from school.   Even getting the largest child's rolling backpack we could find, it was packed this morning and I had to wedge her lunch in.   Last week was distanced learning so hopefully, it won't be like that very often.   But if it is, she doesn't have to carry the load anymore.