Happy 36th Birthday, Dad!
We’ve had a fairly nice day, but not all
that warm out. That didn’t keep us from
starting Dad’s big day out with Tai Chi by the river; and Uncle Adam, Aunt
Leanne, and Zack joined us for that – though Zack just sat in his stroller and
stayed bundled up and warm while the rest of us exercised. They also stayed for breakfast, and so did
Michael; though that had good and bad moments.
The bad would be the morning sickness that
hit Aunt Leanne while breakfast was being cooked, and while that wasn’t fun for
her at all; she still led the jokes about Dad now having two recent birthdays where
pregnant women with morning sickness was an issue.
For the record, no, I do not plan on
helping Aunt Leanne out with near-future additions to those jokes about Dad’s
birthdays being a cause of morning sickness with pregnant women; but I won’t
promise that’ll never happen either.
That had Dad worried, but the only reason for not making that promise is
because I really like the timing for both Mom’s and Aunt Leanne’s second
pregnancies – though I’ll shoot for due dates a bit earlier than late June and
early-July when I am ready to start my own family.
That got off track a bit, so let’s move
along.
Dad’s birthday breakfast wasn’t much fun
for Aunt Leanne, but we worked around that and had her lay down on a sofa in
the living room while the cooking continued; and then moved the breakfast party
into the dining room to keep the smells to a minimum for her. Michael and I didn’t have a lot of time to
enjoy the meal or birthday fun before we needed to get ready for school; but
Dad and Uncle Adam didn’t have a lot of time for that either before needing to
get ready for work. Since Aunt Leanne
was feeling barfy; she stayed and took it easy until she felt better; and let
Mom, Ethan, and Ehlana take care of Zack for a while.
My school day was a mix of work and fun,
with cheerleading and band practice being the most fun and the election
coverage the least interesting part of my day.
I’ll get to that part of the update in a bit; though I don’t actually
consider the election results particularly newsworthy either for me personally
or in the grand scheme of things. Our
cheerleading practice was again all about getting ready for our first playoff
game. Dani is looking ahead beyond this
week too; but only with a bit of planning.
With sudden-death playoffs, there’s no point in getting too far ahead of
ourselves. With Halloween over now, band
practice was all about Christmas music to get ready for the start of the parade
and concert season that is amazingly now less than five weeks away.
I didn’t think about that back when Rowen
wanted to know if I’d try out for cheerleading but if our team makes it to the
championship game; we’ll end up jumping straight from football into parades and
concerts without even one weekend off!
Add in the teen praise team practices to get ready for the Christmas
show at the church and helping out with the Christmas concert at school; and
Michael and I are going to seriously need the vacation time at Christmas.
Don’t get me wrong – I love the parades and
concerts; and wish we did more of that during the rest of the year with the
band. Maybe we’ll see what we can do
about that next year – though I have no idea how to add more to my schedule
than I already have going on. It still
would be really nice to do more than just practice for half of the school year
without any performances at all.
Again, moving along, Mom had a gang of
family and friends over for Dad’s birthday dinner party. Aunt Leanne had another barfy moment or two,
but mostly held it together – at least while I was there. Michael, Tim, Lucas, Rebecca, and Rowen came home
with me for the dinner after our football and band practices too; and three out
of four sets of parents were either already there or on the way by then. Michael and I had to get to our teen praise
team practice for seven o’clock, so we didn’t have time for much more than
eating our meal and then heading out the door again; but everyone else was able
to relax and enjoy spending some quality time roasting Dad and enjoying the
meal that included a pair of Jacob Stone special side-dishes. We stayed for the birthday song and candles;
but missed the dessert and gift opening part of the fun.
It was a work and school night, though, so
the party didn’t last long anyway – and was over by the time we got back from
spending an hour and a half working on new music for both our Thanksgiving and
Christmas services. Stacey is going all
out for Christmas this year, and she’s going to have Michael and me very
involved in the music; so we’re going to have extra work there too. At this rate, I’m going to need to start
doing daily time-phases to make more than twenty-four hours in all of my days
just to keep up!
