Kareila's Journal

Got a pre-listing inspection done on the old house this morning. Haven't received the full report yet, but 3 outlets that are supposed to be GFI (Ground Fault Interrupt) didn't trip when they were tested. Robby is going to do some further troubleshooting on that before deciding if we need to call in an electrician. We'll also have to add smoke detectors in all the bedrooms, since having the nearest one be just outside the bedroom door doesn't meet the current requirements.

Next week I need to call someone about the minor roof leak that has developed near the front door of the new house.

(I blame baseball)

My entire weekend (well, the part of it that wasn't watching Game 7) was eaten by my mom finally deciding to replace her iPhone 8, which was stuck on iOS 16, because its battery was starting to overheat. She bought an iPhone 16e running iOS 26. The transfer process went about as smoothly as could be expected under the circumstances, but the inevitable Oh No Everything Is Different reactions are harder to manage when I haven't updated any of MY devices to version 26 yet. Before I do that, I feel like I should upgrade my primary laptop from Ventura to Sequoia. It just never seems like a good time to do anything that disruptive.

I have another busy week coming up with 5 health appointments in 4 days (including kids, not just me), but then I will be rewarded with another library book sale and then a return to D&D after a three-week hiatus for Beethoven and baseball.

I have too many books that I want to read. I mean, this is not a new problem, but The Martian Contingency just showed up on my Kindle and my library hold on The Tomb of Dragons just came in but I need to reread The Grief of Stones before starting that and I'm also juggling three other nonfiction books and argh.

Plus I have a crochet project that I wanted to finish before our next D&D session which I thought was going to happen at the end of the month but is now happening this Saturday. Eep.

My sister is arriving a week from today and I'd like for the house to be a bit less filled with boxes when she shows up but realistically that's not going to happen.

I did get Connor's graduation announcements ordered. Hopefully I can get those mailed out before the end of the month. I also got my taxes filed.

March Madness kicks off today. If Auburn loses in the first round again I will cry. Connor had to fill out brackets for both the men's and women's tournaments for his AP Stats class. He is hoping to prove a lack of correlation since he made his picks by essentially flipping a coin.

My car is still in the shop and will continue to be for probably at least another week.

Connor had an unexpected attack of seasonal allergies last week. Our new front yard ends in a downward slope on one side, and the verge of that slope is lined with bushes that I've tentatively identified as Eastern Baccharis. At the start of the month they began releasing white puffs of seeds into the air similar to dandelions, and Connor started feeling utterly miserable, so once the doctor ruled out an infection, we got him back on his allergy meds, and that seems to have calmed his symptoms back down.

The fall play opens tomorrow night. I lost my mind a little bit trying to figure out when to tell people to come - first I thought he was performing Sunday afternoon, then Friday night, and ultimately it turned out to be both! But all's well that ends well, as they say. I was chatting with one of his castmates last night and he was very effusive with his praise of Connor, saying that he had really come out of his shell and impressed everyone with his talent. I can't believe how much work they have put into this production - way more than anything I ever had to do for even the most demanding choir concert. For example, even though the understudies aren't going to be on stage for tonight's dress rehearsal, they're all staying to be a test audience for the main cast and provide performance notes afterward. Last night it was the same situation but reversed, and they weren't done until after 8pm, on a school day that had started at 8am. And it'll be more of the same all week. So yeah.

In other news, I ordered some new storage shelves for our foyer that are supposed to show up later today. I think (hope!) that they will hold all of our board games and puzzles. Once I have those all filled up, I can start focusing more on getting the upstairs areas into shape. Robby is still making incremental progress on the new storage area under the stairs, with the goal of having it done by Thanksgiving.

Connor completed his summer school work with about an hour to spare.

Six weeks of vacation left.

Weirdest, most stressful summer ever. Or if not ever, at least since moving back south.

August went on foreeeeever. My birthday feels like it was a month ago; taking Connor to get his permit feels like it was two months ago.

Will seems to be doing okay with school. He says he really enjoys his philosophy class; I found out today that one of our friends from church also has a child in that same class. As far as I know, Will still hasn't made any friends, but tomorrow is the big campus activities fair and I'm desperately hoping he'll find some people there he wants to hang out with.

I finished the 2019 Advent of Code exercises today. Currently resisting the urge to immediately turn around and start the ones from 2018.

I haven't felt much like writing lately. I haven't felt much like doing anything lately, but I just submitted another huge Dreamwidth code change, so I've been productive in that regard, at least.

We invited Mom over for an indoor cookout on Monday (the weather didn't cooperate) and played some favorite card games afterward. On Tuesday I rented the Super Mario Bros movie from Redbox and finally watched that.

Looking forward to visiting the beach next week. I guess I should stop procrastinating before then.

Connor had the most fun. He was part of a small group of younger siblings who got to tour campus museums and stuff while the rest of us had to sit through a bunch of lectures and panels. We teased him about majoring in Dining Hall Studies because he was so hyped about their food. (The dessert bar really was amazing though.)

