Sheep Guarding Llama

Got up and hit the treadmill for a bit before getting ready for work this morning. Not a long workout like yesterday but I’m keeping the pattern going (does two dots make a pattern?)

I had to take the northern route to get to the Taconic this morning so that I could get fuel. There are no gas stations, anywhere, along the route that I have been taking. All backroads, very secluded which is hard to believe exists in such a populous county.

Traffic ended up being horrible this morning and I was stuck taking nearly two hours to get to the office. That was no fun and a waste of getting up early.

Today I finished rereading “Dragons of Winter Night” and this evening started rereading “Dragons of Spring Dawning.” Such great books. It makes it almost exciting to get to commute just so that I get long stretches of time to spend in literature. I am sure getting amazing value out of Audible from all of this driving.

On the drive home tonight I took a new route that I researched at the office before leaving. This is, as best as I can tell, the most direct, most backroads means of going between the office, on the Gold Coast, and home on the lower Hudson. This new route takes me through Bedford and Mt. Kisco, neither of which I have ever been in before. I stopped in Mt. Kisco to get the Subway for dinner that Liesl requested from me last night. I told Dominica and I was getting it and she told Liesl and Liesl said “Yes, I asked daddy for that last night!”

I got home but had to run down to the basement and be on the phone for a while before I could join the family to eat my dinner. We put on Frasier and watched a couple of episodes but it was a very short evening for all of us. Luciana was in bed before I made it upstairs but she got up and came down to join us later in the evening. Both girls snuggled with me on the couch. Liesl climbed into my lap and Luciana snuggled on my side until it was time for everyone to head off to bed.

More of “The Magician’s Nephew” tonight. After we finish this we are hoping to read “Little House on the Prairie” which Dominica thinks Liesl is ready for.

Dominica’s parents are coming down for the holiday weekend. I, as usual, did not realize that it was a holiday weekend and had no idea that I had Monday off. I only figured that out today when Dominica asked me. So I will probably be getting out early on Friday afternoon (typically around three) and I have Monday off. So three day weekend (although I have scheduled work late on Friday night and a little bit on Saturday afternoon – but nothing major.)

I woke up on my own at five thirty and managed to convince myself to get out of bed and head downstairs, set up the treadmill and actually work out! I am very proud of myself. I did a forty two minute workout which is my longest in quite some time. I was showered and out the door early today, long before I normally am.

I took the new, scenic drive to work today. I’m liking the new path a lot. A really big change of pace. It is so gorgeous driving along the lakes and discovering all of this awesome stuff near our house. I even managed to stop at Dunkin Donuts for a bagel on the way to work. It was nice being so early.

I hit horrible traffic down in Connecticut this morning, though. It took me almost two full hours to get into the office. That sucks. So even though I left nice and early, I was back to my normal time by the time that I arrived. What a waste.

I worked late and took the new route back home, my first time trying a new variation on the path to speed it up even more. I’m learning more and more of Westchester County with every jaunt back and forth. I have an even newer route to test out tomorrow.

I am continuously amazed by just how beautiful it is around where we live. It is really sad that we have so little opportunity to get out there and enjoy it. At least now that the sun is up longer I get some chances to actually see where we live as I drive through it.

I explored Valhalla, NY tonight. That is a really cute town.

I spent the evening on the couch with my two girls. They both snuggled with me there, while using their iPads, most of the short evening. Liesl has a new PBX Kids app on her iPad that she is enthralled with and she was completely into that the entire evening.

It’s only an hour and a half from the time that I get home until the girls are off to bed. It is very sad that our time together is so short.

Liesl told me tonight that she wants Subway for dinner tomorrow night. She is so cute.

I read another chapter in “The Magician’s Nephew” before putting the girls to bed tonight. Liesl is getting better about being willing to use her mouthwash now too. And Luciana loves getting her teeth flossed. She wants to do anything that her sister does.

Last night, beforegoing to bed, Dominica and I set out the five donation boxes that were getting picked up this morning.  What a huge load out of the house that is.  The dining room is so much more open now.

When I left for work the boxes were still there.  I got into the office on the early side today and discovered, as soon as I arrived there, that I had Dominica’s car keys in my pocket from having to transfer things from one car to another!  I called and called trying to reach them at the house to let them know that I had the keys.  They had to get a taxi for dad to get him to the train station because Dominica was unable to locate the spare set of keys.  They are probably still boxed up somewhere at this point.  Although it is getting surprising that anything is still lingering in a box but there is definitely stuff that we are still unable to locate in the house.  So that was a bit of a pain but it let the girls stay home and not make a big production of getting dad off to the train station which is a bit of a effort with the girls, especially first thing in the morning when they would normally not even be awake yet.

