25 Random Things

In order to celebrate the ending of the year that was January, I thought I’d start off this new year with some random trivialities about our family. The fact that there are 25 of them harkens back to circa 2009 when it was all the rage on Facebook to post 25 random things about yourself. A lot has changed since I wrote my first one, so it should be neat to force my kids to read both and see them not care at all.

1. I actually had to sit here for a good long while, thinking through the various and sundry minutiae of our everyday life to see if there is anything worth writing about. Turns out, this might be a pretty short list.  
2. For reasons unknown, it makes me weirdly happy when my kids mispronounce words and I can correct them, not before teasing them endlessly, of course. Since they are homeschooled, they don’t have the opportunity to experience dealing with bullies, so someone has to do it. The most recent verbal error was with the word “Danube”. There were actually three different pronunciations and I laughed appropriately at all three children for their mistake. 
3. Lest you believe the teasing only goes one way, every time I ask the kids to read my blog, they laugh and laugh and laugh.
4. Winter is not my favorite season. I would far rather have to cool down from being hot than to warm up from being cold. I wish I could be more like the weather though: 42 but feeling like 37! 
5.  We are on week five of someone in the house being sick. I have made countless mugs of honey lemon tea, protein shakes, and trips up and down the stairs to check on the patients. 
6. Speaking of countless, Danny has ridden 460 miles on his bike so far this year.
7. I think I’ve eaten 460 chocolates so far this year. 
8. Our injury counter restarts back at zero this week. Think we can make it through the shortest month without an incident? 
9. On Mondays, I drive the girls to basketball practice, followed by orchestra rehearsal.
10. On Tuesdays, I drive the girls to their basketball games.
11.  On Wednesdays, I drive Ellie to and from Driver’s Ed class.
12. On Thursdays, I drive the girls to their basketball games, followed by bringing Ellie to Driver’s Ed.
13. On Fridays, I drive the girls to their basketball practice, followed by bringing Ellie to Driver’s Ed.
14. On Saturdays, I drive Ellie to work. 
15. On Sundays, I drive myself crazy coming up with the next blog post. 
16. I’m living in a musical. Between the piano, violin, viola, clarinet, guitar, singing, and general din, the kids provide a soundtrack that rivals cats fighting in an alley.
17. One of my most favorite features about this house is how well boxes -emptied of their goods- stay in their designated locations. It really showcases an efficiency of space I didn’t even know we had. The tower of garbage creates new working surfaces for other goods and it saves the kids’ time by not properly disposing of them.
18. Having kids has dulled my brain. Case in point: “Caleb, how are you feeling today?” I asked. “Like I’m about to die,” he answered. My response? “Can you be more specific?” 
19. Jake lives too far away. For a kid who made me listen to him chatter on and on about all his interests as a young boy, he sure has a lot of nerve to go 19 hours away and still call to talk my ear off. I will always answer the phone. 
20. The other day Isaac asked me if I knew what “absquatulate” meant. I absconded from that conversation as fast as I could because I didn’t know.
21. While we’re on the topic of obscure words, Jake and Anna continue to dislike the fact that I know and find more words than they do during rounds of Boggle. They claim I just make up words to hide the fact that they don’t read.  
22. Guess how many tabs I have open on my phone right now. Apparently it shouldn’t be 28. 
23. I have not had to snowblow the driveway yet this winter. This is notable for two reasons. Firstly, it means that Danny has not been traveling (yay!) and so is home to do it and secondly, there has hardly been any snow. Even though I don’t mind this, it makes the children quite sad, so now I have to pray for an enormous amount to fall this month.  
24. It has come to my attention that I haven’t made mention of one of our kids. This is what happens when you are the middle child, even if you’re the fifth out of six. James came with me to the grocery store the other day, randomly picked out something for each of us (except for Isaac, who is the other middle child) and made me buy the goods. He is very sweet and thoughtful, just like I am to mention him here.
25. Danny remains my favorite person in the world.

Whew! I did it! I’m not sure if you made it this far, but so far our year has only been about 32 days long and there isn’t much to tell. Feel free to leave a random fact about yourself in the comments! 🙂