The holiday show, Seeds of Hope, that Davan is in this holiday season will be premiering next Friday - the 7th of December. Tech week starts tonight. Other than sleeping, Davan will be spending more time at Do Jump than at home for the next few days. Davan is over the moon about this. I'm very happy she's over the moon and also very happy that we're not having to drive her back and forth the whole time. In fact, at least one co-performer is spending the night at our house this Saturday (and maybe nearly every Saturday in December) to avoid the long commute home Saturday night only to have to turn around and come back for the early matinee (or rehearsal) on Sunday.
Just today, Do Jump sent out an email with a link to a video that was made during rehearsal one day (actually many weeks back and I believe the piece has changed some now). And now I'll share it with all (ten or so) of you. :)
I have to tell you, though, that I like this version of the video better. The one above makes me feel a little like I'm going to have a seizure.
If you're local, you should come see it! If you're going to come see it, then opening night is a great night to come. The energy will be high and it'd be great to sell out that show. We'll be there then, so come say hi!
After our week of cooking, I was glad to take the day off from cooking (mostly) on Saturday. We'd have had plenty of leftovers to get us through the day, but that's not what we did. I had other plans. Saturday was the day we celebrated my birthday! Monday was the actual day, but was a busy day of work and classes, so we chose Saturday.
We spent the day doing fun stuff together, family rotational fun style. We also ate pizza and doughnuts and watched Modern Family (it was one of my presents). While the camera wasn't taken out during pretty much the second half of the day, I did get enough pictures and video to put this little deal together.
(I started this post on Sunday, but put it on hold while I worked out my picture problems. I've got a partial solution, but I don't think I'm happy with it for the long term. Flickr, it turns out, sort of works, but it's a bit complicated. Sigh.)
Tonight is the last bit of my week off of work. Tomorrow it's back at it. I'm okay with that. I'm looking forward to seeing the kids and hearing how their breaks went. I'll miss spending the time with Davan, though. Of course, I still get to see a lot of her, but I know she doesn't always feel that, which is really the only part of working that makes me regret taking the job. Now, mind you, I'd like it even better if it were only Monday through Thursday and I never had to work a day camp, but one can't have everything.
For my week off, Davan and I decided to do a lot of cooking together. And boy, did we. We started on Monday (the weekend was pretty normal with rehearsals and classes and such).
That evening we made oven baked onion rings, spicy buffalo tempeh wings and coleslaw.
All three of us ended up working on the onion rings in an assembly line fashion. Davan dipped in the liquid, I covered them in bread crumbs and Anthony did the spacial work.
We had fun making it.
Ranger spent pretty much the whole time we were cooking the whole week just waiting to be of service.
We were pleased with the results.
Tuesday, Davan had stuff at Do Jump in the evening and didn't help me cook. We had my FIL over for dinner, though, and, as he's been getting soup for several visits now, I wanted to make something more interesting for him. I made roasted fingerling potatoes, roasted broccoli and white bean sausages. That was yummy, too.
Wednesday we did a sort of dinch thing (what we can a combination between lunch and dinner, like brunch is a breakfast/lunch thing) because that worked out best for our schedule. That evening was Chinese food night.
We had hosin mustard tofu:
Orange broccoli (not our favorite):
And potato scallion pancakes:
Another yummy meal. The tofu was eaten in lettuce bundles, which was delish.
On Thanksgiving we, of course, cooked again. However, we were going over to my MIL's for Thanksgiving and didn't want to cook a whole meal for ourselves only to pack it all up, so we decided on taking just one thing - a sweet potato and tempeh dish we like. But, then, Davan asked for roasted broccoli, as well, so we did that, too. Then my MIL asked if we'd bring rolls. We ended up deciding to buy them. Then we added an apple crisp to the mix. So, yeah, it was another big cooking day, but no pictures were taken.
We did a Thanksgiving feast for ourselves on Friday so we could eat it at home at our leisure. It was our biggest cooking day of the week. Luckily, we were still enjoying it and getting along in our tiny kitchen.
We made two pies.
(and sharp readers will have noticed that something changed between Wednesday's cooking and Friday's cooking)
Cherry and pumpkin.
Apple had been in the mix when we were picking and is why we ended up taking an apple crisp on Thursday.
Ranger, once again, spent the day hopeful.
