I was up early this morning – at least for
a few minutes – to see Dad off on his trip to the city; but then I went back to
bed until we needed to get up again and started on our busy day.
Since any news about Dad’s work week in the
city didn’t make any of my weekend journal updates, you might be able to guess
that I wasn’t really even thinking about him being away this week at all until
this morning; and I have to wonder if I really do have too much on the go to
basically not even be around for most of the prep work he was doing to get
ready for his trip over the past week and more.
Yes, I did know he was doing the work; but it didn’t really affect my
life at all while I was busy with exams and everything else.
We missed him for Tai Chi and breakfast;
but the rest of my day has been non-stop action and I wouldn’t have spent much
time with Dad anyway if he had been here.
Our school adventures today were all about getting started on the
clean-up of everything from classrooms to lockers; and I brought my first load
of gear and returned assignments and projects home with me after we were set
free for the day. When we weren’t doing
stuff like that, we filled the hours with some outdoor play time and a movie;
our lunch break included a football scrimmage; and we took it easy the rest of
the time.
Michael, Tim, Rowen, and I had some after
school play time that included some biking at the park and an ice cream break
at the Emporium; but I had to be home early to help Mom out with an early
dinner ahead of an evening of babysitting while she was busy helping out at the
med center. While Michael came home with
me for dinner, I had bonus babysitting help from hem when the rain rolled in
and his ball practice was cancelled. We’ve
gotten a lot of rain tonight and a thunderstorm with it for good measure; but
we were indoors for all of that and had fun playing with Ethan, Ehlana, Zack,
and Caleb. Grandma and Grandpa Ayres
took Leah and Sebastian so that I didn’t have too many really little kids;
though Michael and I could have handled the extras if that hadn’t already been
set up before the baseball rain-out.
We played music; had some video gaming
after that; and then wrapped up our evening with a movie that Zack and Caleb
missed when they each fell asleep within minutes of cuddling with Michael and
me. That worked out fairly well when
Aunt Leanne and Aunt Grace came to get them not long after that; and then
Michael and I had some cuddle time with Ethan and Ehlana through to the end of
the show before getting them off to bed for the night. Mom got home in time for the goodnight hugs
and kisses with the twins; Michael and I had a little chat with her; and then
he headed home so that Mom could do my Magi lesson with me – a lesson that he
couldn’t do with us even if it hadn’t been a school night and time for him to
get home by then anyway.
That lesson took nearly an hour; I stayed
in the office with Mom while we both did some family business work; and then it
was bedtime for both of us by a bit after one o’clock. I’m skipping the studying and archive work
tonight, but did do the full email and computer checks that included a fairly
thorough perusal of the Hathorne Industries systems. I won’t get into the details now, since Mom
has an archive for the Hathornes with very thorough reporting of their
operations, but I will mention that they’ve been busy this year doing some
fairly nasty things in different parts of the world; and they are happy to use
any war or crisis as an opportunity to take advantage of the misfortune of
others. Then again, they cause a lot of
that misfortune; instigate some conflicts; and have even been behind some
fairly serious crises.
One of these days we are going to deal with
them, and I wish it would be sooner instead of later, but I did at least find a
few things tonight that we can do something about; and we’ll hopefully find a
way to help at least some of the people they’ve been hurting by their actions. I didn’t have time to get on that tonight,
but I will get to that starting tomorrow night – and get some help from Mom
too; if she has the time to fit a bit more into her already crowded schedule.
That wasn’t the most uplifting way to end
my night, but the visit into the bowels of the Hathorne Industries computer
systems was the last thing I did before getting to this report. I’ve got band and teen praise team practices
tomorrow, so it’s going to be another very long day; and I need to get some
sleep so that I’ll be ready for that. I’ll
miss out on the med center work or babysitting because of those practices, and
I’m probably going to have dinner at Michael’s house tomorrow night; but I can’t
skip those practices because we’ll be getting ready for the Fourth of July
holiday weekend at both practices. This
is the last one we’ll have for band; and we’ll probably only have two more for
the teen praise team between now and then.
Okay, that’s it and I’m ready to crash now;
so, until next time...
...May the Magi Force be with you!
