cleverly disguised as a responsible adult

Friday ended well. That is, it ended on time at work. I was able to get home, have dinner, and actually see my kids for a bit. It was lovely.

Saturday morning we all slept in a bit. Daddy took Alex off to his final soccer game of the season. When Momma goes to soccer, he comes over for hugs, snuggles, and refuses to play. When Daddy goes, Alex actually plays...mostly. He's still 4 and doesn't really have the attention span for an hour-long game. But he had fun, so that was good.

Emi and I went down to the basement to get some stuff done - I wanted to sew and she wanted to clean up the giant box of American Girl doll stuff my dad mailed us. They have a dog, so I refused to let her play with the stuff until we cleaned it. Everything that could be washed went into the washer. The rest...well, I gave her a box of Clorox wipes and told her to wipe everything. I'm not sure how good of a job she did, so we'll see how badly her hands break out as she continues playing with this stuff.. I hemmed a pair of leggings, then cut out, sewed, and hemmed matching leggings for Emi and me! They're a space-dyed lime green and teal spandex knit. I adore them. Emi adores them. We both decided we needed to wear them that day. Alex was jealous and wanted to know where *his* new pants were.

Then, we went out for lunch (Culver's) and went up for apple picking! It was a gloriously sunny day and it was wonderful. The kids are finally big enough that no one needed to be carried, pushed, or pulled. We picked apples, ate apples, and had a lovely long walk. We bought some cider, the apples we picked, and some apples for sauce. On our way home, we stopped by a local farm and bought pumpkins and squashes. Downwood got to recreate a viral video when he put the apples onto a drill to peel faster. It worked surprisingly well - only one exploded from the G-forces. We made apple sauce, ate apples, and hung out for the rest of the day.

Sunday morning we all slept in LATE. Emi came in and snuggled with me, which was lovely. She's getting so big and most of the time I'm up and doing stuff long before she is, so this was a wonderful treat for Momma.

I did a lot of laundry and a lot of sewing. I started getting pieces cut out for Emi's Hogswatch present (tons of princess dresses). I also pulled out the leftover green fabric and a blue jersey remnant and put together a shirt for Alex. It's super cute and he loves it. Now I need to make a similar shirt for Downwood and trim it with the last little bits of the green fabric and we could have an ADORABLE xmas card picture.

We also did a lot of cooking. Downwood boiled apple juice down into apple juice concentrate, then mixed it with more cider and honey. It's currently sitting in the brewing closet with Campten tabs, killing off any unwanted bacteria. Tomorrow, he'll put in the yeast and let it do its thing. I decided that I was tired of stopping at the gas station every morning to grab a breakfast sandwich and coffee, so I made some english muffin egg sandwiches and some breakfast burritos and put it all in the freezer. This will work. I will make it work.

I did NOT get over to the tattoo place to get my pumpkin done. They were super busy and I had too much anxiety to call early enough for them to get me in. UGH. So now I'm Fbook chatting with the owner and we're setting up a time. I finally decided that this can go on the back of my left calf. That way, it won't interfere with my plans for my right leg, with my back phoenix, or clash with my ideas for my right arm. Also, I didn't feel like dealing with the potential embarrassment of a high hip placement. My calves are lovely and deserve to be decorated, too.

So, yeah, I accomplished a lot this weekend. I was decent at adulting, even if a couple of times I just said "Heck with it" and tried to enjoy the moment. I did NOT want to get out of bed today, but werk's been reasonably quiet. This is a nice change of pace and one I will be embracing.

 The entry page just ate my very long entry about work and the past weekend. I'm not re-creating that thing.

The highlights:

• Work is terrible. I haven't gotten to do the things I enjoy in a long time. I have to do the things I'm good at and the company needs, but that kill my soul a little more each day.
• We went to the zoo on Saturday. It was super fun and we enjoyed it a lot.
• We played with some fun stuff from my "Things to do without screens" book. If you mix baking soda, salt, dish soap, and water, you can make a kind of dough to play with. Then give the kids a squirt bottle of vinegar. Yay, science!
• I sewed some of my new hacci knits into a sweater for Mom for xmas.
• I played far too much of Hatoful Boyfriend. It's the most messed up dating sim in the history of the world. You're a human, hunter/gatherer, living in a cave, getting text messages, and going to school at a prestigious pigeon academy. You must romance the pigeons. If you don't romance pigeons effectively enough, Bad Things happen. I've played through 3 endings and have probably 4 more to go. It's gloriously messed up, but really only worth it if you buy it at 75% off. It's good value for $2.50. 
• The summer is nearly over. Emi has her last ballet and swim lessons this week. Sunday-Monday are our Big Birthday Trip to Chicago. I'm not sure where all the time went.
• Emi can be an overly dramatic pill. She can also be a sweet, loving, intelligent, creative kiddo. These are not mutually exclusive.
• Ox not only knows the letters and that they can make sounds, but has figured out that words make sounds. And that Momma will say a word over and over if he keeps pointing at it. This is hilarious for both Momma and Ox. I thought he was going to either get the hiccups or throw up, he was laughing so hard tonight. This was right after he had me say QUACK about 20 times. 
• My back and neck are very messed up. I have about 60% of my normal range of motion. Ugh.

Good enough, I think.

Science is awesome. Science is amazing. Science is also very DANGEROUS!

This blog series is freaking awesome. It makes my mad scientist heart go pitter-pat.

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/

Some highlights:

• "The question is whether you're going to be able to get a long enough look at the material before it realizes its dream of turning into an expanding cloud of hot nitrogen gas."
• "Hexanitro? Say what? I'd call for all the chemists who've ever worked with a hexanitro compound to raise their hands, but that might be assuming too much about the limb-to-chemist ratio."
• "The date does make me wonder if there was war research money involved; I wouldn't be surprised. But chlorine azide has not been weaponized, nor will it be. It remains, with its chemical relatives, off in a part of chemical science that's safe from human exploitation. It's a spacious game preserve, that territory, and over the gate is the ornate motto Noli me tangere. Take heed.

And it just keeps going and being utterly giggle-worthy, especially if you spent a great deal of time in chemistry labs. It's awesome and makes me vaguely nostalgic for college.