This American Life

The days of this week have whizzed by. I have been getting up early and then the next thing I know, it's time for dinner.

I started playing Harry Potter Wizards Unite (because if it wasn't clear already, I'm a nerd). I'm not obsessive, but I'm enjoying it. It's been getting me outside more, which is good. It's been helping my mood quite a bit. If you're so inclined and you want to add me, my name is NoelCharbonneau and my code is 0802 9601 2596.

I have had to shake my head this week, that this is my life.

My kids have kept me on my toes, to be sure. Jeremy has been doing coding camp at a place called Code Ninjas. I am excited for him because I feel like this could be a real thing for him. Brian has dropped him off the past couple of days. It seems like, at least in Brian's estimation, that every other kid in there is like Jeremy. He seems to be enjoying the class. He is developing an app, that's about the most information I can get from him. He's not a man for small talk, as he's so indelicately informed me on multiple occasions. I am fortunate for the small tidbits he lays out for me from time to time. Other than that, I usually get monosyllabic answers like, "fine," "nothing," "yes," "no."

He's in class from 1-4. It seems like a good amount of time, but it gets eaten up quickly.

11-1 is the time of day most in demand for dog walks. Even if a walk is only for a half an hour, with transport time to and from it can add up to an hour. (Add in side trips for Wizards Unite to recharge energy or complete challenges and it takes a wee bit longer.)

If I'm checking in on dogs, as I was for most of the week, then it becomes a whole thing. I start at 10:30 and it seems like I don't get home until 2. It's fantastic to be earning money. It also makes time go much faster than I'm used to it going.

In some ways, I focus myself more when I'm at home. I've imposed a schedule on my day. It's kind of a loose latticework. I'm trying to spend less time on my phone and more time building into the things that give me joy.

Mornings are for crochet. I've got a line of projects in front of me. I didn't get around to making end-of-the-year teacher gifts, so I'm working on them now. I mostly watch YouTube to learn new stitches. Right now, I'm toward the end of making my first shawl. I've gotten lots of compliments on it. (I will post a pic of it when I'm done with it, I'll include it in the comments section of an upcoming blog post.) But mornings are for crochet. I spend at least an hour working on my project. I'm planning on doing a couple more shawls, some dish cloths and then a blanket for a friend's daughter who's headed off to college in the fall.

Midday is dogs. It's fun, I get outside, I get exercise, I get to play Wizards Unite.

After I get home from that (and also from transporting whichever child from whichever activity), I start thinking about dinner. I normally try to be thinking about it sooner. This is the point of the day when I go into a dead panic about whether I have all the necessary ingredients. I'm realizing, as I write this, that I need to start meal planning again. We had been doing a meal delivery service, but we quit because too many of the meals weren't compliant with our personal food protocol. I need to sit down and actually write things down, make an inventory, make a shopping list. It's just that my head has been spinning so much lately, I've not been able to plan and execute things well.

Once dinner is set aside (even if I've not executed anything), then it's time for reading. I sit down for a little while (again, depending on the schedule) and try to move the bookmark a little further along.

Then, dinnertime. I try to prepare a meal while being peppered with questions in the world's most repetitive press conference. Most questions are centered on how soon dinner is going to be ready. There is also an equal smattering of dinosaur-related questions. Recently, Brookie has opened a line of questions relating to Halloween (because it's never too soon to prep for that holiday).

It's under this barrage that I attempt to create dinner. I've long abandoned trying to make nutritional meals. The kids get a rotation of chicken nuggets, frozen pepperoni pizza and hot dogs. I tend to make a separate track of food for Brian and myself, usually something big on taste, lots of veggies and protein, and plenty of healthy fats. I aim for leftovers because it makes less work for me.

Then, after I've managed to satiate my children's hunger (which, these days, seems nearly impossible), I make some decaf, have a serving of dark chocolate and write.

I don't know why the rhythm of the day is working so well, but there's something about it that has been helping tremendously. I get to the end of the night, and I can point to the things that I've accomplished. I'm still trying to work in Bible-reading time, but it's been about a week. I'm still ironing out the kinks.

But this life I'm living (I digressed from that train of thought). My kids are just amazing people. Bekah's passion for dance is extraordinary. Last week, the studio was closed. It was a well-deserved break for the instructors and staff. Bekah, however, floundered. She didn't quite know what to do with herself. Someone commented to me, after one of the shows for her recent recital, about how well Bekah had done. I thanked the person by saying, "thank you, she works so hard!" And the person responded, "oh, yeah. Everyone knows how hard Bekah works." It was that compliment (echoed by her instructors) that gave me pause.

