Day 3

Finn just called from his bedroom when he should have been sleeping. He was apparently pondering the deep, deep question "Do you need to count to 100 one hundred times to get to 1000?" He was not happy with my answer that no, you only need to count to 100 ten times. He kept insisting that would make only 110. I think we were having some communication issues, and I promised that I would attempt to explain multiplication in the morning, but for now, GO TO SLEEP.

Goodness, though, I'll take math contemplation over a nightmare any day as a sleep interruption. This kid is so excited to learn lately. Tonight we watched a bunch of videos from NASA on YouTube - he's very into space at the moment. He was fascinated by the Air and Space Museum's planetarium show on exoplanets this weekend (I have to say, I was too - lots of stuff I didn't know!). And his favorite pastime on the weekends is to watch all kinds of faux documentaries about life in the land of dinosaurs. Thank you, Netflix!!

Lucy has very little patience for any of these activities, and would prefer to watch He-Man or Jake and the Never Land Pirates, thank you very much. We're still working on her.

Sooooo, this week marks the first week of my 11 weeks of furlough. I'm trying to stay positive about the 20% pay cut. Friday is the mandated furlough day, so I'm hoping I can take advantage of the "three-day weekend" aspect of it by planning some fun things to do each week. Tomorrow I hope to kick it off with a morning jog (and not an insanely early morning jog - I discovered the hard way with a foot injury that 5 a.m. is not a time that my body likes to be up and running), lunch with a friend I haven't seen in way too long, and maybe some later afternoon pool time with the kids. Other weeks I plan to tackle some DIY projects around the house, go into D.C. to have lunch with M., and take the kids on some fun outings (splash park, Baltimore's Port Discovery).

Of course, I should probably make sure these things are as cheap as possible, what with the aforementioned 20% pay cut that accompanies all this newfound free time.

At some point the realization that "Thursday is the new Friday" should sink in, but for now I feel a little frantic. I'm not actually ALLOWED to do any work tomorrow, so I felt this crazy sense of "must get everything done" urgency today that is not very relaxing. Probably compounded by the fact that I'll be away on Monday, too - I'm heading up north for my grandfather's internment service. Which I expect to be both sad and fun - saying the official "goodbye" will be tough, but seeing all of my family and several of my friends will be great. Plus, I'm going up alone, so I'll have just me to take care of - what luxury!

Finally, a teaser photo of the kitchen renovations M. and I are having done right now - painting (did that ourselves), new countertops, and a new backsplash. The granite is in, and official before and after photos will come once the new backsplash is finally installed!