Ultranormal

Category: Brian

  • It got me…

    COVID is wild. I tested positive on Monday. I’ve been hiding in my room since then. I was with Brian and Jen at UGA orientation in close quarters for 4 days and in the car for 8 hours. Jen and I slept in the same bed.

    I’m the only person in the house who’s tested positive, and everyone retested today.

    I’ve never run a temperature. I feel pretty crappy, but I’ve definitely been sicker.

    I’ll be more careful in the future, especially indoors in crowds, which I’m pretty sure where I got it.

    It’s not been fun. I don’t recommend it. But, I’m glad I waited two years to get it, where we have rapid tests, paxlovid and the variants are more contagious, but much less deadly, especially for fat asthmatics like me.

  • On to the Good Stuff

    On to the Good Stuff

    I was talking to a friend in the TechSAV Slack this morning about people running around without masks and being aggressively ignorant about it online and in person and as I was about to spiral into anger and sadness, I just decided… I don’t want to.

    Instead, I decided to hop over here and write something about all the good stuff that’s happened while I’ve been stuck at home with my family – the happy accidents, the intentional accidents, and the successes (both intentional and accidental).

    • The Wire: The Ringer has a new podcast recapping every episode of my favorite show of all time. I used this as an opportunity to get Brian to watch the show with me, and he has! We’re now several episodes ahead of the podcast, but he’s really into the show, so I’m fine plowing ahead.
    • Home Haircuts: Brian has been growing out his hair since 8th grade (he’s just finishing 10th). The other day, he said, “I’m thinking of shaving my head.” I asked him 3-4 times if he was sure he wanted to. He said yes, so we grabbed the clippers and a chair, and went to the backyard. It was surprisingly fun to take all that hair off his head.
    • Exercise: I was doing pretty well on the bike last fall and then just stopped… and I can’t remember why. But, I’m back! I closed the Move ring on my watch every day last week, and am on to closing it this week too!
    • Gardening and the Barter Economy: I decided it was time to try gardening again, so I planted a bunch of seeds and did the whole “throw scallion ends in a jar” thing. The scallion trick works great, by the way. The seeds? Not so much. But, I have a friend who loves bread and is an amazing gardener, so I’m trading her a loaf of sourdough for a bunch of seedlings that will get planted this weekend. I even set up a table for gardening in the backyard that will hopefully keep the terrible weeds from my dilapidated raised beds away from the new plants.
    • Cooking With Constraints: We’ve been trying to only go to the store every 2-3 weeks, which means towards the end of that time, we have to get creative with our meals. We’ve been trying all kinds of recipes, and it’s been a lot of fun tweaking them to use the ingredients we have instead of running to the store. My favorites so far have been Bang Bang Chicken and Scallion Pancakes.

    There are probably more things, but that’ll do for now. I hope you’re staying safe and as happy as you can be.

  • Years of Costumes We Have to Explain to Everybody

    Sometimes, especially Halloween, I can’t help but think I’ve somehow ruined my children. Every year since they’ve been old enough to pick their own costumes, they’ve gone as something so obscure and webby that we end up having to explain it at every house we go to. That’s doubly true since we moved to Savannah and most of our neighbors are retired.

    Here’s a quick recap of the last few Halloweens:

    [hang2column element=”div” width=”500″]Spifftacular[/hang2column]

    [hang2column element=”div” width=”500″]Brothers

    2006: Max was both Calvin and Spaceman Spiff. Brian was Hobbes.[/hang2column]

    [nohang]Crazy enough, in 2007, they were a tiger and an elephant

    [hang2column element=”div” width=”500″]Max & Brian as Pip & Kitteh

    2008: Max and Brian from Abe Koford’s awesome web comic, Laugh Out Loud Cats

    [hang2column element=”div” width=”500″]The Dancing Duo

    2009: This one wasn’t so obscure… Max was Luigi and Brian was Darth Vader. We still had to explain Max’s costume to the neighbors.[/hang2column]

    [hang2column element=”div” width=”500″]Link and Geno, Ready for Some Treats

    2010: Max as Geno from Super Mario RPG and Brian as Link from Legend of Zelda.[/hang2column]