Davan had her moments, as well.
Anthony worked on other projects.
But did help with dishes from time to time.
The violia moment:
In addition to the pie, on the menu was homemade oatmeal rolls, garlicy green beans, smokey kale, mashed potatoes and smoky almond gravy, polenta stuffing and "tasty-fu."
Finally ready to eat:
It was our best meal yet. We made tons, too, so we got to enjoy leftovers for a couple of days. After Saturday, that is, because Saturday was a different event all together.
So, I came to write a blog entry about what we did with my week off. I had a second one planned out if I had time, as well. However, when I went to upload photos, I discovered that I've reached my photo limit with Blogger. Bummer. I tried uploading photos to Flickr and then just using the URL to have them show here, but Flickr doesn't seem to allow that. Right now, I'm not totally sure what I'm going to do. I'm considering looking around for other ways to upload photos that I can link to. I'm considering starting a new blog elsewhere so I can start over with my photo allowance. What I am not going to do is start paying to have more photos. So...stay tuned while I figure it all out. Suggestions are welcome.
Last week was a sick week for us. Davan actually was sick mostly the week before, but wasn't 100% better last week. She'd told me she was sick and she sure was blowing a lot, followed by coughing, but she was pretty stoic about it, never missing a rehearsal or anything, causing me to think it wasn't that bad. I was also lulled into complacency by the fact that four full days after she got sick, I was still well. Usually, Davan gets sick and then I follow suit within a day or two. It's just our little routine. This time, it was five days later that I succumbed. And, boy, was it a dozy.
I started feeling sick on Sunday, as I mentioned when I was blogging about the tournament. Monday's day camp, which isn't my favorite thing to do (I like the after school program - it's day camp that is not my favorite, particularly the afternoon shift), was rough with feeling low energy. Tuesday, though, I got up, started doing stuff in the kitchen and then went and laid down on the couch. I ended up calling in sick. I am not one to do that easily, but I was just whooped.
Wednesday was a bit better and I did make it to work. Thursday, again an improvement. By Friday, I was feeling like things were definitely on the upswing. Saturday, though, was a bit of a set back. To sum up, this thing is sticking with me. I'm still feeling less than healthy today and it's been over a week.
Anthony, who rarely catches whatever Davan and I are suffering from, succumbed on Tuesday himself. He had a lot going on at work, so continued to go, but says he'd have called in sick a couple of days if things weren't so pressing there.
It wasn't all gloom and doom over this last week, though. Here are some pictures from the week.
When I stayed home on Tuesday, Davan and I decided to draw a picture together.
Here's the finished product:
Another evening, Davan got the camera out to get a picture of this cuteness:
And then tried to get one of me with my eyes open.
I have a blinking issue.
We were unsuccessful. In the summer with all the light and no flash needed, we can sometimes get pictures of me with my eyes open. This time of year, though...well, it's a challenge. Let me just say that eyes all the way closed beats the one open one half closed drunk look hands down.
Davan went to Wednesday diving class and I asked Anthony to get some video again. He did, but it turned out to be a 3 meter board day, which meant that Davan didn't get to do some of the more interesting things she's been working on the 1 meter board. Still, I put together a little video of the evening's dives.
One of the days Anthony was feeling particularly low energy, he came home from work and cuddled up in a blanket on the floor. Ranger approved.
Ranger also enjoyed a game session.
Saturday morning, Davan needed to get up so she could go to open gym with a friend at AWOL. I went in to wake her up, but had a hard time leaving again. Ranger, having been walked and fed, was happy to go back to bed. Poor Anthony was left in the kitchen doing the dishes from the evening before, but broke away to snap this shot of the girls.
After Davan and I vacated, Ranger found someone else to cuddle with.
I think she's a little embarrassed.
Friday evening we watched this video about small home living and were entranced with her chairs. Anthony has been wanting a floor chair ever since we had to give up our wireless keyboard and mouse thanks to technical issues. I was thinking, what a tidy couch replacement. Our couch, although only a year and a half old, looks to be about 10 years old. Sigh.
We did some internet searching and found Japanese tatami chairs for around $100 each when shipping was factored in. Yikes! We got the idea to look at IKEA and maybe just not use the legs. We looked online and decided an in person trip was in order. We headed up there Saturday afternoon.
