Today was a nice day, yet we didn’t go on any adventure, just did our regular stuff, school, work, run, some shopping and we got to do something we never did before, redeem the deposit you pay on bottles and cans.
The girls are on a really good pace with school, great attitudes and just being self sufficient for most of their work, just getting it done. I basically just wake Bia up around 5:45am (Pacific time), she logs in to her class and goes from there. The only thing I do at some point is help double check that she didn’t miss any work she needed to do. For Bella, I first open her computer and look at the work she has for the day, then I take all the material out, books, morning work sheets, etc and leave it all ready for her. She only wants to attend the ELA class live, so I wake her up at 6:50amPT, for her class which is at 9:10amCT (7:10amPT). Once Bella is up, I go over the to dos for the day, and she takes it from there. For some time now, she has been doing it all from there, and usually only needs help with Science when there is any.
Bella finished her work around lunch time, and Bia finished after lunch. Bella read her book after lunch, while Carol took a nap.
Carol continued working on editing videos, and was helping the girls as needed in the morning. She made lunch, then took a nap after lunch as she had a headache, and when she woke up late afternoon she wanted to go to town to do some shopping, so we all got ready and we went.
I worked on more posts, and getting caught up, I’m getting close to being 10 days behind on posting compared to where we are and would like to keep it at around 5-7 days, so I worked on that today and will work on that tomorrow as well. I had a few work calls as well, and also went for a run.
That cow from yesterday was there again, I felt like she said Hi today 🙂 The day was nice and warm, and no cold wind, so I ran with just a dry fit shirt on and I was actually warm.
When I got back from my run it was almost noon, and Carol and the girls were outside doing perler beads, and we had a new next door neighbor, they were washing their huge dog when I arrived. I was inside getting water when I heard them say “ok girls, you can pet him now”.. hahahaha… they had asked if they could pet the dog, and the owners washed the dog first so they could. That dog was BIG! 170 pounds big! They chatted with the neighbors and petted the dog while I took a shower.
After my shower, and while Carol finished lunch, I got the mini washing machine we have and washed my running clothes. I only have two sets, so I have to wash them when they are both dirty, otherwise I’ll have nothing to run with until next laundry day, which is usually on Monday’s. Running clothes usually dry fast, so they came out of the spin cycle almost dry. You can see the blue machine behind Bella in a picture above.
When Carol was taking a nap, Bia was finishing her school work. Bella was reading, and when she finished she joined me outside with her computer. It was warm outside, the sun was shining, so great to be outside and enjoying. When Bia finished, she joined us outside. I had the girls do their jump rope activity for school as well, so they could check that off their list.
Carol woke up, we got ready, gave the girls some snacks, and went downtown. Carol wanted to go to Fred Meyer to exchange some pants she bought that came with a hole, so we went there first. We had been saving our empty cans and bottles since we arrived, at least most of them (we did throw a few bags away), as they do pay you back on the deposit here, and there are machines at Fred Meyer. So, when we got to Fred Meyer, Carol went inside, and the girls and I went to the machine that takes the empties. It was a cool experience for us as I had not done this before either.
You put the bottle or can in the machine, the machine spins it trying to read the bar code, and if it is a participating brand, the machine takes the can and adds $0.10 to your tally. Ten cents is nice! The girls had fun putting the cans (and a few bottles) in the machine and watching the dollars go up, ten cents at a time. There were a few brands the machine rejected, and the message said “brand not participating” or something like that. There was a specific bottle that the machine would spin, read, take in, and once it was on the other side we just heard the bottle crashing and breaking on the floor. hahahaha.. I’m guessing someone forgot to put the bin on the other side? No idea, but pretty much all those bottles broke once they went through. The machine also glitched a few times and rebooted, but fortunately it spit out a ticket with our “credit” in the process, so we didn’t lose anything.
At the end, we had $4.30! Hahahahah…. Girls were excited when I told them we’d go in the store and exchange the tickets for cash, and we’d add the cash to their money, so they can do something with it later.
Oh, we had stopped at some mattress stores before going to Fred Meyer. Carol has been having some discomfort and we still have the crappy original mattress under our memory foam pillow top, and that is starting to show, so we are looking at mattresses. We didn’t find anything we really liked, for a price we really like, so we’ll keep looking.
From there we hopped to Dollar Tree, then Walgreens, and then we went back. By time we got back it was feeling cold outside, and the mist in the air was getting everything wet. I started the grill as we were making pizza, and Carol got things ready for the sauce and toppings, and the girls showered. Bia was reading her book while we got things ready. We ate, and the girls got ready for bed. I told them since tomorrow is Friday, they should be well rested so we can have a long day, get the fire going, etc.
After the girls went to sleep, Carol and I stayed up. I worked on some trip planning, Carol tried to work on editing and I got the new external drive to work on her computer, and also “consolidated” all her FinalCut files into the same folder in the new drive. Carol had the TV on, so we watched some TV. And that was it. Low key day.