Congratulations, Heather and Adam – you are
officially owners of a beautiful, riverfront home in the new section of
town! I’ll guess that the Green family
is in for a busy weekend helping them move in; but all of that work will be worth
it for them to be in their new home in time for Brandon’s second birthday on
Monday.
We’re not going to be directly involved in
that move, though Mom and Dad will be helping out with some food and drinks to
help them feed the volunteer movers; and we have a nice house-warming gift for
them too. Uncle Mark and Aunt Grace may
help a bit at the new house, since they are going to be across-the-street
neighbors, though I haven’t heard anything specific; and the Green clan really
does have a lot of big, strong guys available to make fairly short work of the
heavy lifting – along with a small fleet of delivery trucks to haul everything
in.
Compared to getting a new house, my day was
fairly tame; but Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I also had a lot of fun too – especially
once we were set free from school for the weekend. Before I get to that part of the report,
though; let’s start from the beginning.
It was fairly chilly this morning when
Michael came over for Tai Chi, and while he still needed to rush around a bit
to do that with us and then get to his weight training at school; Mom and I
didn’t let him escape without getting some hot food into him on the run. I’d like to think that my goodbye hug and
kisses helped to keep him warm until we met up again at school, but even if
that didn’t work; it did keep both of us smiling for a while.
We didn’t have anything else out of the
norm going on at home this morning, and I was ready to go early enough to meet
up with Rowen at her house before she was ready to head out; so that gave me a
chance to catch up on some chat time with her parents and Patrick while I
waited for her. Owen and Patricia are
busy with tax season, but the big rush is coming over the next couple of weeks,
and with the added pressure of the new data center; they’ll be very busy. Rowen’s going to help out more too, but I
think that we should do a few bonus sleepovers at my house to give them a break
on the home front; and maybe Patrick could spend some extra time at Scott’s
house too. I know that they’re overjoyed
with how successful their business is becoming now; but that won’t mean much if
they burn out before getting to enjoy the benefits of that success.
Getting back on track, Rowen and I headed
to school once she was ready; we met up with Michael and Tim after their weight
training workout; and pretty much needed to get right to our home room class. We had a Day One schedule Friday, so I was
the only student in our class that actually liked starting out the last day of
the week with Spanish; but nobody minds ending the school week with Phys-Ed for
last class – especially when we take it outdoors. It was a bit cooler today, and the yard was
still wet; but at least the rain moved on by then and it was nice to be out of
the gym again for a change.
There isn’t anything to write about from
our classes today. We’re continuing the
new modules, and while we will start seeing quizzes again by next week; there’ll
be a bit of a reprieve from major tests for at least another week or two. While that doesn’t bother me one way or the
other; it certainly takes the stress level down for about half of my
classmates. The homework load is a
different story. We still took the
evening off from working on it; but Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I will need to get
together sometime this weekend to work on a couple of projects – even if we do
the rest of our work on our own.
I sense another Sunday afternoon work
session in my near future; but that’s preferable to skipping what I hope will
be some Michael and me alone time tomorrow night to study instead.
On the teen talk front around school,
Heather and Adam Green’s new house made the grapevine news through some cousins;
and there are lots of kids and teens looking at those new homes with wishful
eyes and hopeful dreams. I might be one
of those dreamers; though that’s as much because I know that my future will not
include inheriting the Proctor family home from Mom and Dad. That’ll be Ethan’s honor – and burden. Okay, yes, I might know more than that about
my future; but let’s not spoil any surprises tonight.
Returning to the teen talk topic, weekend
plans were top news too; but not really in an upbeat way because nearly
everyone old enough to help out with chores knew by this morning that the
weather was going to cooperate for the next couple of days and make spring
clean-ups a certainty. Easter is just
three weeks away, and while it’s still too cold most nights to plant new
flowers quite yet; gardens and yards need to be readied for the impending
spring renewal. Add in post-winter
maintenance; and most of us are going to be in for very long work days – at least
on Saturday. You will not hear me
complain – especially when I hear some of my farm-kid friends telling me about
some of the work they have to do every spring – often in very muddy conditions.
Work was the last thing on my mind once we
were set free for the weekend. Michael
and I split up with Rowen and Tim long enough to drop our bags off at our homes
and collect our bikes; and then we went for a long ride. That started with a stop at the Emporium for
trail rations and drinks; we did the usual construction sites tour; and then
headed East along the river. With all of
the rain we’ve had over the past couple of days, we knew the trails at the park
would be a quagmire – except for the main pathway – so we instead rode East for
almost an hour to see how far we could get; and then biked back to town in time
to meet up with Tim’s parents at his house after they were done work for the
day.