Will seems to have gotten really lucky with his freshman advisor. She immediately offered to conduct their future advisory sessions over email if that was an easier way for him to communicate. He is registered for English 101, Philosophy 101, World Geography, a required one hour freshman seminar, and by the end of the week he also should be registered for Calculus II. (His AP score hasn't been received yet, so he didn't get clearance for that one until the day after his registration session.) Plus it looks like he will have some afternoons free on his schedule, which will afford me the opportunity to bring him home for medical appointments during business hours if necessary.

I have another long list of college prep to-do items which I am not going to look at until Friday at the earliest. Tomorrow I'm driving to Atlanta with a friend who needed a plus one for a concert.

I thought I was done with college paperwork for a while, but yesterday I remembered that there's a "supplemental" scholarship form that I haven't looked at yet, so that goes on the list of things to do before the end of the month. There's also a form for required immunizations and TB testing. Both boys were due for a checkup anyway, so I've scheduled that for Nov 11, which is a school holiday.

Robby and I both went in for eye exams this month. He regularly wears progressives, so he got his prescription filled immediately. I'm still only wearing glasses occasionally for reading, and my correction hasn't changed much, so I decided to hold off a bit longer. I might look into one of those cheap online eyeglass vendors, or take my prescription to Costco.

On Thursday I attended my church's monthly governing council meeting for the first time this year. They've just recently started meeting in person again, and dinner was provided. I successfully avoided being volunteered for any commitments larger than giving a small speech before tomorrow's service about their new stewardship campaign. (And I'm going to try to resign from the stewardship committee at the end of the year, because I'm still on Too Many Committees.) But some of the ladies were talking about starting up an occasional card game night, and I expressed my enthusiastic interest. It's been decades now, but when I was in high school, I used to play cards daily with my closest friends, mostly Hearts, Rummy, and Canasta.

Will surprised me by requesting to attend the school's fall play, 12 Angry Jurors, and Connor also signed on, so we're all going together. After I bought tickets for tonight's show, I found out that the understudies, including Connor's best friend, are performing the Sunday matinee, but they're serving as ushers tonight, so we might get a chance to say hello anyway. (Connor doesn't have any classes with him, so I think they only get to see each other at lunch and online.)

Connor still hasn't shown any incentive toward learning how to drive. I'm starting to wonder if I should call the school and ask about alternative classes that he could take instead of Driver's Ed in the spring. He said he only signed up because he thought it was required.

I hadn't been playing any video games since I finished the main storyline in Wylde Flowers, but I happened to look at the metro library's collection and noticed that they had Kingdom Hearts: Melody of Memory for the Switch, so I borrowed that. It's a fun and nostalgic rhythm game that uses the music and world designs from the entire Kingdom Hearts series. The Joy-Con controls aren't a great fit for it, but I do have a pro controller around here somewhere. I started playing it yesterday afternoon and I've already fully cleared everything up to Hollow Bastion.

The roofer finally got back to me yesterday. Wednesday Tuesday is supposed to be rainy, and Thursday I'm taking my mom to a medical appointment where she has to be sedated and escorted home, so we settled on Friday Wednesday for the big day. I'll either go back to my mom's house or spend some quality time at the library while all the banging is going on. The boys all have other places to be, of course.

I also finally heard from the symphony chorus manager. Rehearsals for the spring performances won't start until late January, which is perfect. I'm definitely not doing Messiah this year, but I was worried they might combine rehearsals for Messiah with the new stuff, and they're not. From the sound of it, they're focusing on recruitment this fall after not taking any new members since January of 2019.

Looking ahead to the end of November, I decided to book a Vrbo in Pigeon Forge for Thanksgiving week and bring my mom with us. It's not Disney World, but the Smoky Mountains were also on her list of places she wanted to visit again while she was still able, so she's thrilled. I don't have any agenda planned yet, but I made sure there was a supermarket nearby so that we could cook a holiday meal.

We haven't decided yet if we're taking her car or Robby's as our second vehicle. If Robby is going to drive his car, I hope he gets around to buying new tires before then. My mom replaced the tires on her car a couple of weeks ago, so that's a point in her favor, but if she drives she's going to want me to ride shotgun, and I'm more likely to get carsick that way.

The buzzy fan is still behaving itself, but I got a surprise early delivery of a LEGO set that I hadn't expected to arrive until closer to October, so we started working on that instead. We're about halfway done with building their newest model of the Delorean time machine from Back to the Future. We also received the October issue of Games Magazine a scant week after the September issue came, so that kept Will busy.

Robby wrote a really lovely praise song and sang it in worship on Sunday. He hasn't recorded it yet, but he plans to. We also had our first Sunday School class since the before times.

Today I ordered the 5G home wireless router from Verizon. It's supposed to arrive Wednesday. Once it's activated, we'll have a 30 day free trial period to decide if it will get the job done. If it does, that plus something like a YouTube TV subscription will cost us about half of what we are currently paying AT&T for TV plus internet.