Ok ::cracks knuckles:: I’m up at my normal early time (from when my oldest leaves and before my daughter wakes, I have writing time) so I can finally get back to Monday blogging. To what end, I don’t know. I’m thinking about going back to the free wordpress stuff instead because I don’t really blog for any reason other than self satisfaction.

ANYWAY, the weekend was not bad at all. I didn’t have class Friday because I’d done conferences with 2 of my 3 classes so I got in a quick run and then we put the cover on the pool. I always think it’s going to be as easy as unfolding it and putting it on but it’s not: you have to go around to all the in-ground bolts, unscrew them, clean and lubricate them and THEN put on the cover. Don’t forget one final pool once-over before that. But it’s on and all we have to do now is watch water/salt levels and use the blower to get crap off the top.

Ash and I went to our new favorite Mexican spot, Maria Maria, and boy did I overeat. They have a triple dip appetizer (salsa, cheese, guac) that’s so good and I got a carnitas bowl, which was not huge but to be honest, I simply eat less than I used to so getting over-full is a short trip. I guess it was that pumpkin pie blizzard at DQ that put me over; I only got the mini size! When we got home, we started watching the new Dune but it was BORING. Kids got home and we got sidetracked. Ended up blowing leaves off the roof then getting ready to head to our friend’s daughter’s birthday party, which was pretty fun and we managed to be home around 10ish.

Saturday, I woke first as per usual and we eased into the morning. Ash and Dakota ran 3 or so miles and we prepped for Isaac’s morning game. They almost tied, giving up one last point in the fourth quarter. Isaac had an amazing header to stop a corner kick from scoring so I was happy with that. He has two final practices and a 3-game tournament and we put ASG to rest for a bit; he and Dakota are going to do city winter soccer. We requested coach Todd, who we’ve had throughout the years for soccer, football, and baseball; here’s hoping that my friend, Toni, at the city honors said request and maybe we can get our weeknight practice around the same time. City sports are far less brutal when it comes to obligations and cheaper, so if a team sucks, so what?

We had Sonny’s for lunch and then didn’t do too awful much the rest of the day. I puttered about, cleaning and whatnot, then we decided to brew twice, which is not difficult, per se, but does take up a lot of time. From about 2-9:30 we were in the process. We did manage to squeeze in a walk during the second brew’s mash time so that was good. We ended the day with a sauna session and I slept well!

Sunday, Dakota and Ash left early to run five miles and I got started on laundry and making tacos for lunch. Again, I overate and it wasn’t even that much! I will say, we had the goal of floating this one keg but it never did happen. We recently bought a keyser from a guy in the brew club who wanted to cull through his collection of stuff and included in the three kegs we got was about 1/3 left of a brown ale he’d made. It’s fine, nothing special, but we need to float it so we can move something else in. I didn’t even drink THAT much but did feel overly gross. I suppose the one downfall of intermittent fasting is I just get too full, too fast now. Oh well. Watched the rest of Alice in Borderland, which I dare say was better than Squid Game, and went to bed far too late for a Sunday.

Today, I have a plan for my classes, so that’s good. Due to the conferences I was slightly unaware of what we needed to be doing. It’s that time of the semester where the kids pretty much know what they’re doing but I start to struggle with determining what aspects of essay-writing I should focus on.

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OK, per our guest conductor, I am going to aim for the acrostic of “pumpkin” using this theme: 1980s hit songs that fit the bill. LOL. I’m lazy like that.

P:

U:

M:

P:

K:

I:

N: