Tomorrow, I Think Tomorrow

I'm going to catch up tomorrow.   I really think I'm going to.   I mean I really need to catch up on everything, right?  Surely it's doable.  I hope it's doable.   I got a few hours of sleep, but tonight, I'm going to sleep early.   Well, earlyish. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son had a good trip today with his school to a 4H camp and he came home late, but happy.   I'm so glad he's had a chance to do a field trip or two this year.  Even if they've been day trips only. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is asleep in the closet of filament.   She is now warm with the dehumidifier on and is going to be hard to wake up and get to bed.   I've been known to fall asleep in there myself too...

Excitement Can Lead to Frustration

This morning I found something online that was exciting.   Someone had contacted Filament Stories that was someone big in the whole 3D printing world.  It made things easier and harder because that meant we needed to do a response.   Or rather wanted to do a response.   The part that it made easier was it was in regards to a video we'd been working on already and the message made the video's content much easier to present. 

The video still needed to be done though.   It would be the longest video we'd put out.   Only we'd been working on the content for several weeks in one form or another so it shouldn't be hard to just reshoot it and put it out with a different spin on it.   This would be easy. 

At 3:20 when my husband told me as he was heading off to get my son, "we're almost done" because I was fretting that it would take until 2AM, I told him, "no, we're not."

It is easily going to be after two before this video gets out.   Because things always happen.  Always.   I did not want to be right.  I would have loved to be wrong.   If I sound cross, it is because I am.  

Anyways, regardless of being frustrated by something going wrong every time or taking longer, or needing to be reshot or whatever, this is an exciting thing to happen.   I still can't believe how many people and companies are getting in touch with us.   We're small, but apparently we're doing a very good job, even if it's at 2AM

The Big Boy Update:  My son has to be up for a day field trip to a nature camp at six in the morning.   That meant he couldn't get to sleep until extra late because of either the excitement or the thought he had to go to sleep early. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been distraught.   Her favorite character in the series of books we've been listening to died.   And he didn't get brought back to life in the fantasy books about witches and Greek gods.   Not only that, his girlfriend (they were in high school) who never had a chance to become his girlfriend because they hadn't gotten around to professing they cared for each other yet, also died, being turned to stone by Medusa.   It was a tough end of the book series for my daughter, who had her favorite characters, and those two were her absolute two by far.  The Author did leave the series hanging in such a way that she could write more books.   I told my daughter that perhaps the two will be reunited again someday yet. 

Happy Vomit Birthday

Today is my husband's birthday.   The plan was for Nana and Papa to pick my daughter up from school and take her to their house.   My husband would pick my son up, take him to Code Ninjas and then we'd all meet for dinner at the club at their outdoor seating.   

We don't eat out much, but dinner early and outdoors seemed like a safe bet.   On the way over, my husband talked about driving scores from Tesla, something new you can elect to participate in.   The higher your score, the sooner you might be invited to join the full self-driving beta.  

We talked about poor drivers and did so through the rush hour traffic.   My son was in an abysmal mood, complaining and just being mean.   He asked for dad to drive "nicer: a few times, which his father said he'd do.   We called to say we were parking as we pulled into the parking lot and were close to finding a spot up front in the mostly empty parking lot when...my son vomited all over the back seat. 

My husband quickly pulled in, I jumped out, opened my son's door and he vomited again...aiming again directly on the seat instead of the pavement.   

He got out and apologized.   He didn't mean to get it on the car, we could tell.   He was just confused it all happened so quickly.  Sometimes he gets car sick.   Not often, but it can happen.   My thought was that it was related to the discussions about driving and the busy traffic, coupled with him wanting to be out of the car after a long day at school. 

Fortunately, a quick call to Nana and the great good fortune of timing netted her a shirt and shorts from the pro shop in the building just as they were closing.   My son, blocked by his father and me in the open door of the car, changed quickly and we went into dinner, my son looking the best dressed of the group in his light blue collared shirt and navy shorts.

He had eaten French fries an hour prior, so what was in his stomach wasn't even that bad.   It was just a mess.   Dinner was lovely, even though it didn't start out that way. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son felt very badly about vomiting his his father's car.   He was both calm and kindly apologetic.   He even called out to Nana on speaker phone, saying thank you for getting him new clothes.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter and I love cookie cake.   She and I, along with Papa, would have consumed half of the cookie cake ourselves if we had been allowed.   

Othello

My daughter and I play Othello a lot.  Initially, some time back, she only played with the vertical and horizontal directions for valid flips.   We let the game go for a while but we're back playing in full force now.  When we got back into it it took her a bit to get caught up on the strategy.   Or I suppose we were both learning strategies together, finding out what made bad moves and what would set the other person up for a great move that made you wonder what you were thinking with your last move. 

We're both getting better every game and I'm not playing easy for her, mostly because she's good, but also because learning how to lose gracefully is something she needs practice in.   Interestingly, we have tied a number of times.  

