Age Does Not Bring Wisdom, But it Does Give Perspective
Friday, November 24, 2023
Post-Thanksgiving Day
Sunday, October 15, 2023
Your Hands Are Like Mimi's
Saturday, October 14, 2023
Acne Control (Among Other Things)
Friday, October 6, 2023
What's Been On My Mind
Every day I think about something I want to write here. But every day ends without anything written. I'm caught in the middle of two things: wanting to write something that's happened or is going to happen in our lives, and wanting to just go to sleep. Going to sleep has been winning.
If I could just get to the computer and write something before the end of the night I think it would be easier. For instance, it's 3:34PM here now. I just returned from picking my son up at school. I'm going to spend a few minutes writing something and then, ta da, I can go to sleep *and* have a blog post written.
The trouble is getting here and doing the writing. Let me do a quick update on things in general:
The Middle School Son Update: son still loves video games and screens above anything else. He is doing well in public school we think. He has good grades except for one class in which he has a 50, which is well into failing. He had COVID at the beginning of the year. It may possibly be assignments he never did from that time, but he's not overly worried in finding out and correcting it. Otherwise he has A's and one B. He's happy, he comes home from school and sits down to do his homework immediately. We don't have to prompt him. In fact, it's Friday and he is sitting at the table reading so that he completes his page reading for today before launching into what will likely be a video game heavy three-day weekend here.
The Middle School Daughter Update: My daughter has been at Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama all week. She didn't want to go right before but once she was there she apparently had an amazing time. We had her bring her phone this time so she could call us, which she did. She sounded like she was a leader of the girls around her, that she was taking a role of the experienced camper. Whatever it was that changed there, she had a very good time. She called me at midnight last night after their graduation celebration and was in high spirits. I'm really happy she enjoyed the week. I hear she's already excited about going next year.
That House We're Building: Things have finally started. It took a long, long time for permits to be issued after the house was designed which also took a long time. The amount of time we've spent picking things out for the house has been far more time than I ever thought we would spend on it. Now that things are started, it feels like it's moving fast. Faster than I thought it would.
Four Legged Family: Cheerio has an infection in his ear. We think. After some X-Rays to look into it because he's tilting his head to the side, he has antibiotics and an NSAID. Two weeks of feeding him medication he hates is going to be fun, but he needs it. It may not fix the issue. I really hope it does. If it doesn't it could be more complicated to address.
Saturday, September 2, 2023
Demolished
We have the Land Disturbance Permit, the Building Permit and the Demolition Permit. They're moving working on the land right now, clearing a path to the house while preserving as many trees as possible (my mission, which has been challenging as I am running into resistance from every direction). Trees are being saved, although some may have to come down when we see what the overall placement of things will end up being.
The road has moved quite a bit, initially away from the highest point in the lot, which would have been better from a drainage perspective but would have been nearly in the back yards of the closest neighbors. I wouldn't want someone's driveway in my back yard and we did want to have a more private feel, so we shifted the driveway. It became less straight because there were some very old trees we could save if we moved it left a bit here, right a bit there, etc.
That's turned out to be a good decision because it looks just beautiful as you look at the path coming in. The canopy of trees has been largely preserved while opening up the feel you have while you're going down or looking down the driveway in either direction. Rob, our project manager, builder, etc. said it was one of the most beautiful sites he'd worked on. That all goes to my husband, who found and championed the site. It really was a find.
Today was the demolition of the existing house on the property. My in-laws, husband, builder, and I came to watch as Shaun pulled the house down while saving two large trees that were within three feet of the building. Our builder said it couldn't be done. Shaun said he could do it. And he most definitely did. He also plucked the chandelier with the excavator so we could save the last custom glass pieces on it. He's something else.
My son: was sick today. He didn't have COVID and he had no fever, but when I came to pick him up mid-day a father was picking his daughter up who had similar symptoms.
My daughter: was sad about the house being demolished. I told her I was too, but in order for us to build our house it had to come dow. That made her feel a little bit but not much better. I did hate to see the house come down, even if it was in a mess of a state.
Saturday, August 5, 2023
I'm Still Here
I've been taking a break from the blog. I loved doing my posts every night for years. Of late, we're working on a video late at night after the children go to sleep, and when we're done, I want to just go to sleep—only I have a blog post to write. I should write them earlier in the day, I know, tell me about it. It just doesn't seem to happen that way for a collection of reasons, all of them my fault.
But I'll be back, and I have a slew of topics that have happened since I last wrote here. I'm going to backdate the posts and catch up on everything. Currently, I have a project I shouldn't have accepted from a company that wanted to send us a printer. It sounded like a good idea at the time; it was anything but.
I have set a drop dead date of the end of this weekend for publishing the video, which won't be what I wanted it to be, but the printer is poorly documented and entirely different from anything else on the market. I'll do the best I can to be honest while also telling the truth about what my thoughts are on the printer. I can do it, but it won't be the video I wanted to do. I can't spend more hours figuring out things that aren't supported with documentation by the company or the small number of people who have bought the printer. It will be something, though. Typically, we require up-front payment, but my producer let them pay afterward since they were sending the printer, which was not inexpensive.
Never again will I do that. I would rather not have the printer than have a question of if they will pay us or not. It is far, far too easy for companies to just not pay. I have fellow content creators who have chased down companies and gotten angrier and angrier, feeling entitled to the money when they have virtually nothing to stand on and are without a legal team to pursue what is very small money in comparison to legal fees. Couple that with the companies typically being in China, and, well, you're never seeing the money—which is why we have an up-front payment policy in almost all cases.
I do trust my producer and the decisions he makes, but I would rather not have the worry about the work we're doing, which is not low-quality, and not have the product to show. Some people don't mind post-payment, but most people I know work that way. As we grow, it will be easier because companies want exposure from our audience. That's always the thing, though, will we see growth? If so, how much and how fast? So far, we've been very fortunate to have over half a million total subscribers/followers we now have across the platforms we publish on, but things could always change.