My family was taking a break from dinner
and a movie night, and since Michael’s and Rowen’s parents were both working; Martin
and Tracey agreed to Tim’s request for having the four of us at their house for
the evening. While Tim’s parents share
the store and shop hours with his aunt and uncle; they still put in long work
weeks – just as every business owner in town does; so helping them with making
dinner and cleaning up was as expected as it is at my house. Rowen and I helped Tracey with making dinner,
but there wasn’t anything sexist about that decision – Tim was put to work
getting his bedroom and the family room presentable for ‘gentler’ company; and
he drafted Michael to help him. Martin
allowed that, but only because Michael was used to Tim’s usual state of
not-so-clean. According to Tracey, Tim
has actually improved significantly since he started dating Rowen; and she also
noted that he hadn’t made that effort with anyone before her – without mentioning
any names.
The boys got the worst of that deal anyway,
since it really didn’t take much work to throw together a large pot of
spaghetti; some appetizers; and a couple of pans full of extra-cheesy garlic
bread. While the food was great, it was
the dinner conversation that I loved the most.
I hear more about the local farming news and everything else that goes
on around Landry’s showroom and shop through Tim’s parents than from anywhere
else – including my farm-based friends.
So far, the farmers are apparently fairly happy with the weather; though
that can change fairly quickly if we get too much rain or a major dry
spell. For now, though, there hasn’t
been any major flooding thanks to staggered melt-off of winter snow; and spring
always brings out the optimism in most farmers around here.
All I’m thinking about for that is how
optimistic – and happy – they’ll be in the not too distant future when Ehlana
succeeds with some of her pet projects at the lab when it opens in
September. Drought-resistant crops are
one of her top priorities, and while she can’t do too much physical work or
experimentation on that yet; she has been thinking about it a lot and doing
research for a while now. I’m not going
to be very deeply involved in the lab, or the work that Ethan and Ehlana will
do there; but it is going to be very cool to watch it all happen!
We’re still a bit young to get very excited
about cars, but it was fun hearing about some of the new vehicles that Tracey
and Sarah are bringing in this year. Tim
is almost as interested in talking cars as football; but then he’s only
personally interested in one car for himself – a Corvette. Football still wins for now, but I’m sure
that’ll change between now and when he can get his license. I can relate to liking sports cars, but some
of my parents’ practicality has rubbed off on me too; since I’ll be thinking
more about space and convenience than fast and cool when it comes time for me
to buy my first car.
Maybe we should have gotten a sports car to
drive around in back when it was just you and me, Mom! That wouldn’t have been keeping a low
profile; but might have helped us with some of those close call escapes. ;^)
There was some talk about new farm
equipment for this year too; but that wasn’t quite as interesting for half of
us so Tracey, Rowen, and I missed out on some of that while we talked about ‘girl
things’. That included everything from new
babies and pregnancies to a bit of romance gossip; and that kept us entertained
through the tail-end of dinner and dessert.
It was teen time in the kitchen for the clean-up; and then Michael, Tim,
Rowen, and I went outside and over to the school to toss a football around for
a while.
Now that Michael and Tim are both taller
than Rowen and me, they’re starting to gain some advantages over us when it
comes to some sports, but I have some other advantages to compensate; and Rowen
is still under-estimated by nearly everyone for her athletic ability – not to
mention her fiery competitiveness. I
bring that up here because the four of us actually make a pretty good
team. I can throw a football to exactly
where any of my friends are going to be when at a flat-out run; Michael and Tim
can catch anything if the ball is on-target; and Rowen can run and dodge with a
football better than either Michael or Tim can manage. I can also tell you that it’s probably a good
thing that there isn’t a high school co-ed football league. The parents and teachers would likely have a
problem with all of the hugs and kisses after each football play – not that
Rowen and I would be interested in doing that with our boys in front of a
crowd. The group of younger girls at the
playground giggled at us, though; and the boys happily gagged and tried to razz
us.
We didn’t play football for very long
before heading back to Tim’s house; and then we wound down the evening with
some video gaming. As usual, the boys
did most of the gaming while Rowen and I were content to cuddle with them and
chat for a few hours. Some of that chat
time included Tim’s parents; but they left us on our own for most of the
evening. That didn’t mean we had any
alone time for even a minor make-out session – which is why I’m really hoping
that Michael and I can manage that tomorrow night; but we had a lot of fun
anyway. Even with everything we fit into
those hours between the start of weekend freedom and the end of the night; it
still seemed too soon when it was time to head for home.
Michael and I left first, but took a slow
walk while waiting for Rowen to say goodnight to Tim and catch up with us so we
could walk her home on our way to my house.
That cut into the time we had for our own goodnight hugs and kisses on
my front porch; but by then I was pretty much ready to come up to bed anyway –
especially after running all day on just a few hours of sleep last night.
That’s why I’ve skipped a lot of my usual
nightly computing after climbing into bed with Mandy, and even with a bit of
family business work that came up; I’ll still be off to sleep before one o’clock. I know, that’s still not going to be much
sleep, but if needed; I can always cheat with a little Magi-powered fatigue
banishing in the morning. I am ready to
get started on that sleep time, and don’t have any other news for today; so,
until next time…
…Live long and prosper, fellow Magi of the
Light!