On the way to work this morning I decided to try out a new path that I had researched a bit to adjust from the new route that I started taking last week.  This new route shortened my drive even farther and is much more scenic.  It is fewer miles and faster travel.  I can’t believe that it has taken me so long to figure out how to get to work this way.  This should make my commute a little bit better.

I worked late today, it was quite late when I got home.  Had to get the girls right off to bed.  We read more of “The Magician’s Nephew” tonight.  Liesl is still loving it.

This evening Dominica and I finally got around to watching the move The Way about the El Camino pilgrimage in northern Spain which we have been talking about doing for several years now.  We hope someday to do that trek with the girls when they are older.  The movie was pretty good although quite sad.

Last night I dreamed that I had to go to Tokyo for work.  It was a very odd dream and one of those ones that you keep waking up from and when you fall asleep you go back to.  I was up often enough during the night that when I finally got out of bed I figured that it was after eleven but it was really just a quarter after eight.  Very odd.  Our room got very cold last night.  It was in the low fifties outside and Dominica had the fan going so we were quite cold since we only had one fleece blanket and noting else.

Dominica was up before me so got a jump on the shower.  The girls were fast asleep having really worn themselves out yesterday.  They slept in until after ten.

We had hoped to be up and out the door by nine thirtyish this morning.  Not happening.  The plan had been to go get a late breakfast at the Westchester Diner before embarking to Rockland County and the Bear Mountain State Park Zoo for a day with the girls.  As it was we got to the diner just after eleven.

Lunch was very good. Liesl opted not to eat, Luciana got pancakes as is her standard.  She almost always gets pancakes.  Dominica got breakfast and dad and I both got the fisherman’s platter which I had told him was really excellent there.  He agreed that it was really exceptionally good.

From the diner we went straight north out of town and over the Bear Mountain Bridge and south to the park. It is really quite close to us in Peekskill.  Very little effort.

Bear Mountain State Park, to which we have never been before, was packed with people.  The weather was really nice today.  Warm but not hot and overcast.  No rain though.  There were so many people that they had us park out in the grass.

The girls were really excited that there was going to be a carousel at the park today.  They both love carousels.  We were parked right next to it so we went there first.  Neither dad nor Dominica likes being on a carousel so that job of taking care of the girls on the carousel always falls to me.  The girls wanted to ride in the “swan boat” so the three of us rode in that.  The carousel there is really nice.  Although at one dollar per ride, it is not super cheap.

After the carousel we went for a walk.  A long walk along Hessian Lake on the 1777 trail took us to the zoo.  The zoo there is very small and features animals from the local area.  We saw a pair of red foxes, a porcupine, an Eastern Coyote, bald eagle, white tailed deer and tons of other birds.  They have a number of “trailside museum buildings” along the trail too which were very nice.  One was an fish and amphibian house that Liesl really liked.  There were several neat exhibits.  The park is excellent as a park, a local wildlife zoo, some neat historical points of interest mostly related to the American Revolution and some miscellaneous natural history museums.  The park was partially created by the American Museum of Natural History which helps to explain the focus.  And there are tons of really neat trails through the park too.

It was a great day.  Exercise, something different and lots of good education for the girls too.  On the way back to the car we hit the carousel again, of course.  Two more times around.

This evening we crashed at the house and relaxed.  We watched Romancing the Stone which none of us have seen in a very many years.  What a great movie!

This morning, Dominica went grocery shopping and dad and I stayed home with the girl.  We have been terribly low on groceries recently and we really needed some basics to get through the week.  We’ve been running lean on groceries and other semi-discretionary spending as we attempt to get back on top of our expenses after a very brutal winter of spending and the need to pay for Dominica and the girls’ upcoming Florida vacation in a few weeks.  We are doing fine, there have just been a crazy amount of bills that we’ve had to go through recently and it takes a little while to get back on top of them without taking drastic measures.

We just spent the day, mostly in the living room, hanging out.  No real plans or activities.  The girls have missed their grandpa so were all over him all day.

This evening we watched the latest Star Trek film: Star Trek: Into Darkness.