By Saturday evening, we were sitting pretty.
We liked these chairs really well and the bonus was that we could get the chairs separately from the legs because there is a choice of legs (swivel or not). Anthony added a little wood runner under the front so that if we use them on the wood floor, they won't dent it.
We have decided not to give up the couch, though. I was really the only one interested in that. We've found that we still use it, though, for sprawling and it does give us more seating options, particularly for those who don't want to sit on the floor.
When we're not using these seats, we can tuck them away.
They provide a lot of flexibility for conversation grouping, for example.
Or for window gazing.
At any rate, we like them a lot and, with being able to tuck them away, they really don't add to the clutter.
On Sunday, after our pancakes, I got in a cleaning frame of mind. I started with the intention of at least sweeping and quick mopping the floors, but then Anthony joined in and we got in some good work. The place had declined in cleanliness standards between my injury, being busy with the testing, being sick and general laziness. We didn't deep clean everything, but it was a major improvement. I probably put in a good 4 hours of cleaning over the course of the day. Anthony was probably about 2. Davan worked on her room a bit and did a few dishes, so she helped, but she wasn't into it that much. She spent some of her Sunday morning making this:
It's maybe a little hard to tell what it is from the picture, but in person it's very obvious. It's Do Jump's Echo Theater set up for a show with the black curtains and performers and all. It's really cool.
She also made this holiday scene.
Sunday afternoon, Davan went to rehearsal and we had our little man visit for a bit. He was pretty grumpy on Sunday, but he was the happiest being bounced on the ball. Anthony enjoyed a little baby time.
I have to say, though, with the grumpiness, I was happy to pass him off to the second shift sitter. Not that we're not happy to have the little man come again!
Davan also found a new use for some of her hanging things involving the pull up bar in the hall this week. She's tried several different combinations. Here's a little video of some of them.
I got the set of pictures from the test and, well, I don't have a lot of good ones. Good ones were taken, they are just of other people. Sigh. Here are a few of me, though.
In this first one, I'm the one in the white in the back, standing and getting directions. Not, sadly, one of the two doing holds in the front here.
Here I am, kicking on the right side.
Running a form - side shot.
Rolling about on the floor. It was part of a form. Even if it doesn't look like it.
It also turns out that there was a little video taken with the family camera. It's just a bit of one of my fights and then my promotion. Davan even makes a guest appearance.
A month ago, just before the marathon, I was told that I was up to test at Poekoelan. The test date was set for November 8th. I was supper excited, feeling pretty ready to go. Then the marathon and ensuing injuries occurred. I wasn't sure I was going to actually test. Was I even going to be walking then? I just wasn't sure.
A little over a week before the test, I was pretty sure I wouldn't be testing. My ankle still hurt. I had yet to get the results of my MRI, but my hip was hurting pretty good, too. Then things changed...my ankle seemed to be getting better. The results of my MRI came through and (sorry I didn't share this earlier after posting about my worry) there was no fracture. I had cartilage damage, which isn't a good thing and may mean hip replacement surgery somewhere way down the line, but I was clear to use it.
I started trying things out. Using my hip actually made it feel better. I went to the chiropractor who also diagnosed a spasm in the psoas. He pressed on it until it released. (Who-boy, was that painful right up until it released and then? Gone.) He also adjusted my ankle and knee and the pain relief was immediate, but didn't last, sadly. I went to class last Thursday and, while I didn't jump on my ankle or run on it, I did participate on my feet and that went well. I decided I'd be able to test.
What that meant, though, was a very busy week. First off, there was an all school cleaning party on Sunday. I was testing along with five other people and it was our responsiblity to clean the whole school from dusting the walls and ceilings to picking up mats and cleaning under them to scrubbing the bathrooms and all things in between. Luckily, all students are encouraged to help. Thus the cleaning party on Sunday. A few other students came in and helped clean in return for our appreciation and pizza. Anthony also sweetly came and helped out for over an hour. I was up on my foot and really working it - moving mats and the like - for nearly four hours. My ankle wasn't too happy, but it didn't seem too bad, either.
I got another ankle adjustment on Monday with the same effect. Monday evening, I went to class. It was all about kicking, so I only did some and then worked hands on the bench for a while.
Tuesday I went in to work my holds and my personal kumbong (a form one creates oneself). I hadn't done either in over a month at that point. I'd worked through my kumbong in my head and, after Thursday night's class, reworked it so there would be less jumping on the ankle. So, I needed to actually do it and also to teach two people how to attack for it. So, in the test, first you perform your kumbong alone, then a person or two comes in and attacks for it - they have particular movements to do that you are reacting to in your kumbong.
The holds...well, I hadn't worked through them in my head at all. Doing them with my attackers (two people come and attack you in particular ways that you have to show the defenses for and all of this had to be done in a limited amount of time) didn't go as well as I might have hoped. I spent the next couple days going over it in my head and making Davan attack for dry runs.
In between all this, I was, of course, working. And there was the matter of writing out thank you notes to teacher and teammates who've particularly helped and supported me along the way. Davan and I also went to the school on Wednesday before work to do a bit more cleaning.
Test day was Thursday and was quite busy between getting food (testers are responsible for bringing food to feed the black belts who are running the test), preparing my own food, wrapping small gifts for my attackers and getting to the school by 11am for the last of the cleaning and a little bit of light training. I'd promised a co-tester that I'd go over some details on standards with her that morning. Davan came and helped with the cleaning again. There wasn't ever enough time to make going home again worth it, so I was there through work and up to the test.
The test lasted from 7:30pm-11:00pm. I might have some pictures for you later, as a teammate took some pictures that night, but the family camera plan fell through. There are two folders labeled "Poekoelan Test" but they contain gems such as these:
Oh well. I'll share if I get them.
The upshot of the test is that I passed and am now a gold sash student. Who-hoo!
But, that wasn't the end of my Poekoelan time for the week. Friday was a day camp day because our local schools had a teacher planning day. I was on morning duty, so had to be back to the school at 7:30. I was actually really glad because I didn't sleep well and don't think I'd have slept any more even if I had the time. So, I got to go in and be with the kids while they were fresh and then go home before I crashed out.
I was very disappointed to discover that my ankle/lower leg was swollen by the end of all that. It was really disheartening. I was also having a fair amount of pain and didn't want to walk on it.
After ice, elevation, Advil, another trip to the chiropractor where he used ultra sound to bring the swelling down and sleeping a full night's sleep Friday night, both my mental state and my ankle had improved. Still, I'll need to take it easy again on that poor ankle. It's been a bit of a set back.
Saturday I was in at Poekoelan again for a couple of hours in the afternoon. We had a scorekeeper's meeting and set up for a kids' tournament happening on Sunday. As a scorekeeper, I felt I had to go. Sadly, Davan and I had opposite schedules. Nearly as soon as I got home, she left to go to a gig at Do Jump. She was part of the entertainment for a Bar Mitzvah being held there. She wasn't totally sure about going because it was a stilt walking gig for the Zig Zags and she isn't a big stilt walker. However, the pros were there, as well, and she got recruited by them to be a flier for a bunch of partner tricks, which totally made her evening.
Today, after our family Sunday morning pancake breakfast, I was back at Poekoelan for the tournament. I ended up being assigned to a ring as the sole scorekeeper where as other rings had two scorekeepers plus, in some cases, kid wranglers. I was doing all that solo. It was a little intense, but I ended up finding a rhythm and turning away assistants because it would have been more trouble to train someone than to just keep going. If it weren't for the fact that I'm also coming down with a cold, it would have been fun once I found my grove. As it was, it was fine and sort of fun, but I was really done by the time we were done and really happy to skive off of clean up and come home.
I got home just in time to see Davan and a friend off to their Seeds of Hope rehearsal at Do Jump. Opposite schedules again today, sadly. She'll be home later, though, for Sunday night pizza. Not cooking sounds very good to me.
Whew. That's been my week. Tomorrow, it's back to work with a day camp at that. However, after this week, we have a week off for Thanksgiving. I'm super stoked about that! And I'm excited to go to work tomorrow and see the kids in my class who participated in the tournament. I didn't get to see most of our kids because I was working in an older kid ring, but I hear they did really well and I can't wait to congratulate them.
We had to make a big push for the last couple of days, but we did it! Okay, we actually sort of did it. I was thinking we had through Saturday, but if we'd really done it in one 7 day period, we should have been done on Friday. Still, I'm counting it as a victory.