She loves to dance and she wants to be the best, and she's willing to work as hard as she needs to. It is so much fun to watch her on stage. I cry almost every time I watch her. She is always a bundle of nerves leading up to the performance. It's a lot to manage, trying to help reassure her that we are going to be on time. She went to great lengths to help me keep the most recent round of rehearsals straight. I am a mess when it comes to scheduling, though I've been working extra hard to get everything lined up. (I actually have all the kids' activities in my Gmail calendar, imagine that!)

The other compliment that touched me is that Bekah is very kind and thoughtful with her fellow dancers. I love her work ethic, but I'm so grateful that she sets that aside to love on people. She has done an amazing job lately with Brookie. After dinner, when bedtime is looming and my patience is a thin piece of vellum dangling between me and lunacy, Bekah starts running interference. She has even, on occasion, gotten Brookie to sleep.

I don't like to take credit for Bekah because I've mostly just tried to get out of the way so God can work. It's the same with all the kids. Brookie came up to me today as I was cutting zucchini and said, "mommy, Bebba is crying. Can you come see her and hug her and tickle her?"

And maybe that's partly me, the compassion and caring. All the kids are good at cracking jokes to lighten the mood, which is maybe also me. But they are their own people. I could only dream about being as funny as Doug. He has a sense of timing that is second to none. Today, we went to the dollar store for some buckets. I told him he could pick something out. I was fairly certain it was going to be a dino, but he surprised me and got a shark. As we were walking away, he said, almost to himself, "yeah, this is perfect for my Jaws collection. It's a megalodon." (So it was dino-adjacent, I suppose.)

He also has been doing this thing lately where we will joke with him. He will laugh along, but then he will nervously ask, "you're just joking, right, mommy?" The boy calls me his best friend, which can only absolutely melt your heart. And all of it balances out the disasters he wreaks on our house, like the art on the wall and crashing the curtains off of my bedroom wall.

So this is where I'm at. I feel so grateful that I've been chosen for this. I had a conversation with a friend this morning about the times we say, "why, God?" And this morning, I was able to turn it around. "Why, God? Why didn't that happen to me? How did I get away with that? How wasn't I caught doing that?" I mean, it's really the truth. The people that have done things and been caught, I'm not better than them. I just haven't been caught. Not truly heinous things, but I mean, I've sidestepped some serious things. And I marvel that this is what God has given to me.

Things are not perfect in my life. I'm still waiting on some answers that I think I'm owed, though the reality is that they will come when it's God's perfect time.

So here I sit, watching TV, my girls snoring quietly on the couch next to me. And I'll be up again tomorrow, ready to do it all over again.

Something in the Summertime

It's late and I'm tired.

It was a glorious summer day. The weather was hot and humid, which is what you'd expect on a day in late June.

Everyone had something to do today. Bekah played with a friend from school. Jeremy went to coding camp. Doug had summer camp.

Brookie and Doug swam in the pool after Doug got home from school. After Jeremy got done, we went to Three Oaks, a manmade lake and park that's close by.

Brookie swam her little heart out, both in the pool and in the lake. She was happy as a clam.

We ran into some friends who moved away a year or so ago. It was good to catch up with them.

I met up with some mom friends. One of them helped me with Doug, who went far afield a couple of times.

I walked 17,000 steps today. I have been playing the new Harry Potter game. It's fun and it's been helping me get outside and get moving.

I took a kickboxing class on Monday night. I felt better leaving that class than I have felt for months. I am hoping to be able to start training with my friend again. I am realizing that hard physical activity is necessary for my mental well-being.

I wish I had more profound things to write about tonight. I really did have a lovely day. It was good to be outside, to see friends (new and old) and to be out and about, without heavy expectations on who I'm supposed to be.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. It's been a long time since I was able to say I was looking forward to the day that's on the horizon. I'm gonna count that as a win.

The Good, the Bad and the Poorly Written

I have always loved reading and books. Always.

I remember in third grade (or maybe second) that I started being sent to fifth grade for reading. I enjoyed it. It helped reinforce that I was different. (I'm now realizing that was a good thing, but back then, having just transferred in to a public school from a private one, it was not wonderful.)

Anyway, in my school district they tested for the gifted program in third grade. I desperately wanted to be a part of the gifted program. However, while I tested well in most areas, I missed qualifying because my math scores weren't high enough.

I feel like I've told this story before, so I won't dwell on it.

It was in sixth and seventh grade that poems and images started appearing in my head. I wrote some of them down. In high school, I returned to them when I started taking creative writing.

Most of them were your typical tween angst fare. I remember in high school, Carol had Aaron Anstett, a friend and published poet, visit us for an assembly and reading. (He is the author of a poem, Grace, which is one of my most favorite.) He read several poems and we sat, attentive, trying to read between the lines and "figure out" the poetry. He read us one poem and we sat there, blinking. He then informed us that poetry could be funny.