Before I move along, though, there was one
news item that I should have mentioned from dinnertime. With quite a few of the parents there, we –
the teens – got approval for our Saturday sleepover plans; and Michael and
Rebecca will be hosting the event this time.
Tim still needed to get parental approval, and Jenny and Lance will get
their invitations by tomorrow at the latest; but I’d say it’s a done deal at
this point.
Michael came home with me for a while after
our praise team practice, and while he didn’t stay late; we did do a Magi
lesson with Mom, took care of getting Ethan and Ehlana tucked into their beds,
and had a little alone time in the lounge before he went home for the night and
I got to work on my usual bedtime studies and family business work. We did our homework while in the lounge too,
but that was easy enough with the help of a time-phase to get it out of the way
and not interfere with our minor make-out session.
Yes, a major make-out session in a
time-phase was an option; but we resisted the urge. ;^)
That was a good decision because I’ve ended
up working for nearly four hours now – including some Jacuzzi time
multi-tasking with the first round of language studies. The only comment I’ll make about the work
part of my night is that it’s been strange working on family business projects
for next year going out into the spring and even next summer on a day when two
of my group practices were just starting preparations for Christmas
events. Christmas is one of my very
favorite times of the year, but with the inevitable weather descent into winter
that we’re dealing with now; I had more fun playing in virtual tropical or
summer paradises tonight.
Maybe Mom and Dad will consider a winter
getaway somewhere south and warm sometime sooner than later. I wouldn’t want to be away from home for
Christmas; but skipping school for a week in January or February to do that –
or a March Break adventure – would definitely work for me.
I’m getting all warm and toasty just
thinking about the possibilities – though I’d better not spend too much time
thinking about travel options with Michael too much; or I’ll need to go and
take a cold shower to get some sleep.
That brings us back around to the election
news. The politically cynical side of me
would report that everyone in the country – and the rest of the world, for that
matter – lost the election tonight. Then
again, that isn’t quite true – the rich and powerful manage to win every
election one way or the other. In this
country, and really most others; there is no true, difference-making choices
for governments anyway. I really don’t
want to get into a rant about that no matter how tempting. For our little town, it really doesn’t matter
whether Republicans or Democrats have control of the Senate or House of Representatives. We’ll take care of our own here, and if the
governments of the world will stay out of our way; we’ll even try to do that
for the rest of the world – though that’s not going to happen nearly as fast as
I wish that it could.
It would be nice if the Ascension of the
Light includes a future when the current political mess we call governments are
irrelevant.
A girl can dream. ;^)
The best news about the election tonight,
though, is that we’ll have one post-mortem day of analysis at school; and then
we can ignore politics again for another couple of years while we don’t pay
attention to the twenty-sixteen election cycle that the politicians and media
will start harping on by Thursday. They
all seem to love the games and theatre; but most of us have lives to live; and
can’t be bothered with any of that idiocy.
I will not rant; I will not rant...
I should mention that all of the adults in
my family did go out and vote like good little citizens, but don’t get too
excited about that; because protest-voting is very popular in Witch Falls –
meaning that neither of the two major political parties ever win even a third
of the votes – and usually less than a quarter between both sides. Now that I think about that, though; I guess
there is one Magi-related election news flash that would be nice to know – what
the Magi vote break-down is for these elections. No, it doesn’t make a difference for any of
the vote results; but it could be a cute little fun fact. That same question wouldn’t be a big deal for
Dark Magi; since I’m sure they just vote for whomever they own – assuming they
don’t own all candidates anyway.
That’s more than enough election coverage
from my perspective, and if you’re actually interested in the details from a
history point of view whenever you’re reading this; feel free to Google it – or
do whatever it is you’ll do to get information in my future. All I want to do right now is call it a night
and get some sleep; so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
