Day to day living...

After my voyage in to the ditch on Wednesday morning, I was very grateful that the car didn’t cost me lots of money to repair. I was also very grateful that neither the A-man nor I were injured during the slide. Nothing like the “thunk” of a ditch and snow bank to make you see what is truly important.

Thursday was a fairly typical day. When I got home from work I lay down on the couch and only woke up when the A-man gave my shoulder a wee shake to tell me he had made dinner. Gourmet feast of pork chops and mac’n cheese, but I was thrilled that he had taken the initiative to make something when it was so obvious I wouldn’t be doing so any time soon. I was surprised that I had fallen asleep – that is not like me at all.

S had a PA day on Friday; I think he liked having his special alone time with Daddy before he went to work, to be honest. The boys and I had a fairly casual Friday evening and enjoyed sitting on the couch munching on some pizza! I will never see the draw to the television shows they enjoy, but S sure does like to share them with me on Fridays.

On Saturday, I told the boys some of our plans for Sunday and asked that both of them consider completing their homework that afternoon so that there wouldn’t be any issues on Sunday. In the early afternoon, the boys went outside to shovel off the deck. I was so happy to see them doing that; until I realized they weren’t really doing the task at hand. They were throwing snowballs, and eating the snow…but not really doing anything else.
When I called them in for lunch, I explained to them that I didn’t mind them going out and playing, but if they are going to start one task, it needed to be completed before they started another. I also reminded them that we had company coming in the evening, and some tasks needed to be done BEFORE they arrived.

The A-man got to working on his project for Tourism. I had helped him start the PowerPoint presentation, and left notes on the slides with respect to the order he would have to transfer data from the written portion of his project. After reading over the assignment requirements, I also made notes to suggest he find some other photos to put into the presentation.

S was doing some of his Religion homework and History homework during this time. For whatever reason, S has decided he doesn’t need to bring home his laptop – I guess he thinks I will believe he doesn’t have any homework that way.
When I got his report card last week, it indicated that S has been very lacking in completing the homework in the first term of school. I thought he’d had it pretty light, but when you don’t see an agenda, or the agenda isn’t completed, it’s pretty hard to know what he is doing and not doing.

Anyway, I found out from the A-man that S did have homework for the weekend, and made sure he did all that was required. He became very upset with me when I told him he would have to do it on the computer and I didn’t care if it took him longer. Had he brought his laptop home, he would have had the voice to text technology, but, since he decided he didn’t ‘need’ it, he had to do it the hard way; by typing it out. Once he was done the homework, I could tell he was very pleased with it. The starting of the task is always the worst thing in the world for S; once he is done, you can almost SEE the pride coming off him.

Just before dinner, the A-man started to get together the various items he needed to make for his Tourism dish. The A-man had decided to do his project on the capital city of Lithuania – Vilnius – and prepare one of his favourite Lithuanian dishes – Kugelis. (We are not of Lithuanian decent, but our good friends are, and both boys have enjoyed traditional Lithuanian cooking on occasion.) This is a baked potato pie that uses 5 pounds of finely grated potatoes and a full pound of bacon – with all the fat from the bacon. Not a diet dish.
After supper, the A-man finished preparing the dish and I took pictures of each step. We had time for me to show him how to transfer the photos onto the laptop and then on to both the written report and the PowerPoint. He was just finishing with the last photo when our company arrived. What a pleased boy he was when he was able to offer our company a plate of warm, filling kugelis. I think the A-man ate half the dish himself.

He will be making the dish again tomorrow night to take to school on Wednesday. Wednesday is when he will have to do his half hour presentation. He planned on using class time today to practice what he was going to say, and then asked if I would let him practice with me as his audience again tomorrow night. He’s done a good job. The written report was 10 pages long, and the slide show is over 20 slides long. I will be curious to see how he presents the information he has gathers.

Went out with my Mom yesterday and got quite a bit of Christmas shopping done. I am hoping to get the boxes all pulled out this week for decorating. It's so dark and dreary now; the lights should help make the nights feel better, anyway.