Good

It's been a good couple of weeks...

Alex finished his second high school musical. He hated the rehearsals, he loved the performances. He loves, loves, loves the on-stage-before-a-live-audience bit, the applause, and the bows at the end. He's enjoyed having his afternoons and evenings back this week. He'll go with a friend tonight to see the most recent Marvel movie.

Robert grew another quarter inch. He's cracked a thousand hilarious jokes. Some of my favorites are the dry and quirky observations that he delivers with just the right amount of realism. I'll see if I can record a couple of them here at some point... He's been clever and playful lately. He craves physical fights, physical play. In the last couple of weeks, he and Bobby have had a few hilarious wrestling matches on the living room floor. Robert feels *almost* strong and wiley enough to beat his dad, so it's great fun for him. Robert has several very, very obvious and potent ticklish spots, so if he ever gets close to overturning Bobby, the mere mention of one of these spots causes him to cringe. The matches are fun to watch.

James is proud of his progress learning his times tables and division tables. He's mowed the lawn twice already, helped me cut down a dead cherry tree, and built his own functional brick oven on the back patio He cooked things on it! Also, every one of his meal prayers lately includes the request that our food not  be poisoned. James went on another 5 mile bike ride with me. He's traded a few Pokemon cards, collected a hundred tiny fossils from the playground gravel, and spent several peaceful moments wrapped up in the hammock. This afternoon, we will bury his fish Nightmare. Nightmare passed away yesterday after a long and difficult battle with cancer. We miss him, but we're all grateful his suffering is over. 

Matthew is finally reaping the benefits of learning to read. This last couple of weeks, I often found him sitting on the couch with a stack of library books just reading through them one by one. He still loves people to read to him, of course, but he can do it well enough on his own to scratch the itch. He had a friend over last week and I found them sharing a big, squooshy chair in the front room as he read to his friend from one of his favorite graphic novel series, "Cat Kid Comics Club." Matthew is developing a quick wit and quirky sense of humor, too. He's started learning to ride a bike...again...but I think it's going to stick this time. He can't stand the idea of staying home while James and I go for a ride around the neighborhood. 

Bobby got approved to return to work in-person AND they are paying for the equipment he needs to make a second work setup at home. It looks like he'll be at work in-person for most of the week and at-home maybe 1-2 days a week or as needed (e.g. future Covid outbreaks, snow days). We're pretty lucky to have that option.

I've been working in the garden and on some landscaping around the house. Irrigation is almost up and running. Always more weeding to be done. I'm also ramping up my exercise routine to get my heart, lungs, and legs ready for our vacation in June. The vacation includes 3 long bike rides in 3 different states. Anxiety-wise, it's been a very mild couple of months. I've made some important breakthroughs in therapy and worked consistently to keep my physical life and routine balanced. No panic or waves of anxiety leading up to this trip so far. Don't want to jinx it, though, so I'll stop talking about it! I have been asked to work in the Relief Society Presidency. We're a new presidency, but I know two of these women pretty well and they don't mess around. We're old (64, 46, and 42 years old...13 kids between us) and our secretary is not (26 years old, no kids) and that led to quite a few laughs at our first presidency meeting. The president wanted a printed agenda and the secretary could not fathom why, "I'll just share a Google Doc with you." 

"Yes, but I like to write out meeting notes on a printed agenda and put it on my kitchen counter so that every time I pass it, I'm reminded of the things I'm working on." The secretary could not comprehend how or why anyone would want to do it that way, but she just raised an eyebrow and printed off a copy. I think we'll be learning a lot from each other :)