Yesterday

Yesterday was uneventful in the scheme of things.  Mostly errands and chores, which barely interest me, much less anyone else.  But perhaps there will be some gem hidden in the mundane.  Here comes the blow by blow.

1.  Woke early.  I'm pretty sure Sophie and her thimble-sized bladder had more to do with my pre-dawn wakefulness than my desire to rise with the birds, but I decided to take advantage of it and ran on the treadmill.  I ended up watching part of a movie on my phone while I ran.  It helped pass the time, but it's not as enjoyable as running outside.  Due to my hypersensitive, paranoid thoughts, I don't feel comfortable leaving the kids alone early in the morning while I make laps around the neighborhood.  Man I miss our last home.

2.  After cooling off from my effort, I changed and went to Walmart.  Yes, stinky glory and all.  I didn't feel so bad when I passed a dad and his pajama clad children leaving the store.  I've actually found that the best time to shop at Walmart is early in the morning (7:30ish) or late at night.  I don't really do a lot of late night shopping there, but the few times I've been, it was a quick trip in and out due to the lack of people. 

3.  I made it back home in time to reheat some frozen waffles for the kids since that seems to be all they ever ask for in the mornings.  Cereal has fallen out of favor and "real" breakfast has been relegated to a dinner meal.  We'll probably be sick of having breakfast for dinner in 6 months but for now we are relishing it with gusto.  After breakfast, we went for a bike ride through the neighborhood and on a trail used for running.  The kids enjoyed briefing me on how to ride on the trail and AJ showed me how to stand up on my bike when I go down a hill.  He said he recommends this technique but he doesn't know if it's actually better than sitting down. 

4.  My chores for the day included laundry, picking up the living room and kitchen, and cleaning the litter boxes.  These were not completed with gusto, but they were mostly finished.  The litter boxes took the longest because I didn't want to take both of the crappers away from the cats.  I didn't need to clean up that mess.  I ended up throwing out all the litter, spraying out the boxes, and then letting them sit full of bleach water.  I also changed the litter to an odor shield version of our normal brand.  It smells prettier, but only time will tell if it really shields the odor.  On a side note, Lexi is somewhat seriously considering asking for a self-cleaning litter box for her birthday or Christmas.  We priced several and she was shocked at just how much they cost (think in the range of an 8GB small electronic device much coveted by AJ).  She couldn't believe they are that expensive.  I told her that she would have to think long and hard about it, because it would probably be her only gift.  I told her that she has to weigh what is more valuable to her, being lazy or having cool gifts.  AJ told her he would go with laziness.  Ugh.

5.  I spent my "free" time surfing the internet and much to AJ's chagrin I watched afternoon talk shows.  Although I don't know why he criticizes my shows because when left to his own devices he wants to watch a morning of Family Feud and Price Is Right with an afternoon of divorce court and Judge Judy.  I really think he's an 80 year old man trapped in an 8 year old body.  However, unlike an 80 year old, he has a mind like a vise.  He remembers everything you tell him or he overhears.  Well, on July 21st, you promised we would....  There's no escaping him and don't even try to have an argument with him because he will spin it so fast you don't know which end is up.

6.  Dinner was a rushed affair.  I've cut down on the snacky munching during the day as it messes with our meal times, i.e. I'm hungry at a normal dinner time and they're not because they snuck a snack 30 minutes before we were supposed to eat.  Unfortunately, that means they wait until the last minute and slam me with "I'm so hungry I'm going to die if I don't eat right now!".  Okay, it's mostly AJ but I feel like I'm picking on him if I don't include Lexi in some of the whining.  We ended up having hot dogs because that was the quickest dish in my arsenal.  Don't worry I didn't microwave them, I baked them.  What kind of mother would I be if I didn't make them wait long enough to see that he they really weren't going to die?

7.  Next we headed to soccer practice.  I finally figured out that even though the drive takes 31 minutes there (about 25 back), if I don't leave early (not Larry early, Cherie early) that the trip takes longer, so we left "early" and arrived a few minutes before practice began (Is that a run-on sentence cause it's sort of long and I'm having flashbacks to 11th grade English?).  Practice was along the same lines as every other practice.  It was cut short about 10 minutes early for lightning which means the goalie didn't get much experience blocking SOG's. 

8.  After soccer, we stopped at Petsmart.  Apparently the power on that side of town failed and they were having to reboot the store's system.  We waited probably 15 minutes before the cashier gave us the go ahead to pick out our new fish.  What I forgot to mention earlier is that we I woke to find Bob (the fish, not the cat, don't freak out like AJ) dead at the bottom of the tank and after a ceremonious "you were a good fish" I flushed him down the toilet.  Lexi seemed upset since it was her fish that died, and AJ didn't care after he confirmed that it was the fish and not the cat.  Lexi gave AJ the power of picking the newest member of our school, and he went with a Phantom Tetra.  Cool looking fish, but he wasn't looking so hot when we dumped him in the tank last night.  It looked like he was having spasms, kind of like Sophie when she sleeps except I'm pretty sure he wasn't asleep and dreaming about the big water expanse in which he really belongs.

9.  AJ watched the Panthers game on television last night.  He tracked the game's progress on my phone until we returned home and then he expertly found it in our small collection of antenna received channels.  I found out yesterday (I had to call because apparently our phone only makes outgoing calls, it can't receive them) that his team is meeting Monday evening.  He is very excited to begin football.  Please, please, please let this go better than wrestling. 

10.  That's all I got.  There are a few minor details that I could throw in, but that was mostly our day.  Fun, probably not, but probably not as mundane as I originally thought.