Bleak

The weekend is here.  Feeling pretty bleak.  No plans. Doing our part.  Just want to eat and eat and eat.  Tired of the rain already.  I was just reading about the winter storms being predicted.  Oy.  Eric put in a ton of research on a new generator for the moho and finally chose and our order was canceled.  He was back to square one.  He's been mumbling for days about it.  Finally clued in that the weather is turning and we use the moho to power our freezer, fridge, light and devices in the house.  So I joined his search.  Managed to find the one he originally wanted online through Home Depot.  Hopefully this one comes before any outages.  Glad I created our hoard.  Eric and I have been watching TV together.  Rare for us.  We finished Shitts Creek earlier this week (2nd time for me) and tonight we finished 13 seasons of Murdock Mysteries.  I've delved into Dawson's Creek.  We need something to watch just the two of us.  I'm normally done shopping for Christmas by now but I've barely done anything this year.  Just not getting out these days.  Kids need nothing.  I have no ideas.  I've ordered a little bit online.  Not feeling it yet. Hoping to visit a mall for inspiration before we're locked down. Shocking to see people decorating already.  To me it's about time with friends and it's not looking good for that!  Doldrums. Lili's car was in the shop again.  Merry Christmas Lili.  Oy.  We had to go to Nanaimo last night to pick it up and switch cars.  We got dinner out with her so that was nice.  Got my spiced pecan salad again.  My new obsession.  Eric bought a bag of pecans so he can try making them spiced.  

Jia wants a super short cut.  We started her in stages.  Eric took 6 inches off and did an undercut.  We'll let her do the extreme cut but have asked her to think on it a bit.  I'm concerned at 10 she doesn't understand that she might hate it and there is no fixing it. After a week she is back to contemplating a weave of color. I think there will be more flip flopping.

So cute.  She won't wear her hair up though.  

Love this picture.

So cute.

Jia is struggling with the grade six drama at school. She comes home and sleeps.  She begs to not have to go back.  Some days she tells me it all in detail.  Others she doesn't talk at all.  She is simply too involved and the whole walk away lesson just isn't sinking in. On Tuesday she reached a limit and I couldn't get a sobbing child out of the car.  Eric was helping a friend build a shed so she came to work with me.  She drew this in the first few minutes in my office. I sent the photo to Eric and said she didn't seem depressed to me.  She had a great day lounging with me.  She talked the whole day.  I wanted to go home and sleep ;)  

The nattering stopped for an hour. Sigh. She wants to homeschool. She is the most non compliant child so I just don't want to go there unless we have to. 

It's cold enough that Oliver is back in :)

 

Photo drama.

I bought a photo package from Walmart.  180 on sale for 50.  We have our clothes and have discussed our location options and ideal days.  Angie from Walmart just called.  Very sorry but new health regulations preclude them from taking photos of more than five people.  Even though we're in the same house.  I promised to stay super far away from her but she doesn't want to risk getting shut down. Sigh.  When does this end?!  Seriously can not be the intention of the health order.  Big families being punished so incredibly needlessly.  Time to bring out the old digital camera on a tripod?!  Also time to book Fei's graduation pictures and she can't have anyone with her because of covid and only one outfit change.  Bizarre and sad.  The rules just simply don't always make sense.  

Alexa is reading to me!!

Alexa echo dots (3rd generation) are on sale 1/2 price on Amazon. I ordered one for myself to be in our room upstairs.  It came today.  I just plugged it in.  I'm on the app and see that my kindle is hooked to her.  Cool.  Tapped a new book that I just loaded today.  And...Alexa started reading it to me!!!  Game changer!  I thought the music, relaxing sounds, alarms and message forwarding were the draw. How has no one told me she will read to me?!  What else am I missing here?!

We're going to be sooo cute!

Ready for our family Christmas card photo! Just need to book a time when we're all available.  Eric even found the matching scarves for the fur babies. We had some fun picking this all out.  

Lili's home for the weekend.  She was planning to take a couple days off and watch a lot of TV before going back to study and catch up during her reading break.  Her car had other ideas.  Eric had to go get her.  Saturday morning he was 1st at the auto parts store.  We picked up a gift for Kai on the way to Nanaimo to fix her car.  I got a DS game for him for $5 and it's a Hot Wheels game!!  Shhh.  The repair didn't work sadly so we limped it to Volkswagen.  They thought it would be ok to drive.  It's burning fuel, not oil, so it's puking out tons and tons of stinky smoke from the exhaust.  Wild.  But Eric made it and I followed in the fumes.  Hopefully we'll hear back early this week.  In the meantime we took the insurance off her old car.  So she is stuck with the convertible.  

After the car drama we got lunch out.  Just the two of us.  So rare.  You guessed it I got my apple, pecan, cranberry salad.  No calories on Saturdays so yes, I ate it all :) Then we shopped the Dollarama where we got the Christmas card jackpot and a few stocking stuffers. Amazon shopping has begun.  I'm usually done shopping by now.

We had a bit more time before picking up dinner so even got an hour in the antique barn to poke around.

I'm walking around the house today trying to figure out where we could put this beauty. Eric found me just gawking up at it.  Then I counted all the crystals and they're all there.  Possibly the upstairs landing?  

Eric bought me a glass pumpkin that I was swooning over.  :)  Love it.  It's going to live in my orange bathroom.  We told the sales lady we wanted a pumpkin in a cabinet. She knew where it was and the place is huge.  She said she had her eye on it too.  It just came in that morning.  I cradled it in my arms all the way home.  Haha.  

Ended our near perfect day with Chinese food and a movie.

The movie is fabulous.  Even Jia deigned to watch with us.  Ok, she tried really hard to get out of it but she owes me a consequence for lying to me so I called my consequence and made her watch with us.  She did end up enjoying the movie though ;)  Warning...the Mom dies in the first few minutes...so it starts with a good cry.  Well, ok, no one cried at my house except me.  

Vancouver Island University

The beautiful campus that Lili isn't getting to enjoy yet.  We are all so ready for the pandemic to end.  

Salmon Run

The hike was not friendly.  No chair for Luk.  He was exhausted but he did it.  Kai stuck with Eric.  Lots of tree roots to avoid.  

Perfect weather for the field trip.

He looks happy. I would have thought he'd be ticked about having to carry his pack but it did contain his lunch.  

Best part...lunch.  :)

Halloween

Lili home for the weekend and collecting some of her bursary cheques.

We weren't positive how many people would be over so Eric put up shelter for outside visiting.  Was fun and cozy.  I kind of want to keep it up.  

Fei the unicorn on her way to work.

Any opportunity to show off his Hot Wheels.

Socially distanced candy bags set up.  We got 5 trick or treaters.  The rest of us put a really good dent in the left over bags.

Bonnie from Five Night at Freddie's.  I think. Her creation.

Frat boy.  Looked cute but she ended up swapping for ladybug later.

Luk went with May.  Jia went with a school friend.

Rock Cod fun.

Lili's group.  

I bought this cool doo-dad yesterday on Amazon.  It was delivered today.  How do they do that?! You can scan 35mm film directly to your phone!!  Automatically digitally saved in my storage and cloud.  I haven't tried it yet.  Need the app and some time. Baby Lili and Fei pictures coming soon.