    [hang2column element=”div” width=”500″]My Little Peashooter

    And 2011: Brian as a Peashooter from Plants vs. Zombies. Max decided not to dress up this year after failing to manufacture all the pieces he needed to be Gordon Freeman from Half-Life.[/hang2column]

    [hang2column element=”div” width=”500″]I have no idea where they get it from…

    Me as Walter Sobchack[/hang2column]

    [nohang]Happy Halloween, everybody![/nohang]

  • My Baby With a Real Baby

    Happy

    We went to my co-worker Juliet’s birthday party on Saturday and my other co-worker, Steven, brought his daughter. Brian also had a project last week at school where he had to take care of a tiny pumpkin like a baby, so we’d been having lots of chats about what it was like to have a baby. Brian told me he couldn’t remember ever holding a baby before. I tried to remind him of the time he held a baby at Uncle Tim’s birthday party in Ohio, but he didn’t remember it.

    So, the day before the birthday party, I asked Steven if we could “borrow” Stella at the party. Brian was an absolute champ with her, and Stella was an angel. She’s the coolest and calmest baby I’ve ever seen and had a ball laughing at everyone and being the center of attention. Brian was super gentle and did a good job holding her and keeping her from tumbling onto the lawn.

    I think the reason I love that photo so much is that it sort of cements that Jen and I don’t have “little” kids anymore. The boys are growing up and we have entirely new things to deal with – no more dirty diapers, but we get to deal with peer pressure, girls, school projects and trips, parties, etc. I kind of miss having babies around, but I don’t think I’d trade places with Steven. We did the baby thing, and now it’s time to do this.

  • Christmas Fun

    Christmas Morning Face

    Brian really liked Christmas.

  • The boys

    The kids have had a fantastic couple of days.

    At school on Friday, Brian was recognized for achieving High Honor Roll and perfect attendance and Max was recognized for achieving High Honor Roll, perfect attendance, and was his class’s Super Hawk, which is the best all-around student. YAY school!\
    At soccer on Saturday, Brian received the Good Sportsmanship Award, his second of the season, and Max’s team won 5-0. YAY soccer!

    I still think Perfect Attendance is silly, but as long as those awards are being handed out, I am going to brag that my kids got them. 😛

  • Bus change = more talky time

    The school changed the bus pick up time. It is now 90 minutes before school starts. Isn’t that ridiculous? I offered to drive the kids to school because that extra hour in traffic is stupid. (We live 3 miles from the school!!) However, Brian wanted to still ride the bus, but Max wanted me to drive him. I went out with Brian and spent 30 minutes waiting for the bus (it was really late) and talking. When I got back home, I tried to finish up the dishes, but Max was really interested in talking to me too and he spent the whole drive and wait talking. So, not necessarily a bad change after all.

  • Brian \o/

    Brian’s really tearing it up at school, in a good way. He received the first High Flying Hawk Award for his class for embodying the monthly theme of Peace. He has all A’s on his progress report. He scored 100% on his first two Accelerated Reader tests. He has all 100% on his spelling tests each week. He got a 100% on his Summer Reading Project.

    Check him out at his first soccer game:\
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  • Two cute boys!

    I’ve been messing with photoshop again and the results are fantastic! Never will I have to worry about one kid not smiling at the right time again! (Knock on wood.)

    I started out with two pictures, where the kids were smiling in separate pics:

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    and I turned it into one cute pic of the both of them!!

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    Bow down to my awesomeness!!

  • Mississippi Fun Time!

    I hope I don’t kill y’all’s computers. More cute pics! While visiting my parents, we went to Pep’s Point which has water slides, a river to swim in, canoeing, a couple of docks to jump from, and various other games. Since I wasn’t swimming with them, I made each kid wear a life jacket. They were good sports about it and I got some cool shots:

    Brian:

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    Max:

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    Brian’s hair cut before the Avatar one. I really like the cut, but it’s being overshadowed by the awesomeness of the arrow!

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    Brian with glasses. We don’t have many of these. Brian looks so great with them on, don’tcha think?

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    The boys being silly:

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