kayray.org

Old Blog: April 2001
april 30 — we cleaned up the back yard and ran errands… and we listened to TMBG together and watched that great simpsons episode from sunday night a couple more times (the one where marge accidentally cuts off homer’s thumb) and we went to morris dancing practice at night. i was really tired, though, and my ankle is hurting again.

april 29 — today was a happy day! i got 10 hours of sleep last night and i felt wonderful all day. i found the tripod and took some photos of myself — we’ll see how they turn out.

april 28 — i cleaned our room very well today and learned some more about my camera (nikon N70). my monitor is getting worse and worse.

april 27 — henry and i played “amazing labyrinth” twice this morning, and we went to the zoo in the afternoon before i took him to matthew’s house. the reptile house was cool and shady, so we went in there and we saw the blue-tailed monitors climbing around in their house.. it was neat. :)

april 26 — i’ve been working on getting my blackbox windowmanager set up and i am SO happy with it! i’ve got lots of keyboard shortcuts, a full-width toolbar, my wmcalclock up in the top right, and i created nice tasteful tiny-plaid wallpaper and i figured out how to set it as wallpaper (that’s a pre-screenshot-shortcut screenshot :) and today i found a great B&W photo of the johns from tmbg, and i messed with it in the gimp until it was just the right size for my screen (that’s my current desktop) and oh my i am happy!

april 25 — henry’s first junior theater class was today! he loved it and had a wonderful time. after the class we played in the park with talon and henry’s new friend sasha, a very sweet little girl who is in the class too.

april 24 — busy day! i felt as if i spent the entire day on the freeway. first, in the morning, we drove to serra mesa for a nifty home-schooler science class about acids and bases. we got to do all kinds of fun tests and experiments, and henry loved it. we get to do another class next tuesday. then we raced back up the freeway to be in time for henry’s gymnastics class. he spends the entire hour of that class smiling — it’s wonderful. :) then we raced back down the freeway to the airport to pick up grandma jean and her friend, and then we crawled up the freeway in the pre-rush-hour rush hour to get home. and then i taught a student for sally. *whew* busy day! oh and at night kirsten and i watched “bringing up baby”. it was kind of funny to see katherine hepburn playing a ditzy-girl character.

april 23 — this afternoon i suddenly felt human again! i took henry to the bank to deposit his $3.91, and he asked for a sewing lesson so i cut a little square of stiff white interfacing and drew dots on it and showed him how to stitch up and then down, on the dots, and he went all the way around the square and now i have a nice coaster for my desk! and then he wanted to make a blanket for mary doll, so i gave him a piece of gray felt and punched holes around the edge, and he went all the way around in blue yarn and it’s a lovely blanket. :) and then later we mowed the lawn and watered his little garden. we made vegetable barley soup for dinner. he’s dressed in his “gentleman” clothes; little jacket, white shirt, trousers. :) gonna go read to him now. oh, also, i’ve been messing with a windowmanager called blackbox (i have been using windowmaker) and today i finally got it configured enough to be non-annoying and actually pretty good. i have no icons at all on my desktop.. just how i like it.

april 22 — i feel a little better today.

april 21 — i have the flu. i need someone to bring me soup and juice and rub my achy muscles.

april 19 — oh man have i had a busy couple of days. yesterday took henry to dentist, took him to play with nicolas, took him to matthew’s, went to susan’s, and then susan and charlotte took me to a play (dinner with friends — great play) and then they bought me ice cream ’cause i’m so thin, and then i spent the night at their house and read “the horse and his boy” before i went to sleep, then this morning picked up henry, took him to the zoo, bought gas (jeeeebus it’s expensive), got water from the water lady, ran more errands, come home, fixed 45 meals for various people, made a loaf of bread with henry, went to the store… and i felt pissy and frazzled all day too. :)

april 17 — we cleaned our room today! got it all picked up and vacuumed and nice, washed the sheets and everything. and i took the suspect cd-rom drive out of henry’s computer and put it in strangelove, to see if it was REALLY broken and sure enough, it is. but pthree might have one that he can spare, and irq found me some good cheap ones on the interweb, so either way i’ll be able to get his computer all better for him soon. we found him a neat freeware little-kid version of Space Invaders today; it’s easy enough to be fun for him. we’re up to chapter eight in “Prince Caspian”! oh, and i bought a little piece of narrow brown ribbon to hang my locketwatch from. the chain broke ages ago and i’ve been using a nasty bit of red yarn. i feel quite elegant now.

