We started today by spending a considerable amount of time out in the back yard. The kids played in the sandbox and exacerbated the water bead mess while I kicked back and worked on my farmer tan. It was only in the high 40s today, but that Colorado sun is a killer, and we eventually had to go inside before we suffered Colorado sunburns.
Meal planning has gotten more and more interesting lately. The last time I was in a grocery store about a week ago it looked like 1980s Moscow with all the empty shelves. We've been getting delivery from Amazon and the local grocery stores (subject to availability), but we're reaching the point where we're getting a little repetitive. I'm doing my best to make sure that we're planning long-term too, so, for example, we've been eating the more perishable items first. Tonight I noticed the expiration date on the eggs in the fridge was drawing nigh, so we had breakfast for dinner, which was a nice treat for the kids. Breakfast burritos, scrambled eggs, waffles, yogurt, and orange slices were on the menu. For the first time in a while, all three cleaned their plates and even asked for seconds. Mission accomplished.
Meal planning has gotten more and more interesting lately. The last time I was in a grocery store about a week ago it looked like 1980s Moscow with all the empty shelves. We've been getting delivery from Amazon and the local grocery stores (subject to availability), but we're reaching the point where we're getting a little repetitive. I'm doing my best to make sure that we're planning long-term too, so, for example, we've been eating the more perishable items first. Tonight I noticed the expiration date on the eggs in the fridge was drawing nigh, so we had breakfast for dinner, which was a nice treat for the kids. Breakfast burritos, scrambled eggs, waffles, yogurt, and orange slices were on the menu. For the first time in a while, all three cleaned their plates and even asked for seconds. Mission accomplished.
What I'm watching today
Changeland (2019, Hulu streaming) - Hulu has been pushing ads for this movie in my face for two weeks now, so I figured I'd watch it while on the elliptical this evening. Seth Green directs and stars in this dramedy that is basically Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but without the laugh-out-loud moments. That is not to say that Changeland isn't enjoyable, though, because it is. Set against the backdrop of lush, green Thailand, it's a beautiful movie to look at. It also uses Thai Buddhism to get the point across that the main character needs to have his moment of enlightenment, or catharsis, or whatever. That moment comes very late in the film, in the final moments, but I will admit that I was smiling uncontrollably as the credits began to roll. The most interesting aspect of the film is that there are literary easter eggs scattered throughout; according to Seth Green there are upwards of two dozen. I caught a few of them--for example, hotel room "F451" and following the "white rabbit" were pretty obvious. Macaulay Culkin takes on the trope of the free-spirit who helps coax the main character back to happiness, and he owns it. His real-life partner Brenda Song is also enjoyable in a small role in the film, and I think she's quickly becoming one of my favorite female actors. (Check her out in the TV series "Dollface.") Honestly, this doesn't look like a good movie on paper, but I enjoyed watching it anyway.
What I'm doing today
Moving furniture - In an attempt to make the boys' room less cluttered and help ensure that they don't destroy the furniture they have, we embarked on a journey of redecoration. When all was said and done, we ended up moving a bookshelf six inches to the right in order to make room for a floor lamp. To do this we had to remove most of the books from the bookshelf, which took a while and caused a considerable amount of sneezing thanks to all the dust. But now that it's done, the crazy berserker 3yo will hopefully stop knocking the lamp over.
Installing sprinkler hardware - I was super excited to get a wifi-enabled sprinkler controller for Christmas this year, so tonight I decided to install it. I won't be able to use it for another month or so, but I wanted to get it hooked up so I could learn the app and how to use it. For those who don't need to water their lawns because they don't live in a high desert, this is the device that controls when the lawn sprinklers turn on and turn off. The unit I'm replacing with this one is a dumb unit, which means that it can schedule watering times in the future, but if I need to deviate from the schedule due to heavy rains, or shut off the water in a hurry because there's a leak, or anything like that, I need to (a) be home, (b) be in the basement, and (c) press buttons and turn knobs. With the wifi-enabled device, I can do that from anywhere, and I can even program the unit to change the schedule when there is heavy rain forecast, for example. The only issue is that the unit currently needs to be installed in the basement, and the wifi signal is pretty weak down there. I wasn't able to connect. (Refer to my wifi woes the other day as well.) This is telling me that I probably need to do something about my wifi and the positioning of my router. Well, I guess I have a new action item on my to-do list. This is important, because the city of Colorado Springs just modified its lawn watering laws to be much more strict, so I'll need to be paying a lot more attention to how I take care of the yard this summer.
Comments
Post a Comment