4-H Club Days

On Sunday the Meerpohl boys participated in County Club Days. For the last couple of years they coasted and did impromptu talks because you show up, draw a topic and give the talk. No muss, no fuss! 

I was very surprised when Alex decided he wanted to do a talk on computers. He is looking at computer parts all day, dreaming of his perfect build. So that made sense! 

He wrote his talk while he was at Dad's house and he made his poster at my house three hours before his talk. That's how he wanted to do it, and he got it done. He got a purple ribbon on his project talk and he can talk about computers for days! 

Daryl did an impromptu, hey, it's what he knows! He got a blue ribbon for his effort. A little extra practice in public speaking is a great way to spend a Sunday! 

 

Weather Whiplash

 I got to spend Tuesday through Thursday of this week in Florida at a work conference. Let's just say I didn't appreciate the snow this morning after three days of 50-70 degree weather. I know it's only a one hour time difference but I am dragging today! But I will have to wait to rest, tomorrow Alex has a basketball game.

Alex has been playing every Saturday in February with the 6th grade team from his middle school. There are so many kids that wanted to play, they have about 15 youth per game. The coach does a great job getting all the kids in and they are fun to cheer for. 

It's nice to see Alex out on the court having fun with his friends! 

Also, belated Happy Valentines Day! My Valentine took me to dinner and we exchanged books afterwards. <3

We both like to read so we picked out a book for each other. I can't wait to start the book he picked for me, he is already reading the book I got him. It was a successful idea, feel free to steal! 

Just sitting by the pool after lunch before our next
conference session! 

The Dance!

 Last weekend Daryl went to his second High School dance. If you have come here for details, you are in the wrong place. I asked him how it was, he said "good." I asked if he danced he said, "nah". I asked him what was fun about it, he said "I don't know." 

That's it, that's all I know about the Winter Snowball! But I will post a picture because he was handsome. We all also went to the Friday basketball game to see who was crowned royalty. That was a lot of fun and I'm glad he wants to go to those types of things. 

Yay, Topeka High! 🎉

Goal Check, 1 Month In

Was it just me, or was January FOREVER days long? Welp, it was good for getting some work done on my 2024 goals. I had a pretty good month and I hope to keep my new goal steam into February. I have a little bit of work travel this month so I'm going to make sure to make good use of my days at home to run, and my days traveling to read. Balance! 

How did you all do this first month in? 

Read 18 Books 3/18 

I can't hardly believe I read three books this month. Yay for brining back 20 minutes of reading a day. It's totally a trick, when I make time to start reading it almost always lasts longer than 20 minutes. ;-) I also had a couple of wrestling tournaments and those days were a couple of hours of reading. Yay, sports! 

Calypso by David Sedaris-I love David Sedaris, he writes short stories and his wit and humor are just a little off. I love it! This is one author I collect his books. So when I saw this copy in a half price books store I snatched it up. What do you know, I already had it! So after reading it, I set it loose in the wild. I hope it keeps getting passed along by people who like stories that are funny and sad and heartwarming and weird. All in the same story then just repeated 12 times in a book! That's David Sedaris. 

Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey- This book was actually recommended at an Extension conference and I bought it right away. I finally made time to read it and more than advice I enjoyed the story of McConaughey's life and career. When you see a celebrity you really don't know how they got where they are. McConaughey's story is worthy of a novel and I'm glad he wrote it. 

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell- This was kind of a thriller, also a mystery. It was really good because it did make me want to constantly read the next chapter. A nice fiction story that goes back and forth between when the narrator was a child and present day. Slowly telling you the best parts of the story. 

