The first half of August

 August is barely half over, and we've already had two bouts of wildfire smoke drift in and out. Clips from my journal:

Monday, August 2nd: Blast this wildfire smoke! Jeff and I spent some time discussing and finalizing our cross country schedule for this fall. It feels strange and good to have an actual schedule for an actual normal season! 2020 kind of killed my zest for thinking far ahead and making dependable plans, so knowing what the next 3 months will look like feels new.

I also hashed out when to do piano lessons. Jay decided not to do piano lessons, and I am equal parts sad and relieved--sad because he didn't make it too far in piano, relieved because he will be pretty busy with cross country and track and school and church activities so it would have been hard to squeeze piano in. Since I already paid for two lesson slots, I decided to toss Amber into piano lessons, even though she's barely starting first grade. We'll see how that goes! 

This afternoon, Jeff and I went to Costco, where we got a large baby Yoda pillow. Jeff declared that it would belong to him, and he would share it with the kids as long as they didn't fight over it, haha. The people in the checkout put the baby Yoda in the front of the cart where kids usually sit. It was funny watching Jeff push the cart with his new soft squishy green child facing him!

For FHE tonight, we did some Come Follow Me and then at the kids' request, played scripture golf, where one person reads a chapter heading in the Book of Mormon, and everyone guesses the corresponding book and chapter. I was surprised that they requested such a tough game, but Jay and Rose did quite well. I am impressed with their growing scripture knowledge. 

After FHE, we watched another episode of Merlin--for the third night in a row. It's so fun having a show that all five of us enjoy! Jeff and I watched more awesome Olympics tonight. The men's steeplechase was exciting! The women's 5000 was impressive! I love the Olympics. It makes me wish that these professional sports like track and field were televised more regularly and accessibly, even in non-Olympic years.

Tuesday, August 3rd: The smoke levels dropped to orange today (AQI 120), so it was safe (safer) to run outside! Rose and Amber went to their first group piano lesson of the year this evening. Their teacher does group lessons in August and then individual lessons starting in September. Amber was very excited to finally be able to start piano lessons. Jay felt a little sad to stop taking lessons, but still feels good about his decision. For a 12 year old he has an uncanny ability to see the need to balance his time and energy.

Wednesday, August 4th: I was responsible and busy all morning today with things like cross country practice, vehicle registration renewal, and Relief Society secretary work. I am trying to shift my mindset and not despise my nemesis activities like addressing RS birthday cards and cooking dinner. It's slow going.

This afternoon I took Jay and Amber to the library to pick up Jay's reserved Wheel of Time books. I was pleasantly surprised to find a new book that I've been on hold for for more than 2 months waiting for me too! Amber carefully selected her ten books and I generously let her get an eleventh book because it was on her stack. Rose didn't want to come because she was reading on her kindle. That seemed like a good enough reason not to go to the library, haha.

We've been doing family scripture/come follow me at dinnertime this week, and it's working alright. Tonight we sang Love at Home as suggested in the Come Follow Me book (Jeff and I couldn't resist cheesy facial expressions while we sang, haha). I cooked beans and rice for dinner, with poblano cojita sausage for burrito bowls. And I didn't get annoyed while I did it. Yay! I may have gotten a tad peeved during cleanup, but my goal is focused on cooking right now. One step at a time!

Thursday, August 5th: Amber knocked her bowl of dry Honey Bunches of Oats cereal off the table with her elbow this morning. 

"Ohhh no! Why did this have to happen?" she moaned. The tiny flakes scattered far and wide, so there was no point in trying to scoop them back into her bowl. 

"Bummer! Get the broom and dustpan and sweep it up," I told her.

While she swept, she muttered the funniest, unlikely comments for a 6 year old:

"Uggggh, this is really hard!"

[Sweep, sweep]

"Why did I wear a dress today?" (her dress was blocking her view of the floor she was sweeping)

[Sweep, sweep, sweep]

"Why does life have to be so hard?"

Amber wasn't angry or raging, just venting frustration in a quiet under-her-breath little voice. It was hilariously adorable. She swept her mess up quite well, and I held the dustpan for her. Then I cut strawberries onto her new bowl of cereal and she was happy again.

"You did that for ME? Thank you, Mom!"

Monday, August 9th: Today was BEAUTIFUL! I woke up at 5:20am for a trail run! My first real solo Shaina trail run of the summer, here in Washington! I went to Summerland via the Wonderland Trail at Mt. Rainier National Park, and it was almost exactly how I remembered it. It was a good hard 12 mile trail run-hike: 6 miles out, 6 miles back. Back to normal life again tomorrow! Well, I guess normal life has already caught up to me...

I got home at 2:45pm today and hit the ground running, so to speak. I unpacked my trail pack, put everything away, showered, got dressed, and went to pick up Rose from a birthday party. We stopped at Safeway on the way home to get milk, fresh things, and also some meat for dinner. Then I prepped dinner: rice in rice cooker, chop the sausages. I got hungry at that point so I had some black beans with tortilla chips to fill the void till dinnertime.

