Movies

Avatar 2: The Last Water Bender

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So the other night my nephew and I went to see the new Avatar movie. It feels like its almost been 20 years since the last film (Released in 2009). So the film gives a proper run up to events. The Na’vi have sent the “Sky People” (humans) back to Earth and we get a sort of collage that fast forwards time. Jake Sully and Neytiri have made blue babies. All is happy. Then, one night, the sky people have returned. This time they are not there for the ridiculously named Unobtanium. They are there to colonize the planet. OH NOOOOOOOOES!

SO MUCH FIRE!
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My Life

Housework/Yardwork

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I generally don’t pin myself to just one chore, but tending to the housework on a Sunday is generally all I have been good for since my accident. I do have quite a bit of yardwork to tend to, but my leg will not cooperate one bit. Sitting here, playing Lawn Mowing Simulator makes me realize I have a ton of shit to do outside:

  • I have to pick up the last 10 months of limbs that have fallen all over my property. That will take a bit of time. I need to get my trailer prepped and my ATV running. I don’t think pulling my wagon around is going to get this done.
  • Tree removal. We had a hurricane a good while back and I have a big ass pine tree that has to be moved. I have plans for it, but ATM it is sitting there rotting, and presents a big obstacle I have to dodge on the mower.
  • I need to actually run my mower, clean it, and do some maintenance to prep for spring. I also need to run the weed whacker and attempt to get my generator going.
  • A big chuck of my property has a fence line, and that fence line is not maintained by my neighbors at all. I have the tools for cutting, but do I have the legs for pulling and dragging things like vines and limbs? I was making real progress with this before the wreck.
  • My patio is NOT finished. I had a large pavilion constructed with the intention of making half of it a work area and the other half a patio for hosting. I need to clean it and spray some bug spray all around it. I also need to resume the plan to wire it up. I have the primary wire ran, but nothing set up as far as outlets and lighting go. This is a couple of years behind.
  • Trash pick up. I have a lot of trash around, some of it ours, some of it is blown in from the highway, some is dragged up by our pack of feisty little hounds.
  • Tree trimming is a never ending seasonal chore that I generally enjoy but I am not sure how well I will do with it now.
  • I do have a bit of dirt work to tend to and I know damn well my leg isn’t ready for that.

I think the whole problem with all of these chores is the fact that I have to meal prep every day because I need to eat healthier and I have to have variety. Yeah, people can meal prep for an entire week in a few hours on a Sunday afternoon, but when I do that, I get extremely bored and stray off the plan. For example, today I had a couple of sandwiches and pretzels for lunch. Tonight I will pan fry some diced pork and let it simmer in some gravy for about an hour and pour that over white rice that will be cooked with onions, carrots, bell peppers and a bit of celery. I will also have a side salad with that. It’s a great deal of effort to make this meal.

Brandi has me doing a couple of things today. I cleaned our shower (not as well as I would like, but I need to make a scrubber on a stick thing) and changing out the shower liner and washing the shower curtain. Then, a couple of her gifts were not up to par (a small, very light weight power bank for an iPhone that does not have enough juice, and some earrings. Fighting with Amazon’s shitty UI to get refunds is never fun.

Dinner went as planned and it was pretty good. Now I am going to cut some virtual grass and head to bed. WOOOO!

My Life

I Sent It A Little Too Hard!

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Saturday. Brandi said she was going off diet today and while I planned not to, I cannot diet if she is not dieting. No, that is not a healthy way to be, but it sucks to spend an hour or three prepping a healthy meal and watching your significant other chow down on something you really crave. So I woke up and did some laundry and dishes and once I got everything going I threw on some clothes and headed to town to do my grocery shopping. I also had the intention of eating all day because I was craving EVERYTHING.

First thing I did was go to the gas station and got a bit of gogo juice and I picked up a couple of breakfast sandwiches and a burrito. Went to Wal-Mart, picked up groceries and grabbed a corn dog to eat on the way to the donut shop. Ate some stuff from the donut shop and took donut stuff home for Brandi and the kids. Got home, unloaded the groceries and sat down because I was walking around Wal-Mart without my brace.

