Happy April, everyone! Boy, this was one stressful week, but it did have good moments regardless. Not only was our house painted this week, but we cleaned the back porch (a grueling task every time as you might recall) I was on my period for half the week, had to do our taxes, go to an appointment at the Social Security Administration office, I visited my mom to celebrate her birthday, and went on a couple of outings with my husband and our partner.

So if you are among the multiple people I’ve left on read these past few days… I am so sorry, and you are still on my mind, and not forgotten… it’s been a heck of a week… I’ll be catching up with messages as the week rolls on.

I also played a lot of Code: Realize ~Wintertide Miracles~ (I’m on Cantarella’s story right now) and we are watching Tenchi Muyo so I felt the above GIF was appropiate. ^_^

🌈 Monday 🌈

Monday was fairly quiet. I worked on commissions and did housework, but was a bit subdued due to my period. Our house began to be prepped for painting on this day.

For lunch, I made toasted rice balls for our partner and I. He’d never had them before.

Got to use my new Bluey plate, cutlery and bowl, so that made me happy.

And speaking of Bluey –here is a coloring book I got recently:

The pages are kinda thin, so I’ll just scan and reprint on thicker paper when I want to color it. This is actually how I preserve most of my coloring books, including many vintage ones!

🌈 Tuesday 🌈

Tuesday was the Social Security appointment (for my name change). It went smoothly, other than the security guard at the entrance being so intimidating towards everyone, especially older people who could not understand English nor understand what was going on. Even though inside plenty of signage indicates accommodating if you need an interpreter, the officer was aggressive and angry towards these poor mostly Latin people who barely spoke English and were so confused and even frightened by his demeanor. 😠

Once that was done, I walked to Target. I saw these traffic cones on the way that grass had grown right through. Seems the grass around them was mowed without the cones being moved a few times. I thought it looked interesting enough for a picture:

By the time I got home, a lot of progress had been done on the house painting. Here is a before and after at that point in time (I’ll have a final update next week):

I didn’t have much time to admire the house. I had to finish all my chores, and pack, and then our partner drove me to my mom’s. She and I went to dinner pretty soon after I got there to celebrate her birthday:

I had primavera pizza! It’s my favorite because it has egg:

Once we got home, my mom opened her birthday present. Christopher bought her a laptop (her computer was ANCIENT). She was really happy –Sweeney tested it immediately! Meanwhile, Shampoo enjoyed laying on a crinkly paper bag. To each their own.

🌈 Wednesday 🌈

Wednesday was my mom and I’s usual peaceful morning of TV, mate, and conversation. I also drew and played a bit of Code: Realize ~Wintertide Miracles~ here and there.

Gumdrop had his first taste of mate!

My mom had a really big surprise for me! She was able to find my favorite childhood cookies, which I have not had for over twenty years!

They have zodiac signs on them:

A close similar cookie was Pepperidge Farm’s chessmen chocolate cookies, but I think they were discontinued in my area a long time ago. I can’t find them anywhere anymore. Anyway, my mom got me like three bags of these, so that was a wonderful surprise!

For Wednesday night dinner, my mom made fries (my favorite)!

As if that weren’t enough, she made a legit Argentinean bizcochuelo for dessert, another big treat. The mix was yet another childhood favorite that she was able to acquire recently through a shopping service.

After dinner, my guys picked me up. At home I had yet another wonderful surprise waiting for me! At first I couldn’t find Yoshi anywhere and I was sure our partner had hidden him or placed him in some sort of unfortunate situation, as he tends to do to my toys. But Yoshi turned out to be waiting for me on my desk, and he was holding the Limited Run visual novel I’ve been begging Christopher for!

It’s The House In Fata Morgana. I’ve heard many good things about it.

That, and watching TV and cuddling all together, made for a wonderful end to my day.

🌈 Thursday 🌈

I forgot to share this other surprise my mom gave me during my visit! Last time she got me the Mafalda figure and magazine. This time it was Manolito:

On Thursday I walked to Target to pick up an online order. I wanted to get one of these dino clickers, mostly as a desk fidget toy. His head and legs click when you move them. He’s really cute.

For date night, I made another massive snack spread, while the guys continued playing Kirby and I watched. Didn’t get quite so drunk on this day, but it was still a nice time.

Also, on this day, more engines arrived!

They are so, SO well made, utterly perfect in every way! I received Thomas, Percy, Gordon, and my favorite boy, James!

The facial expressions are great; Percy’s in particular is hilarious:

I wish they’d given James his angry face, but I love them all.

Can’t wait to get my hands on Henry, and Cranky when they remake him too.

🌈 Friday 🌈

Since we had our date night in on Thursday, Friday was our day out. First we went out to ramen!

The atmosphere outside was spooky. Not only was it rainy, but the Everglades were on fire, and you could clearly see the smoke amidst the clouds. Our car was covered in ash!

After lunch we went to Monster MiniGolf. It was really fun! We took this photo of one of the animatronics:

I don’t even know who won. I just know it wasn’t me and I had lots of fun. Before going home, we passed by Dollar Tree, where I got a couple of Arthur puzzles, a giant dinosaur coloring book, and a velvet dino coloring stand:

I also got a little bandana for my Grogu:

Then we went home to bed and watched TV for ages, it was very cozy. 🥰

🌈 Saturday 🌈

Saturday was exhausting. I did lots of chores, and helped a bit with the porch cleaning (I did a bigger amount of that yesterday, but on Friday our partner did most of the remaining cleaning). Then I put all the furniture back. It looks wonderful, even if it was a lot of work:

I also redecorated the litter box area a bit. 😸 Some things still need to be hung back up (a lot was taken down due to the painting) but there’s only so much time in a single week…

The porch and chores such as laundry basically took my entire day, but I was able to relax a little in the evening.

🌈 Sunday 🌈

On Sunday our partner and I went on a little solo date, it’s not a common occurrence since we generally prefer to do everything the three of us together, but Christopher had been desperately craving some alone time to just veg at home without us being our usual obnoxious selves around him. 😅

We went to the Perez Art Museum Miami, and to Wynwood for lunch and a little ice cream. We saw some cool stuff but I didn’t get any photos other than these:

After that we were on a quest to find fancy soaps, which we didn’t find, but I got these cool crayons:

Then I made dinner and we just relaxed. That was the end to a week that was at times fun, at times stressful, but good overall, as most weeks have been lately. There’s a lot of love in our home and I feel very lucky, even if things are hectic sometimes and it seems like we never stop doing things. 😊