It took us a good while to play initially, but we're getting faster and faster.   We were targeting a ten minute game tonight—something I knew we weren't going to make.   I decided to let the game go to the end because we were moving faster than we had in the prior games.   She won.   She killed me.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son had another night terror just now.   He is so confused when it happens and he doesn't seem to fully wake up, even though it seems he's awake in many ways.   He finally settled down, let go of my hand and went back to sleep peacefully. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was so upset at the middle part of our Othello game tonight.  She was trying to control her frustration but it was hard.   When it was clear at the end that by me having so many pieces available, she had a lot more to flip, she was able to easily win.   She felt sorry for me and was trying to go easy on me.  I told her she should play to the best of her ability.   When I lost (badly) I did not pout or even complain.   She was a gracious but not boastful winner.  On the balance, it was a good game in many ways.  

To Frustration and Beyond

The title was meant to be said in the Pixar Toy Story style of "To infinity and beyond!"  I have had a lot of anxiety over a video I need to get out.   It is pivotal for several 3D printing and social media reasons which I won't bore you with.   Last weekend I swore I was going to get the video out by the end of this week.   I was going to work on it until I dropped and it would get out, no matter what. 

I had vague ideas of what I would say in the video.   The video evolved again and again over the week.   And we were so close to finishing it—until we thought maybe it shouldn't be the way we'd structured it.  So last night we abandoned the main video and put one up on Beer filament, something I'd been planning as a backup.  

I'm so frustrated, for reasons that are too complicated to enumerate, but at this point, I need a break from working on the video, which is under five minutes.  Maybe by the end of next week, who knows.   

The Big Boy Update:  My son watched The Secret of Nimh with his father tonight.   We'd been wanting him to watch the movie for years but it took trapping him and getting him to watch five minutes before he agreed.   Five minutes in and he was hooked. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been making friends, which makes her more happy than anything.   She had two friends she played with today.  One of whom she disappeared and we found them halfway around the neighborhood in Ashley's little jeep electric car.   We had a discussion with them about it being okay, but they needed to let us know if they were going somewhere so we didn't worry.

Six Days

We've been filming a video that has been challenging, to say the least.   There are lots of things to consider in how we approach it and we've gone through several iterations.   We thought were close to finalizing the video and had planned on getting it out tonight, but we both had second thoughts today. 

We're used to creating videos that are under sixty seconds.   They have to move at a fast pace with the intention of every second being as interesting as possible.   That's the social media realm we're publishing in via Instagram Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. 

When viewers have the ability to swipe up, over, down, etc. to go to the next item because your content isn't interesting (enough), it has to be interesting enough to keep them watching your content, because there is always other content that might be more interesting just a swipe away. 

So for today, I am wearing the same shirt for the sixth day, because we keep refilling things, trying to get the long format YouTube video how we want it.   Long format YouTube isn't the same and can be more relaxed, but we've done short format so long now that we can't think any other way. 

I really wanted this video out and done.  It is bothering me for several reasons, mostly because I'm not sure how it will be received.   The feedback and comments we've gotten so far has been almost completely positive and supportive.   Amazingly supportive.   So we'll see.  

If I'd known about this when I bought the shirt some time back, I would have bought two.

The Big Boy Update:  My son wanted to go out on his own today at the park.   I was with my daughter and he was making friends and having a good time and I wasn't worried about him at all.   When it was time to go, he found me and we left with no complaints. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter met a new friend today, Grace, who is blind.   She and her older sister became fast friends.   So much so that when it was time to leave, she ended up staying with and going home with their parents to play together until dinner time.   Having a friend who is blind is very helpful in many ways.   They live close and we now have future videos planned.  

Turkey Dinner Candy Corn

I was picking up a prescription yesterday and walked past the candy aisle completely not by accident.  I was looking for one of my favorite Halloween candies and while I didn't find that, I did see the most unusual thing—Brach's candy corn in a different colored package.

There was a turkey on the front.   Of the bag of candy corn.   I picked it up and read, "Turkey Dinner + Apple Pie and Coffee Candy Corn".  What?  This sounded odd.   And I like odd.   The flavors were Green Beans, Roasted Turkey, Cranberry Sauce, and Stuffing.   I got two bags. 

I showed my husband, excited about this new find when I got home.   He didn't seem to care.  How could he not care about crazily flavored candy corn?  So I did the next best thing: I messaged my mother tonight, the person in our family who always loved candy corn.   I'm saving the bag for when I see her next so we can try it together.   

The Big Boy Update:  My son sent an email to his friend today, having been given permission to get on the computer to do this task.   He wanted to get in a game but he didn't dare, because he didn't want to lose screens for the rest of the weekend.   What he did do though, was start looking at all the settings and macros he could set for his new, special mouse.   I had to kick him off because he was pushing no screen time, even though he wasn't in a game. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter told me today as she was getting in the tub, again, for the fourth day in a row, setting a new cleanliness record for herself, that she would take a bath upstairs but there was no tub in her room.   I told her I had suggested moving to the other room when she moved out.   She wanted that room though because it had been Nana and Papa's.   I told her she could move, but she decided even without a tub, she wanted to stay where she was.