We had help for the last two days in the form of my friend, Chris, who flew in for a couple of days to visit. I am so pleased she did, too. It was great fun to see her and to have her laughing self help push us through those last two game filled days.
We played a grand total of 51 games. Some were short, some were quite long. Games ranged from about 5 minutes to 5 hours. Most we enjoyed. A few we decided to pass along for others to enjoy. We had to craft rules along the way such as: a different game had to be played with each deck of cards. And, I have an astounding number of decks of cards, even though I've made attempts to cull them down.
Here is the complete list of games we played, in order, along with notes if I so choose to add them:
Forbidden Island (great game!)
Backgammon (an old favorite of mine)
Secret Door (a cooperative game for younger kids, but we kept it)
Zeus on the Loose
Imaginiff
Set
American Girl 300 Wishes
Cranium Dice (we are passing this one along now, but it's good for younger kids)
A card game that I can't remember the name of for the life of me in which different cards have different actions associated with them and the idea is to not loose all your chips, played with the deck of dolphin cards and the poker chips
The Ungame
Mad Chatter
Journey Through Europe
Journey Through Oceania (a Davan original and the most challenging of the Journey games)
Journey Through Africa (a Davan original)
Careers (this is a long time favorite of Davan's and mine plus a childhood game of mine - Davan and I enjoy playing two people each who are life mates with names and all.)
Sleeping Queens
Rat-a-tat Cat
Amazing Labyrinth (great game!)
Racko
Smatch Grey Cat Edition (a Davan original)
Ziggity
Tryominos (I enjoy this game, but Davan hates it, so we're passing it on.)
(This is as far as we'd gotten by Thursday.)
Taboo
Kings in the Corner (a card game) played with the Hawaiian map cards
Mini Mastermind
Catch with Balloons (Davan felt that the balloons counted as a game because they were in the game closet. While I disagreed, this was a quick fix for her to feel like we didn't cheat.)
War with all the not-associated-with-any-particular-game dice (We're passing on some of our vast dice collection.)
The Hunger Games (our current most played game)
Speed with the purple bicycle cards
Crazy 8s with the pink bicycle cards
(Chris has to work for part of Friday while she was here and the above games were played while she was working. She did dip in and out of some of them, but from here after, she played every game with us.)
Bananagrams
Moods (Davan and I love this game, but Anthony hates it. It's a 3 player minimum game, so we don't get to play it often. Sigh. We're still keeping it, though.)
Hoopla
Cranium Conga (Poor Chris hates this game, but sportingly played with us anyway.)
Guestures
Uno (We're passing this on. It's an okay game, but nothing exciting and we can always play Crazy 8s.)
Balderdash (Anthony came home and played this with us before going to bed early with an upset stomach.)
Cribbage played on the big board with the little pink deck
(Thus ended a very enjoyable Friday. We did also get some cooking done, go out to dinner and walk the dog here and there.)
Apples to Apples (played by all four of us over breakfast Saturday morning - love this game!)
Cribbage played with the travel board and the little green deck (Anthony took a break here.)
Swap (he was back with us for several games now - Swap will be moving on. It's fun, but needs a large group.)
Pit (good game! Needs at least 4)
Munchkin
Wise and Otherwise (good game!)
Wizardology (We'd discussed passing this game along before. It's long and nearly all luck-based. It is a very pretty game...but...well. We kept it because it actually belongs to Chris. She's the one who bought it, but has kept it at our house because it had a chance of getting played here. She didn't remember that at all and would have been happy for it to have been passed on. Go figure. We all found it rather tedious and will be passing it on now. Oh, and Anthony wisely passed on this one - the start of a long break for him.)
War with the skat cards (no one actually knows how to play skat and we were low on time at this point for trying to figure it out)
Spoons with the blue German cards
Go Fish with the pink German cards
Phase 10
Cranium How to Host a Murder's "Tragical Mystery Tour"
My comments on the How to Host a Murder game will take too long to be contained by parenthesis. Chris and I were very into How to Host a Murder parties in our teens. I hosted a couple. She hosted a bunch. It was great fun. We'd carefully pick characters for the invitees and send them invitations complete with a character description. We'd all dress in character. The evening would include appetizers, dinner, dessert with rounds being done in different rooms or over different courses.