Run 600 Miles 46/600

I made the goal to run 46 this month and I hit it on Jan. 30th. I am starting some long runs on Saturdays but only running 5-6 miles during the week. My goal for Feb. is 54 miles. My first half marathon is the TopCity Half on April 27th, wanna volunteer??? LOL 

Monthly Healthy Habit Drink 8 Glasses of Water a day

This was hard! I made an effort every day to drink water so that was a good thing. I made the 8 glasses 10 days out of the month. I was so close so many other days! My healthy habit for Feb.is to eat 5-8 servings of fruit and vegetables a day. If you know me this will be even harder. I plan to stack my healthy habits but I did tweak the 8 glass of water to just drink water. I think it is more sustainable of a habit to always have water with me than to constantly measure my intake. I will be counting and measuring vegetables this month! To add insult to injury corn and potatoes don't count. Grrr 

2024 Money Goals:   

• Replace Garage Door
• Down payment on New Car
• Pay Mortg. Principle down 4K Mad a principle payment in Jan! 
• Hit my Savings Goals for the year Put money in the savings account in Jan.! 

Eating more vegetables when you don't like vegetables
means lot of salads and pushing your pasta almost off 
the plate. :-(

I had a perfect day yesterday! 

I definitely need to work on the weekends. 

JV wrestling is done for the year. I'm so proud of Daryl
and I hope he goes out again next year.
He learned a lot! 

Bedtime Wars 2024

 Spoiler, this blog recounts our family struggles just like our family triumphs. This struggle is mostly mine, even though the boys think it is theirs. (eye roll here) 

Also you need to know, the boys have had a school night bedtime since they started school. I don't know why we are still even talking about this. But here we are. 

On Tuesday night, after an extended four day weekend I let the boys know bedtime was moving up from 9:30 to 9:00pm. I said they needed the sleep because I knew they had been staying up super late. You would have thought I cancelled Christmas. They were hot! Daryl more so than Alex. I hear some old favorites, "No other kid in High School has a bedtime," and "This house is awful." Alex grumbled but less so than Daryl he knows with his age he should go to bed at 8:30pm. Alas, I can't do two bedtimes and keep my sanity. 

On Wednesday, back to normal 9:30pm bedtime I get even more flack and evidently Daryl launched a text campaign trying to gain support for #abolishbedtime. Not so fast my man, that just made bedtime 9:15pm. When you can show me the research that staring at devices and getting less than 7 hours of sleep is good for you, we will talk. 

Thursday morning, still getting rude behavior, I did what I do, I got petty. You want to keep giving me problems, your school drop off will get two blocks farther away from the school everyday. I will do this until you are walking from home! I don't know where you are at but in Kansas we are dealing with an Arctic Chill. Last night bedtime went smooth as silk. PS-Don't mess with your mother, she is petty. 

Just when I get Daryl in line Alex let me know he is going to court to see if he can live on his own before he is 18. You might be wondering, what kind of treatment would make a child go the legal route of emancipation? I want him to do 20 minutes of reading before video games after school. Go ahead, call the police on me. These kids!!! Hoping I can find this post when they are trying to get little people to bed themselves.

Teaching your kids leadership...there are consequences. LOL

That's a pretty normal face these days.

Photo from Christmas in Lakin. Alex with Cedar's trophies!

He did it!

On Saturday Mom and I bundled up and headed to get our seats at Seaman High School for a day of wrestling. I'm not complaining, wrestling happens in a temp controlled environment and they usually have snacks. There are much worse ways to spend a Saturday. 

I'm happy every time Daryl gets on the matt, after that I don't care how he does, it's his first year. So imagine my absolute joy at him getting his first win! It was a double elimination tournament so his win got him a third match. Way to go Daryl, you are learning so much and being a really great sport at the same time. I think it is important to win and lose with grace. He has gotten a lot of experience losing gracefully it was nice to see him get his hand held up for the first time! 

Alex had his own win on Saturday. I finally updated the internet router. Let the gaming continue! He might have been happier than Daryl was with his wrestling victory. LOL 

I almost cried, that's cool right?

He is improving every time, you can't ask for much more.

After seven years even the Cox guy was wondering what took us so long to get an upgrade. LOL According to Alex, our ping rate was awful?!