Hobby Night

*This post was written yesterday, June 25, 2015.

This week, I decided to hit two birds with one stone. 

I decided to give Aaron a hobby night, which would give me a chance to tackle some "at-home" projects I've wanted to do.

First off, Aaron's hobby night.  This is a chance for Aaron to play Xbox at his leisure without worrying about time schedules or me nagging at him to watch a show. ;)  For Father's Day, Aaron got a special steering wheel for one of his Xbox racing games.  He's a real sweetie and really only plays Xbox after I fall asleep, or on weekend nights.  He hasn't had much opportunity to use his gift, and what's the point of having a gift if you can't use it?  So I asked him if he would like to have a hobby night and play Xbox after our work-out.  It's nice to do special things for my spouse!  He is such a great husband, a fantastic daddy to our boys, an extremely hard worker, and aims to please.  It's fun to bless him with something he likes to do.

Secondly, I needed to get my rear in gear and mop my kitchen floor.  I hate hate double hate the way my kitchen floor feels underneath my barefeet.  So I decided to hunker down and give it a good mop-- a real mopping, not just Swiffer WetJet.  Confession:  This would be the first time I've ever mopped my own floor with a real mop!  I know how to mop-- I just haven't done it in my own house.  I bought a real mop last summer, but just hadn't gotten around to making myself mop.  In my head it seemed like such a chore and that it would take hours-- I guess because that's how it felt as a kid when my mom mopped the floor. :) 

Once our workout was over, and Aaron was settled into playing Xbox, I threw a load of laundry into the dryer, moved all the dining room chairs, the dog bowls, the dog food containers, the diaper pail, and the trash can out of the area.  I swept the whole room first and then I conquered my chore-hate of mopping. (Kudos to Aaron who mixed up the mopping solution for me!)  And you know what?  It wasn't half bad.  I finished wayyyy before I thought I would, and I made sure I was thorough, too.  I read a few blog posts while I waited for the floor to dry.  After a bit of time (not hours, as I had envisioned) I moved all of the chairs, dog bowls, dog food containers, diaper pail, and trash can back into the room.  This floor felt great underfoot!  Yay!  Now, all of you prospective home buyers, come see my house and walk in my kitchen barefoot! 

We brought in the dogs for the night and I set out to make oat energy bites.  Super simple, no bake.  Tasty.  Love them.  I'll share the recipe soon.  I popped the bowl containing the mixture into the fridge and sat down to write the recipe out on a recipe card.  I planned to retrieve the bowl in 20 minutes to roll the mixture into 1" balls for ease of packing at lunchtime (although I really could eat this straight out of the bowl).  However, within 5 minutes of sitting down to write the recipe, the power went out.  It was shortly after 9:00pm.  Poor Aaron was in the middle of a race and had to end his hobby night early. :(

A storm was in the distance and we imagined that a tree branch probably fell on a wire.

Aaron's phone flashlight lit up the room for us.  We tucked the dogs into their beds and made our way to our room.  The energy bites did not get rolled into balls because I was not going to risk opening the fridge at all.  We have insulin in there, and power outages make my stomach turn when I think that insulin could be slowly losing its cool (no pun intended).

I like to take my shower at nighttime so that I'm all fresh for bed.  Well, I didn't get a chance to do that last night.  We turned the dryer to the off position so nothing crazy would happen if the power came back on in the night.  We left the dining room light on, and we also turned on my bedside lamp so that we would know right away as soon as the power came back on.  Aaron imagined it would be about an hour and a half.

We closed the bedroom doors of the boys since their rooms stay cooler than the rest of the house and we didn't want the coolness of their rooms to escape.

Psychologically, we had to prepare for bed.  We knew our fan wasn't blowing,  We knew the AC wasn't going to be on.   We pretended we were at the beach cottage and that made it a lot better.  We could see the lightning in the distance and hear the thunder, so that lulled us to sleep.

I meant to wake up at 10:30 to check Michael's blood sugar, but I either didn't set the alarm, or I turned it off.  I woke at 11:30 to Michael crying because his door was shut.  I opened his door and turned on his night-light which confirmed my suspicion that he probably wakes in the night and goes right back to sleep since he knows his door is open and can see the bathroom night-light.  But last night since his door was closed and there was no working night-light, he got scared and cried.  I told him it was okay, and then I checked his blood sugar.  He was in a safe range and I went back to the bedroom.  I realized that the power was still off.  Aaron sleepily nodded when I voiced my frustrations at the power still being out for two and a half hours. 

I must have been very tired because I fell asleep instantly and woke to a bright light shining right in my face, so I did the natural thing to do-- yell.  Aaron woke up because I yelled. :)  I then said "Oh!  The power is back on."  I got up and turned off the dining room light, but first I took note of the facial expression of one of our dogs.  He was looking at me like "Don't you know what time it is??? Why is that light on?"

We had a pit in our stomachs for about 3 minutes while we tried to figure out why the AC wasn't on.  We had just had it repaired last week!  Aaron eventually got up to check the thermostat and we realized the AC wasn't on because our house was cooler than the setting we had chosen to trigger the AC to turn on.  Our house didn't feel as cool as it said it was, but I must not have really cared.  I went right back to sleep.

I woke to an angry alarm clock shouting at me to get out of bed 30 minutes early to take my shower.  I had time to dry my hair instead of letting it air dry.  I actually finished getting ready sooner and had some free time this morning to race around the house in the morning-- finishing the recipe card, rolling the energy bites into balls, getting mine & Aaron's lunches packed, retrieving my address book so we could address the Father's Day card for Aaron's dad (late, we know).  I had so much free time, that I didn't even remember to grab my leash (aka, phone) before I left for work. 

So, at lunchtime today, I jetted over to Aaron's office and got my phone back.  It was nice to see him in the middle of the day.  Felt like we were dating. :) I got to see his desk and sit with him a little while.  That was a nice break in the day.  I love him.

Now that I had my leash back, I was able to chat with my mom for a bit, and text my mother-in-law.  Ahh!  The power of leashes.  So freeing and so frightening not to have them. 

I hope you've enjoyed our random story that started with a simple hobby night.  :)


Until Next Time,

Much Love, Reba