I haven't written in several days. Partly, it's just been busy. Partly, it just seems uninteresting.
Monday I picked Abby up from gymnastics. Every time we drive home from there, she makes a comment about missing Quikava since it's now (yet another) Dunkin' Donuts. She says that she misses their Oreo Cream Blast. I decided to treat her to a visit to J Beaners for their Arctic Oreo Blitz (or some similar marketing name). She liked it just as well and it helped take her mind off of the Dunkin' Donuts proliferation. (You will be assimilated... resistance is futile!)
Tuesday I went at lunch to pick up a TV and TiVo w/DVD for the first floor family room. That night Michelle and I moved the existing entertainment center and it's stuff down into the basement rec room. The hardest part was getting the center itself. It's all wood, heavy and bulky. The TV was not trivial either. It took all evening to get everything disassembled, moved, and rewired. Since then Michelle has been doing little updates to the basement: a shelf here, a knick-knack there, a picture, etc. trying to give it what Princess Fiona calls "a few homey touches". I still find it a bit amusing to see a hole in the wall where the wood stove flue will connect.
Wednesday seemed simple by comparison. Once I got home I helped Claire with her piano. After she went to bed I recorded a song that she was having trouble with. The song was written to be played with some percussion in the background -- something like a bass drum. I recorded her right hand in channel 1, her left in channel 2, and the bass drum in channel 3. I then let the piano overlay them and play them together. It sounds so much better now that the drum can help set the rhythm of the song.
Tonight I picked the girls up from one of their last CCD classes. Next week is the last one until next fall. I'm considering homeschooling them for CCD next fall. There's a decent support group within our parish that meets once a month for families that do regular religious education at home.
After dropping them off I took the TiVo/DVD to my friend Will's house. The strange thing about modern TiVos is that, even though they are fair advanced in being able to leverage your network connection, when they first boot, they need to do their first bit of electronic "housekeeping" and updating via a true phone line -- something we don't have at the house. Since Will was a fellow TiVotee (think devotee), I assumed he would understand the nonsense that goes along with initial setup. In between the 'hurry up and wait' that goes with first configuration, we watched Malcolm and Simpsons. I hadn't seen the Simpsons in years. I'd forgotten what a guilty pleasure it is, not that Malcolm isn't. When it was all said and done, the TiVo finished by saying it had more background work to do and not to unplug it for several hours. In the end we agreed to leave it at his house overnight. I'll get it from him in the morning back at work. It had already been a couple of days since its purchase. What's a few more?
Grampa Bilik and Maria were supposed to fly home today. I tried calling their Chicago home to see how his trip went but got no answer yet. If anyone hears about his status, let me know.
Tomorrow is the visit the girls have been waiting for -- counting down the days. I take the van to work and at lunch pick up mom, Alyssa, William, Kyle and Bev. Who-hoo! As an added bonus it looks like we'll have nice spring weather for the visit. I'm a bit curious to see what Kyle and Timothy are like together. They're close in age and both a bit too ... ahem ... curious for their own good.