Sheep Guarding Llama

This morning it was time for the girls to get packed up and to get on the road so that they could head up to Albany to go to the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus there with Dominica’s parents.  They did not have to leave really early since Albany is so much closer than our usual weekend trips.  While they were getting ready I ran out with the Spark and fueled it up and stopped by Dunkin Donuts to pick up food for the family.

Soon after I got back home the girls got on the road.  They made good time up to Albany although Dominica got lost trying to find her way around Albany but, funnily enough, she found herself following her parents down a back street so just followed them.

Liesl and Luciana had a great time at the circus.  They really enjoyed it.  They liked everything, all of the animals, the trapeze artists, etc.  Very different from me.  I am not a circus person at all.  I have never enjoyed circus entertainment.

I hit the basement and started cleaning things up today.  The house is a disaster.  It is really crazy just how bad the basement has gotten.  It is a very large space and you can’t walk through it without stepping on toys and all kinds of stuff.  There is no open space anywhere on the floor.  A real mess. I spent most of the day working on that.  Big progress but still a lot to go.  Nowhere near able to vacuum yet.  This is a major project.  Not only is there “stuff” everywhere but there is also tiny bits of Legos, paper cuttings, marbles and all kinds of minutia everywhere.  So no vacuuming until that has been addressed.

I got some writing done today as well and some miscellaneous stuff.  It is nice to have some alone time once in a while.  I don’t like it very often and I hate having the kids be away but I do appreciate having downtime for me to take in the quiet and get my head centered again.  On normal weekends there is so much “noise” and activity that I really can’t do anything because I am unable to focus.  So I need this from time to time.  I didn’t even turn on the television or radio or anything all day.  Just a quiet house.

After the circus Dominica and the girls went out to Frankfort and are going to stay there for four days.  They will not be home until Tuesday night.

Ah, Friday.  This week just flew by, I cannot believe how quickly it was Friday.  I barely noticed the time passing.  Unfortunately I assume that that means that the weekend will fly by in the same way and I will not notice that either.

Work was pretty good today.  Nothing really to note.  Not horribly busy.  I am on call this weekend so after happy hour rolled around and I got things wrapped up I headed for home around five thirty.  Did not actually make it out of the building until six, but it was still on the early side.  I wanted to get home and see the family a little as they are leaving for the weekend.

Got home and the plan changed to Dominica and the girls leaving for four days.  They will be back on Tuesday night.  It makes sense, they will get a lot more time with her parents and I will only barely see any less of them.  It will give me some additional time to get things done around the house.  I need the quiet from time to time to remain productive and during a normal week I might actually get zero alone time all day long.  I’m a social person but I require time alone to recenter and focus and if I don’t get it my head starts to swim and I just can’t accomplish anything.

Did some work tonight, a few hours of troubleshooting some issues online.  It was actually a very busy night but good work.  We had Frasier on while I worked and I just stood at my laptop behind the couch as I have been doing most of the time the last several weeks.

Read another chapter in “The Horse and His Boy” tonight.  Getting really near to the end now.  Hopefully we will wrap it up on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.

Got up at six thirty. Went down to the basement and worked for a while then up and on the treadmill. Got a decent workout and then headed into the office.  Day three.  Maybe this will be a trend.

The drive in was horrible this morning. Lots of rain, heavy fog and flooding in central Westchester. It made the drive take forever. Such a pain. The last thing I need is more reasons for slow and heavy traffic on the way to work. The drive is really wearing on me. I spend so much time in that car every day. Thank goodness for Audible and podcasts or I would be going out of my mind.

In the late afternoon the rain cleared and it actually because an incredible warm, nearly eighty degree, and sunny day.  Who would have guessed from the morning’s weather.  An amazing transformation.

Another quiet evening, we did not do too much tonight.  Get off to bed relatively early.

Got up early this morning and went down to the basement and did some work, mostly on taxes and some posting, before heading to the living room to hit the treadmill for a quick workout and then shower and off to the office.  That’s two days in a row.  I felt great all day yesterday.  Early morning workouts are the way to go.  Nothing big, just enough to get a healthy cardio workout before starting the day.

Mostly uneventful day in the office. Nothing worth reporting, at least. I made it all day thinking that today was actually a Tuesday until I got a “Happy Wednesday” Snapchat from Rachael and I looked it up thinking that she was confused on her days and realized that I was over halfway through the week already! Who would have guessed.

I didn’t get out of work until after seven and therefore not home until after eight.

Had a quiet evening tonight. We decided to do nothing. Just watched some “Frasier” and were headed to bed by around nine thirty. Luciana decided that she really needed to not be alone tonight which is extremely abnormal. I can only think of her wanting to sleep with us a handful of times ever. She is nothing like Liesl who would always choose to sleep in our room. Luciana normally prefers to be alone. So as it was a rare, special occasion we let her sleep in our room. This, of course, made Liesl upset because she likes to sleep in our bed and hates to be alone at night but Dominica is unable to sleep with them because they push her out of bed (they don’t bother me because I was trained by Oreo to be pushed out of bed) so Dominica ended up sleeping in the girls’ room in the nice guest bed there and the girls slept in our room with me.

I got up really early this morning and worked for about two hours down in the basement.  Paid bills, worked on taxes, those sorts of things and got some posting done before heading up to the living room and putting in about twenty minutes or so working out on the treadmill while catching up a little on Family Guy which we only get to watch when the kids are asleep so we do not see very often.

This evening we recorded more of our podcast. We are so far behind on that but having fun doing it. We recorded three more episodes tonight. Now to find time to edit them! This coming weekend I am home alone for quite a while and will likely get at least one or two edited and posted during that time.

We got off to bed just after midnight.