So around noon I took the kids to their grandparents and I went back to town and got more food. Taco Bell for Brandi and Burger King for me. When I got home I fired up my PC and started playing Lawn Mowing Simulator and umm, this game is absolutely going to steal my soul. I suppose I will write up a review for it one day, but all I can say right now is that it is absolutely fun.

I helped Brandi throw some storage tubs in her “she shed’s” loft and she spent a lot of time in there putting a shelf together. These are things I usually like to do, but I was just dead from the sugar crash. In the midst of this state I played on my phone and ate more. Eventually, Brandi went to town and I just chilled out. I felt like crap and I was done. We finished the night with watching Hereditary and I went to bed. By the way, coffee flavored ice cream + horror films = DELICIOUS. During the night I sweated my ass off, which means my blood sugar was somewhere in the atmosphere.

Blegh.

My Life

A Monday Through Friday Breakdown

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The Headache of DOOM
I had a headache all week. It would come and go. Sometimes the pain would pretty much shut me down and I would either have to stop working or, if at home, I would have to drop everything and sit down. It was a rollercoaster of no, to mild, to extreme pain and I was trying to get along. Tylenol and Ibuprofen didn’t touch it and I was already taking plenty of those for my ankle. I thought it may have been my blood sugar, but now I believe it was a sinus thing. Along with this potential sinus issue, my ears are stopped up and my hearing has been terrible all week.

The Goings on of Work
Work was very tedious. I stared at spreadsheets all week as I organized grade recovery data and prepared for a pilot test for a new state assessment. I had to deal with a ton of broken Chromebooks and missing Chromebooks, particularly one student who had a complete meltdown because I could not provide instant gratification. The missing device was found and I was never informed. That annoyed me.

I’ve been cleaning my two classrooms and I feel like I have been cleaning them for a few years now. The big issue was that a few years ago, right before COVID came crashing through, we had a hurricane that trashed a lot of things, not to mention that it was all in disarray because it was moved from the original two room locales. I am throwing shit away that’s 20 years old, some things even older.

We had the big grade and attendance recovery program this week and as the coordinator I spent too much time prepping for it. More kids signed up and showed up for it than ever before, which meant I had ALOT more work to do in prep. two hours after school for four days and hell, Tuesday we didn’t have it because the weather went south. REAL south.

We also received a couple of extra “Anywhere Carts.” Those things are big metal boxes with shelving to store Chromebooks. They have chargers and wheels to roll around. They are things we actually did not ask for, but we were given them nevertheless. I have so many of these carts that I am responsible for now it isn’t funny.

I survived work just fine, but this headache and my ankle were still hurting.

Wednesday With Abby
Every day this week I came home and did a small amount of housework and cooked. I tried to spend time with Abby and Wesley equally, but Abby has eaten up most of my time because she loves watching Wednesday, which is probably the most mature rendition of anything to do with the Addam’s Family franchise. It’s got a bit of gore, allusions to murder/suicide/assault, and a bit of CUSSING OHHHHH NOOO! While Brandi is generally against Abby watching the show, I am there for her. She gets scared by some things but ultimately, she is enjoying the time with me more than the show I think.

Temperamental Weather
So the very beginning of the week began out warmer than it should be, but on Tuesday a heavy rain and chain of thunderstorms rolled in. Tornadoes, flash flooding, 45 mph gusts and everything managed to shut school down early and managed to knock our lights out briefly that evening.

While I always appreciate a good weather day, I have too much to do and losing that time really screwed up my plans. I was planning to take Monday off to just rest up some, but our grade recovery day that was canceled with the weather was moved to Monday afternoon. I also got behind on starting the pilot state assessment on Wednesday. After the rain, we had a sharp drop in temperature and Friday morning was in the 20s, but guess what? It warmed back up to the 50s and now it isn’t very cold.

How Was the Week Overall?
Mentally it has been terrible because it’s been overloaded with data and spreadsheet work. BY the time I get home I would be so tired that I never felt like working on our office (4 months behind btw). Physically I made no improvements on my leg. In fact, Monday I must have put my sock on wrong because my AFO brace rubbed a blister on my calf. Thursday night I scratched it and it burst and now it stings.

