Gia and I just sat here and she “read” these 19 books all by herself for about 30 minutes. She got them all off the shelf one at a time, sat down, flipped through them, then put them up against the couch like this (with my help). I didn’t get individual pictures of her reading the first few books, but here’s most of them.
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Tonight daycare did a “Parents’ Night Out”, where they kept the kids for a couple extra hours. So Jen and I took the chance to go see The Martian. It was really good. I’m no expert, but the science behind it all seemed pretty reasonable until the very end. I won’t give anything away, but the whole “Iron Man” thing really bugged me as unrealistic. But overall a very good movie. Plenty of tense moments mixed with a lot of Matt Damon just being a goofball talking to himself.
We saw it at the Springfield Town Center, and this was the first time we’ve gone there. The seats all recline with foot rests. It’s like watching a movie in a La-z-boy. Outstanding.
During the movie I got a call from daycare saying that Valentina was running a slight fever and was a little fussy, but we didn’t need to pick her up yet. So we called back after we left the theater and they said she was okay, so we went ahead and finished our date night by going to dinner at Saratoga Pizzeria, a little Italian/Greek place near our house. It’s nothing special, but the sauce on their pizza is fantastic.
And of course afterward we went and got the girls. V was really fussy, but mostly because she hadn’t really napped much. She passed out pretty quickly once we got home.
I hate saying it out loud because it sounds so pretentious, but we have people come and clean our house once every two weeks. They do a great job, and keep us from having to worry too much about the minutiae of daily life, like scrubbing toilets. And no, don’t think that just because I work from home now that I can do it all myself. I always thought that when I started this job I’d have time to do more around the house, but that hasn’t really been the case. I’m always busy. But it’s busy doing stuff that I love, so hooray for that.
This isn’t at all what I started writing this post about, but I ended up here anyway. Somebody posted this in one of our Slack channels today, and said the center was Automattic…and I think I agree. I’m not saying I’ll be in this job for the next 30 years, but I’m incredibly happy to be here right now.
But now on to what I really started to say here – We have cleaning people come every couple weeks…and rather than sit there while they clean around me, I use these days as a reason to get out of the house and work somewhere else for a few hours. Normally they come in the morning, and I come back home after lunch and the house is clean, but this week we had to reschedule for a different day, and they ended up coming in the afternoon (I know, because I’ve been spying on the baby monitors). So I’ve been out of the house all day, migrating between different wifi hotspots.
I started out this morning at the Deli Mall Cafe, across from the Springfield Mall. I was actually trying to go to Barnes and Noble, but they weren’t open yet. The cafe was nice, but I was the only one in there, and I don’t think they get a lot of laptop jockeys. I felt a little uncomfortable, so I left after an hour or so.
Then I moved to the Burke Library, where I sat for almost 3 hours. I got a really nice table in a corner next to a window with a power outlet. I even set up my iPad as my second monitor using Duet Display (well worth the $15 investment).
Next I had to get lunch, so I went to Panera and sat outside there for at least an hour, maybe close to two. I got a lot of work done, but ended up posting a problem I was having on an internal blog (using P2) right before leaving.
Next I stopped by the post office to mail a dead USB stick back to PNY for replacement, and while I was there I got an alert on my phone that somebody had replied to my post with a potential answer. So when I got back out to the car I opened my laptop (tethered to my phone for wifi) and checked it out, and sure enough they had solved it.
After that I finally went home…only to find that the cleaning people were still there. So of course rather than talk to people I opted to turn the car around, and now I’m sitting outside at Starbucks writing this epic post. Next I’ll probably run in the grocery store next door and pick up something for dinner before heading home for real.
It’s been a long day, but I’ve been just about as productive as I normally am.
Next time I think I’ll try to ride my bike instead of drive. I’m just a couple miles away from a shopping center with Starbucks and Chipotle, so I’ll be set for most of the day there and I won’t have to go far. And if I was feeling really ambitious I’d bring the bike trailer and fill up on groceries too. But I can almost guarantee that I won’t be ambitious.
I’ve been terrible the last week or so about keeping up with posting every day like I was planning. So it goes.
To catch up, here are a couple of galleries. First up, Halloween!
Next up, we had some professional photos taken by Beth T yesterday, and they came out great! Here are a few highlights:
We had a good Halloween weekend here. Costume party at daycare on Friday, birthday party with petting zoo and trick or treating on Saturday, and a visit to Nall’s to see Penny, chickens, and pumpkins on Sunday.
Oh, and my Halloween decorations definitely scared a couple kids. I have a good thing in the bushes that shakes and growls with light up eyes whenever anyone walks by. It was a hit!
I’m still waiting on my pictures to upload (NAS -> Jen’s laptop -> Google Photos), so I don’t have any good ones convenient to my iPad to post, but I’ll put some up to tomorrow. The best I can do for now are these pictures from dinner tonight at Macaroni Grill…which happened to be the best meal out we’ve ever had with Gia. She actually ate well and didn’t throw a fit. Well, just a tiny one, but it was over quick. Maybe we just need to go to restaurants where they let you color on the tablecloth.
They had a Halloween party at daycare today. We took the good pictures on the real camera, but here are a couple I took on my phone of the girls at the playground after the party.
By request, here’s a video of Valentina standing up. Gia’s a little reluctant to let Val use her stool, but that’s okay.
I just got a new iPad (refurbished) so I can test the WordPress app for iOS. It’s really hard to get used to…I’m so accustomed to Android, everything here is new and different and scary. I really miss the always-available ‘back’ button. Not having that makes it difficult to navigate through iOS apps. I know there’s usually a back button at the upper left of every screen, but that’s so far out of my way as I’m holding the device. I also miss being able to organize my home screens to remove infrequently used apps, and to place the icons where I want rather than automatically shifting them all to fill the screen from the top down.
But I do really like the fingerprint reader, I’m glad Android is finally catching up there. The screen is also fantastic. Now I just need to get a case for it so I don’t freak out if the kids ever get their hands on it.
Gia’s been pretty fussy all weekend, and had a weird rash on her cheeks. So we took her in to the doctor this morning, and they said it was generally nothing to worry about, but she does have a minor ear infection. She probably could have gone in to daycare, but she’s still been pretty irritable (she put up the biggest fight I’ve ever seen in getting back into the car seat).
So instead we’re home watching Tinker Bell. There are a ton of Tink movies on Netflix, and they’re all actually pretty good. Don’t judge.
Skit Skat Skoodle Doot 