After dinner, I somehow managed to get the kids to clean up and do the dishes, and then we had a very weak short family scripture time. Three verses in, Rose said she had a bathroom emergency. I read two more verses really fast, then let her go to the bathroom. That's all we did. When Rose rejoined us everything was hitting the fan, so we closed the scriptures and played "group rock paper scissors," a made-up-on-the-spot game with inconsistent made-up-on-the-fly rules until Jeff was King. Then we moved on to Guess the Animal. I was lying on my bed tired from my trail run, Jeff was sitting in a nearby chair (also tired), and we did not move for the game. 

We adapted to Extreme Guess the Animal (made up on the spot in an attempt to spice up the old game), where two people act like animals and whoever's animal gets guessed correctly first wins. It was funny! Jeff and I didn't get up to act out our animals; we just did hand motions from our seats. But the kids always guessed our animals fastest! Amber did the same awkward leap for all of her animals and it was never clear what she was trying to do. Rose's animals were similarly difficult to guess. I don't think we made Jay act out an animal; he preferred to insert witty observations from the sidelines.

Jeff and I were feeling too tired to preheat the oven and bake the cookie dough that I had made into balls and refrigerated on Saturday. Most of the work was done, and it still seemed too hard. "It would almost be faster and easier to just go to Safeway and get cookies!" I groaned/joked.

"I'll race you!" Jeff said, and grabbed his keys. It was ON! I preheated the oven, place the cold cookie balls on a pan, and popped them into the oven. They had 5.5 minutes left of baking time when Jeff got home with some ugly Safeway cookies. He won the race, but the cookies he bought were overcooked and looked stale and crispy, so I won the best taste category. 

Tuesday, August 10th: We had dinner at 4:30pm today because everyone was in the kitchen snacking. That put us on an early track for our evening routine, with family scripture and prayer, followed by an episode of Merlin. I feel a little bad about making the girls go to their room at 6:45pm (lights out at 8), but it was also nice to have an early night.

Jeff and I went to xc practice this morning and then took it easy for the rest of the day, more or less. Amber has been Jeff's little shadow today, asking him to play games and read stories. She didn't ask me at all! I feel kind of selfish for doing my own thing today. Rose and Amber played a lot together today too, and it was sweet. Jay has been reading a lot. He also ran 2 miles today. 

Wednesday, August 11th: Another summer day. It got over 100 degrees today, and we're under a(nother) heat advisory through Saturday. That means I got all of my active outdoor time in before 11am. First, a five mile easy run at xc practice. Then, a 10 mile bike ride with Amber for the first mile and Rose for the next 3 miles. Gotta keep up my bike saddle callous!

After exercise, shower and food, it was vacuum time. Far too much of my day was spent tugging and cutting my own hair out of vacuum roller brushes. I know it was mine because nobody has long red hair in our family but me. It all started with the normal handheld vacuum: I cleaned my hair out of the vacuum brush, vacuumed my bedroom and closet, then cleaned the hair out of the vacuum brush again. I had the kids help tidy up the main floor and turned the Roomba loose. Roombaby was extra high-maintenance today, getting stuck in Jay's room because he forgot to close his door all the way, and needing hair cleaned out of its roller brush partway through. I could've vacuumed our house in a tiny fraction of the time it took the poor confused Roomba to do it today. Some days the Roomba is amazing; other days it's a huge hassle.

I also did more laundry (writing that I did laundry is kind of redundant. Did the sun rise? Then I did laundry, haha). After all that, I sat down and did 45 minutes of first aid and CPR training online to start my certification renewal process for coaching. So fun. 

This morning I put 8 pounds of pork (in 4 chunks) into the crock pot for dinner. As I was c-sectioning each hunk of meat out of its plastic wrap, the nasty pink raw pork juice oozed out across the counter and dribbled onto the floor. Real life is so glamorous. The pork cooked in the crock pot on high for 8 hours but was still not ready at dinnertime. So I turned it to low to cook all night. Meanwhile we had a scavenger dinner: Eggo waffles and frozen sausage for Jeff, Rose, and Amber, a sausage cheese burrito for Jay, and a random container of baked chicken breast and peas that I scavenged out of our freezer for me. It took like 12 minutes in the microwave before it was thawed and hot! Haha, I can barely remember even freezing that lone chicken breast, but I'm glad I did.

Thursday, August 12th: Wildfire smoke blew in fast this morning. Blahhhh. AQI was red all day. I took the opportunity for a rest day and did not run. Instead, I snuggled on the couch with Rose and Amber. Rose showed me her progress with string games like Jacob's ladder, which she figured out for the first time last night. She was pretty proud of herself.  Jeff and I did our CPR practical recertification at the high school this afternoon. It was quick. 30 compressions/2 breaths. I did a blog post about my trail run and then spent the afternoon reading. For dinner, Jeff and I invented some questionable fried rice with the pork I cooked in the crock pot overnight. He stirred, I added random seasonings. It was not very good-- bearable, but not very good. Haha, we were laughing our heads off while we cooked (attempted to cook). We were too loopy and unprepared to cook! Family scripture, dinner clean up, and prayer, followed by an episode of Merlin. It's fun how all five of us are totally hooked on Merlin, even though we've watched it before.