I managed to stay on the diet. Lunches were late and light, I fasted until after noon and did not eat too many sweet things. Supper was always well balanced but I did give on on my calorie tracking. I will returned to that when I stop losing weight. I have not weighed yet, but I am going to diet for a little while before I step on the scales. I know I am in my 330s or 340s. I don’t want the discouragement.

My Life, Uncategorized

It’s Saturday!

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If you asked me what I spent my day doing you would be depressed. I did about 8 loads of laundry. I washed two loads of dishes, I shredded documents and sorted documents into a filing cabinet. I tried to take it easy on my foot and I played Final Fantasy 14 a little bit.

I made some concoction of sliced up imitation crab, onions and bell peppers. I overseasoned with the salt and Louisiana crawfish seasoning and it was just too much. Headache, stomachache and just felt terrible. I wallowed around in misery for a couple of hours after this. I want crawfish so bad and this did not scratch that itch.

PIcked up Papa John’s pizza for dinner. I love their pizza and I LOVE that garlic butter sauce. We had enough for leftovers so we put them up Abby and I watched Wednesday until she fell asleep. Brandi watched with us and she wasn’t too keen on Abby watching it.

BED!

My Life

102

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102. That’s how many students are in danger of being retained in both 7th and 8th grade. I had to trifold 102 letters, stuff and seal envelopes, and stick return and send address labels. This was followed by running those pieces of mail through our office stamp machine. After all that, I took an afternoon trip to the post office. It took all day, primarily because my other responsibilities still have to be tended to.

Once I made it through the work day, I came home and did absolutely nothing. Did a little cleaning and a lot of junk food crushing. The only highlight was that Abby and I watched Wednesday together. We stayed up pretty late.

Sleep time.

My Life

Paperwork

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When a person takes on a job as a teacher, or a coordinator of a federal program, there are times where you have to spend an inordinate amount of time to do paperwork. I have been inundated with chasing data down for students who have failed the first semester. In that pursuit of information I made several errors. Some small errors, and a couple of big mistakes.

These setbacks have cost me hours of work and this will absolutely spill into tomorrow. Tomorrow I will stuff envelopes with letters to parents explaining how their child has failed for the first semester and they need to put some effort into their educations on this second half of the year.

I am so tired.

My Life

It’s Only Wednesday

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It feels like Friday, but it’s only Wednesday. Anyhow, my morning started strong and today I did manage to get quite a bit done. I finished that goofed up paperwork and did ALOT of work with Chromebooks that were repaired and returned. I even issued a lot of devices to new students.

We had a weather day today, as we were in a tornado warning all afternoon. We closed school an hour early and I went to Circle K and filled up, as well as buy a few food items I didn’t need. How is gas station food even legal? It’s calorie dense, tastes delicious (to me), but it destroys your body and mind. When I got home, I couldn’t even compete with Wesley in Mario Party because my brain was shut down.

The kids and I fed the pups and prepped them for the storm. We did some cleaning around the yard and I came in and did some cleaning around the house. Abby went to the eye doctor and the boys stayed home, played games and kicked out some homework. I have been filing paperwork and cleaning a little bit here and there.

Sleep.

My Life

Paperwork Paperwork Pay. Per. Work.

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What a day at work. I spent the entire work day chasing information down for students to be able to attend grade and attendance recovery. What should have been a simple, clean collection of data was a disharmonic calamity caused by our district’s online gradebook. Why, oh why, can’t I just run a report of failing grades for the current grading period? Why does it have to be so complicating. All of this caused me to make a mistake which, in turned, caused me to have to work even more on it. Blah.

I ate Taco Bell for lunch because I apparently hate myself. I even had a wonderful experience of a single packet of hot sauce pouring all over me. Like, you’d think I poured a whole bottle all over me.

Came home, spent some time outside, but not too much. Did homework with Wesley and Abby because Brandi did…something I don’t know. Then I went to bed pretty early. This time of year means work has me down, and since I ain’t dieting worth a damn, well, the misery is doubled.

Hyperfixation To an Alarming Degree