Those Martins

On Tuesday, the 28th, my car got its first oil change. (Well, the first oil change since I’ve owned it.) Christine and the girls got ready for the day and we all left together, in the van, around 08:45. They dropped me off at work and then went to a nearby park, to play with some friends. Once the car was ready, Christine and her friend picked it up and then dropped it off in the office parking lot for me. I was able to come home around 17:00 and Christine didn’t have to make a second trip out to pick me up.

I had another candidate dinner on Wednesday night. Because Christine knew that I wouldn’t be home until late, she took the girls to Old World Wisconsin for the day. I left work around 17:00 and drove downtown, to meet the Epic job candidates.

I took 4 people out to dinner at The Old Fashioned. I picked the Old Fashioned because there was a jazz performance (Jazz at 5) outside on State St. I figured The Old Fashioned might be quieter than normal, due to the jazz performance. Either I was right or we got there just early enough, because we were able to get seated immediately. After dinner, we caught the very end of the jazz performance, then walked around for a few minutes, then I dropped everyone back off at their hotels. I was able to get home around 20:30.

Friday was another super busy day at work. Between customers needing help and me needing to recreate some code that I accidentally deleted, I didn’t get a chance to eat “lunch” until 1530. When I finally got home, after 1800, I was mentally shot. Christine and I were able to relax together by watching the final episode of Sherlock, Season 2: “The Reichenbach Fall”. It was a very good episode and we’re both eagerly awaiting the start of the third season.

I had a very big project planned for Saturday: updating our budget. I generally do a thorough budget review once a year, after my pay is adjusted. August this year had been much to busy to fit that in, so Saturday was the day. I spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon reviewing all of our current line items, comparing it against our goals and wishes for the upcoming year, and making adjustments as necessary. Once I was done, I went over the whole thing with Christine. She signed off on it and our annual business meeting concluded.

Saturday afternoon I watched Pitt’s first football game of the season. Given our performance against D2 school Youngstown State, the less said about that the better. Sometime in the middle of the third quarter, Katherine and I left to go to Capital Creamery for dessert together. It was her final reward for a very successful couple of months toilet training. We had a great time being out together.

Bethany woke me up on Sunday morning at 0300. We’d put her to bed on Saturday night around 1730. She slept straight through the evening and, very early Sunday morning, decided that she’d slept enough and was ready to get up. We tried putting her back to bed but by 0400 it was clear that it wasn’t working. I volunteered to get up with her and let her play. She played by herself until about 0700. Then, of course, she was tired enough to go back to sleep. I spent my morning hours reviewing my draft plans for my upcoming fantasy football draft.

Christine and the older girls got up at 0700 and got ready for church. They woke up Bethany and took her with them. I stayed home and collapsed into bed for some much needed sleep. When I finally woke up again, around 11:00, I started working on draft preparation for real.

I found an iPad app that worked wonderfully both as a draft cheat sheet and as a way to track the draft itself. I was pretty excited to find it because it meant that I could take just my iPad to the draft and I wouldn’t have to lug my laptop around. I spent the afternoon working on draft preparation and then dozing. I spent the evening at a friend’s house, actually doing the live fantasy draft. I’ll reserve judgment on my team, however, until I’ve actually played a few games.

Monday was Labor Day. A friend’s son turned one and we spent the early afternoon celebrating his birthday with a cook out. The girls had an absolute blast playing with their son and with their dog. Bethany in particular was fairly taken with Nala. She followed Nala around the house to gently pet her and, towards the end of our stay, kept hugging her. I think if we get a dog, Bethany would be its biggest friend.

When we got home, we put all of the girls down for naps. Normally this doesn’t work and one or more of them quickly get up and start playing. On Monday it did work and we had 2 hours in which all three girls were asleep. We didn’t waste that time—we took 2 hour naps of our own.

Esther spent Monday evening getting ready for school. She made her own sandwich, packed her own lunch box, and filled her own water bottle. Then she picked out all of her clothes for school and laid them out next to her bed. She was in bed by 20:00, so that she’d get plenty of rest for her first day of kindergarten.