april 16 — yesterday i had a terrible migraine. it got better, a bit, in the afternoon and i went to the movies with my mom and we saw “o brother where art thou” which was pretty good! and then that evening my migraine came back full force and i felt really horrible. but mom and i watched part of “quiz show” and that distracted me until i was tired enough to sleep. this morning my head still hurts a little. henry and i have to go grocery shopping in a little while. (later — my headache is all gone and i bought lots of nice food and i am making chicken and rice and broccoli for dinner and i am a very happy girl!)

april 14 — yesterday we had such fun at the park! henry and brain played for four hours, and i read almost all of Prince Caspian and while we were waiting for brian i read a bit out loud to henry and he really liked it. i’m very pleased. i’ve been waiting for 5.5 years for him to be old enough to enjoy narnia. today we read a lot more, and we cleaned the pool cover (henry is a good helper) and we went to the airport to pick up sally. oh and i got to talk to chloe on the aim — she’s been flying all over looking at the colleges she might go to, and she was at grinnell, so she came on from the library computer. it was so nice to talk to her. :)

april 13 — i feel very happy today! henry is watching disney “peter pan” one more time before we take it back to the video place. i got enough sleep and we get to go to a park today so henry can play with brian. hmm, i think NOW is a good time to play nethack! heheh, it says, “watch out! bad things can happen on friday the 13th.”

april 12 — we had a busy day! we went grocery shopping, first to boney’s but the union workers are still on strike there, so then we went to ralph’s but everything was so expensive ($1.29 for ONE head of lettuce), so then we came back here to stater brothers where no one is on strike and things are more reasonably priced ($.99 for lettuce). and when we got home we dyed easter eggs. and we did yard work, and played on our computers, and fixed meals, and made yummy-good veggie-barley soup, and did lots of nice things. and i played nethack too much again, but i did better than ever. :)

april 10 — ok, someone take nethack away from me now… ;-) henry and i took a nice walk all the way down to the walmart today, and i bought him some sidewalk chalk.

april 8 — henry’s loose tooth fell out, so he is all excited, waiting for the tooth fairy to come! i got a new game — nethack — for my linux box and my it’s fun. it’s an ascii rpg, rather complicated with lots of commands to remember. i played a lot today, and tomorrow i’m going to show henry. i think he’ll like it.

april 7 — i finally figured out how to make my own coaster in rollercoaster tycoon! henry and i have been playing for days, but we just couldn’t seem to make a coaster that worked, but today we finally did. go team kara and henry!

april 6 — too tired to write stuff.

april 5 — my wonderful mom drove to san diego this morning to fetch henry from matthew’s house so i could sleep — i slept ’til 10:45 and i *finally* feel like i got something like enough sleep. it’s such a relief to not feel horrible all day! henry and i played rollercoaster tycoon for hours and hours today and we had such fun! it’s a great game. we still haven’t figured out how to make our very own coasters from scratch but we will try again tomorrow. i’ve been clicking through an addition to lileks.com that i’ve never seen before: “ugly rooms for the beautiful people”. god. i am really enjoying this. go back to my main page for the link, or see funnystuff. i remember rooms like these in Other People’s Houses. shudder. well, i was gonna be lazy and not include a link here, but oh well, here’s an example of what i’m enjoying tonight: saturday morning

april 4 — i took henry to play with his friend talon at the park today (a strange swarm of bees drifted across the park near our blanket and we ran away until they blew further down the park), and then i took him to chula vista to play with nicolas, whom we haven’t seen in ages. it was really nice to see nicolas and alina again. i almost went to sleep on alina’s couch, i was so tired. henry had a really great time playing with his friends. he wore his superman costume all day.

april 3 — well, i was SO tired all day yesterday that i went to bed at 10pm… but still i could not sleep, so i got up again at 11:15 and stayed up for another hour. when will i get enough sleep? henry is working on his blue’s clues treasure hunt cd-rom and having such fun! it’s a great game. bah, i’ve got the hiccups. :(

april 2 — still not sleeping well. henry went to the dentist today and was SUCH a good boy.

april 1 — bah, i did NOT get enough sleep last night. i couldn’t sleep and was up ’til around 4. and now because of the silly time change, instead of being 10 it’s 11. yuck. but oh well. at least i feel pretty good again and my sore throat is mostly gone. henry made me a lovely present on saturday while he was with matthew at lucille’s house — he colored some popsicle sticks green, cut some flowers out of a magazine, taped the flowers to the sticks, and put the bouquet in a little glass dish for a vase, and it’s just lovely. :) he’s a wonderful boy!