Friday, August 13th: The air quality has been deteriorating all day. I ran in a barely-red AQI of 159 this morning, and now it's close to 190, almost purple/hazardous. Rose and I went clothes shopping together in Union Gap today. We got Krispy Kreme donuts afterwards, and the lady at the drive thru window gave our 2 donuts to us for free! Random! She gave no explanation. I thanked her. We tried out the comfiest looking couches and chairs in Costco, then got groceries. We were home by 2pm. Easy-peasy. It was family movie night tonight: more Merlin! And some weird comic book cartoon that I tuned out, haha. 

Saturday, August 14th: Normally I start my Saturdays with a nice long run, but today was pretty great too. It was my first temple trip in a year and a half! I nearly missed it. It was 6:30 when I woke up, and I had to meet friends at the church to carpool to the temple at 7am! I made it, barely. A friend invited a few people to go to the temple with her to celebrate her birthday, and it was sweet. It was so peaceful being in the temple again. I love going to the temple with friends and loved ones. Sisterhood and friendship matter. And since the AQI was in the near-hazardous 180s this morning, I didn't even feel too sad about not running today.

After our temple session, we got donuts at Krispy Kreme.

This afternoon, Amber and I went shopping together. She really wanted to go shopping with me just like Rose did yesterday, so I took her to Goodwill and Walmart in Sunnyside, haha. She was completely uninterested in clothes shopping (as I expected), so we got hair things and markers and a can of pineapple that she requested. That girl!

After dinner tonight, the sister missionaries came over to visit us and Amber dominated the conversation. The sisters were so sweet and cute with Amber's in-yo-face communication style. They also left a very nice gospel message. 

[end journal entries]

Whew, that was longer than expected! I could go back and divide this into two separate posts, one for each week, but nahh. PICTURES:

Wildfire smoke, round 1: only lasted a couple of days and not too terribly thick. Just a moderate level of gross.

My sister, Rose's aunt Mel gave Rose a few more dresses over the summer, and this fancy black one makes Rose look so grown up! She wasn't sad about it.

Monopoly!

They really wanted me to take a picture of them doing the same pose.

Jeff with The Child (for the non-Star Wars folks, baby Yoda is called The Child for most of the Star Wars series The Mandalorian)

Baby Yoda/Grogu selfie!

The girls made this nest of comfort and played in it for hours one day.

Jay and Amber dove right in to their new library books on the way home.

Amber, dutifully sweeping up her spilled cereal.

Bike ride with Rose

I started making pizza again this month! It's been years since I even attempted it--my lactose intolerance makes homemade pizza feel like a lot of work for no reward. Pizza without cheese is what? Bread and sauce, maybe with some meat? I can think of much more palatable versions of meat and bread than a cheese-less pizza, so I stopped making it for a while. Good news: I still can whip up a tasty pizza. 

I tried replacing the cheese with vitamin rich broccoli on one section of pizza. It was horrible. Broccoli is NOT a pizza topping. I thought that before my experiment, but now I know it from personal experience.

Summer sisters, getting in their required outside time by rocking on the porch and talking, or jumping on the trampoline and talking. Amber and Rose are such cute good sister-friends.

Watching the Olympic Marathon live--yes, we watched all 2.5 hours of both men's and women's races, live. The finish line was pure humid broken-human carnage. But absolutely amazing to see. Those athletes are so tough! 

Amber, coercing her father into yet another game, while Grogu watches regally from the chair.

Catan is such a long game of strategy! On clean-air smoke-free days, Rose and Amber worked the loophole in our "earn screen time with equal outside time" rule by playing long games outside on the front porch. We have declared that reading outside doesn't count towards screen time, but so far that's the only limitation.

We have all gotten some good squishes and selfies in with baby Yoda.

Another day, another porch-game.

Sleeping Queens card game: a family fave.

Amber, reading a scripture verse from Jeff's phone. She is doing so well with reading! It's fun and exciting watching her learn more words. She still does a lot of hilarious guessing, but it's getting more accurate.

Rose, triumphant with her string Jacob's Ladder.

A mother-daughter selfie-sesh from a smoky no-run morning:

Daughters are fun.

Wildfire smoke, round 2: lasted twice as long as the last round (5 days and counting). Yuck. Thankfully, this morning, Sunday August 15th, the smoke receded from borderline purple back down to not-great-but-less-bad orange AQI levels.

Unexpectedly free donuts!

Friends at the temple. These women are amazing. I feel so blessed to live in a small town that's bursting with so many quality GOOD people! I could write paragraphs and paragraphs about each one of the women in this picture and how much they each inspire me.

Donut selfie! Ruth was so cute, taking pictures to commemorate her birthday temple-and-donut celebration.

Jay and I watched sacrament meeting over Zoom today because he woke up with a headache and stomachache. He already feels much better, but these times have caused us to be extra-cautious (and courteous) with any symptoms of sickness.

Amber, upset that Rose wouldn't let her help color a unicorn with the new markers.

Rose has been experimenting with fun hairdos. A package of new scrunchies inspired her.