We've done a few as adults, as well. Those were much simpler affairs - maybe pizza for dinner. We'd randomly draw characters on the evening itself. A couple times we even didn't have the right ratio of males to females and ended up really drawing randomly with some people playing characters of the opposite sex.
The general idea, if you didn't follow the links, is that the eight of you are murder suspects. You get more and more information as the party progresses, some about others you're supposed to reveal and some about yourself you're supposed to try to keep a secret. It's all supposed to be done through conversation as if you were those characters, but referring to your player handbook is always allowed.
Midway though our week of games, we realized we had a How to Host a Murder game in there. We'd picked it up for $3 at Goodwill after stumbling across it, thinking we'd play sometime. It's a one time off sort of thing because then you know the solution. Anyway, it presented an extra challenge. I had it in mind to get eight people together this weekend while Chris was here and we'd only need an extra four, but never did actually get around to organizing it.
Friday we finally got serious about it. I made a few inquiries, but got no bites for a last minute get together. Chris jokingly said we could each be two characters. That caught on, though, and we decided that would be an interesting twist. So, the plan was hatched.
We got done with the rest of the games at 6:15 Saturday. We broke out the How to Host a Murder, drew names, created some rudimentary costumes that had aspects which could be easily removed and put back on to signal which character we were being, added the rule that you couldn't hide information about your alter ego and played.
We had a lot of fun, but I don't know I'd play it that way again. It took us five hours. Now, I should add that there was a break for a dog walk and brownie making, so it could have fit into a somewhat shorter period, but still. Those are long games.
I took pictures of some of the games we played, but not all. I've assembled a video taken of the week of game playing. Enjoy!
We had a pretty understated Halloween at our place this year. No one even dressed up. Anthony couldn't come up with a good idea for a costume for work. In the past, he's been CADDMan!
or CADDWoman!
(He's the superhero in the sparkly dress.)
Both made quite the splash, so he pretty much feels that if he can't live up to that, he shouldn't dress up at all.
Davan, on the other hand, simply didn't end up with a costume occasion this year. She debated trick-or-treating just for the fun of it, but with not eating the candy, nor having a good way to redistribute it (secured building with no other kids living her, so we don't get trick-or-treaters), she ended up deciding not to.
We did, though, carve pumpkins. We were late to the game for pumpkin procuring this year, not getting them until Tuesday. We ended up just going to our local Fred Meyer's to buy them and they seemed to only have huge carving pumpkins. Next to them, though, were pie pumpkins, so we decided to buy them and then use them after Halloween for making pumpkin puree. They were more expensive, but aren't just rotting away out on our balcony post Halloween, so all is well.
The three of us carved them Tuesday evening after dinner.
Davan cut her hole a little too small and, with the innards clinging on, the top wouldn't come off until Anthony brought some tools out to pry it up.
This also meant that scraping out the innards after getting the top off was a bit of a challenge, as one's hand barely fit through the hole. This I know because I assisted in the scraping of the innards of Davan's pumpkin.
Davan made this great disgusted face when she stuck her hand in there, but when I got the camera out, she replaced it with a smile and refused to replicate it.
So, I got a couple of her nicely smiling, even though she's freaking out on the inside.
Eventually, they all got done. Mine is looking with shock at Davan's heartfelt design.
Davan did facial interpretations of each jack-o-lantern face.
Fun was had.
On Halloween morning, I decided to make a themed breakfast. I had no pumpkin on hand to just make pumpkin muffins or the like, so I improvised.
I made ghost shaped biscuits.
You may have to use your imagination, but Davan got it right off. That's why I love that kid.
I also made monster fruit faces.
Breakfast for two:
With the having to work thing coupled with the not planning ahead thing, I didn't have a dinner plan for Halloween dinner. I left it in Davan's hands. Thanks to diving being cancelled due to Halloween, she had the time.
She went for bean quesadillas with olive faces.
Plus roasted broccoli for green hair. And, for one face, a mustache. This is in honor of the fact that Anthony is participating in Movember again. Sigh.
Ranger enjoyed the treat of a rawhide bone.
Davan also made dessert. She thought of making something pumpkin-y and could have procured some, but, realizing that we were in for a lot of pumpkin after the cooking of the jack-o-lanterns, opted for more variations on the face theme.
And, really, who can call huge peanut butter cookies with chocolate chip faces a bad idea? Not I, my friends, not I.