This blew our minds. Up to this point, I felt like poetry had to be the product of a tortured soul, a broken heart, a tragedy.

In any case, my writing in high school matured a bit.

Carol's mantra for writing was to write what you know, which was originally penned by Mark Twain. She attributed it to Raymond Carver, one of her favorite authors.

Back then, we (those of us in the creative writing program at Elgin High School) were quite snobbish about what good writing was. We had very definite opinions on who was a good author--Margaret Atwood, Li-Young Lee, Aaron Anstett, and who was not good--Robert James Waller, Danielle Steel and, though she wasn't a thing back then, I would include E. L. James in this part of the list.

I had a very low view of fantasy writing in general. When I stumbled upon Harry Potter in 2005 (yes, I tend to arrive at trends later than most), this upended most of my thinking.

Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Honeyduke's. These were not real places. They were not things that someone knew because they spent time in the physical locations. It seemed to nullify the "write what you know. J.K. Rowling didn't know the subject, in the traditional sense.

I have read the Harry Potter series multiple times, from book one all the way through. It usually takes me about a week and a half to get through all of the books. Every time I read it, I find more things that I either didn't remember or hadn't noticed before.

I realize, now, after reading the series and reading corresponding articles, that J.K. Rowling knew about the Potterverse. She new absolutely every intricate detail of that universe. I don't doubt that she could answer back stories to any character, however inconsequential to the overarching storyline. She immersed herself in the subject. That was her passion.

I have no desire to read George R. R. Martin, but I suspect the same would be true of him. Even though he's never encountered a dragon or seen the Night King, he knows the subject, he understands the intricacies of his own universe.

There are several others that I wouldn't consider Great American Authors, but are authors that I enjoy reading. Fundamentally, reading has to be fun. I have tried to suffer through Anna Karenina on multiple occasions and I just haven't been able to get through it. That's not to say it's not an amazing novel, but it's just not (or wasn't, at the time) something that moved me.

The four authors to whom I am incredibly devoted are John Sandford, Michael Connelly, Kathy Reichs and Jonathan Kellerman.

Kathy Reichs is, in my opinion, a top-notch author. She is, in real life, a forensic anthropologist. She helped create the show Bones that aired for twelve seasons. She is legitimately a genius when it comes to science and anthropology. As well, she does a good job of constructing a narrative. I have read all but one (or two) of her novels. Her character development is excellent. I cried when she killed off one of her characters. I don't often do that.

John Sandford and Michael Connelly are strictly authors. They write detective novels. I know there are a lot of authors who do that. I couldn't tell you specifically why I like them. They both do a good job of moving the story forward. The character development isn't on the same level as Ms. Reichs. That's not to say they don't write well, it's just that they aren't as good as Ms. Reichs.

Jonathan Kellerman writes detective novels as well, but his characters are a bit unique. His main character is a psychologist. He works with a detective to solve cases that are hard to solve or have an unusual angle to them. I mention him because it's still within the detective genre, but different enough from the others I've mentioned. I've not read him for a couple of years, more than anything because I don't make time for it. His wife, Faye Kellerman, also writes. In my opinion, she does better with character development than her husband.

I am an incredibly faithful reader of these authors. Again, they are not writing To Kill A Mockingbird, but they write novels that help me escape into another dimension.

I will also mention an author whom I stopped reading. I'm hoping this shows that although I'm loyal to authors, I am discerning.

I started reading Patricia Cornwell many years ago. She is a medical examiner who is also an author. I read her novels in order and enjoyed them. She almost lost me when she brought a character back from the dead (Carol taught me that I should not trick readers and I look down my nose at authors that do).

Then, I made a trip to the library for one of her new novels. I just looked online to see what novel it was. I believe it was Blow Fly, though I am not positive. I got home from the library, cracked it open, read the first page....and slammed it shut. It read very differently from all of her previous novels. It felt foreign to me. I didn't even give it a chance. I have never returned to her books.

Alice Hoffman is another author who lost me. Seventh Heaven and Practical Magic are two of my favorite of her novels. (The movie is a bastardization of the book. If I didn't know the book existed, I would love the movie. It's just too hard, as a lover of books, to have that attitude.) I have read several of her other novels multiple times. She writes magical realism and she does it beautifully.

Some years ago, I read one of her newer novels, The River King. It was, for lack of a better word, awful. Horrible. I read it because I felt I owed it to her, but it was not done well. I didn't fall in love with the characters, I didn't get lost in the scenery, I didn't get hooked in.

I haven't read any of Ms. Hoffman's works for a long time. I might, now that I'm reminiscing, go back and read one of her early works. For that matter, I need to read The Handmaid's Tale. As she was one of Carol's favorite author's, we were tasked with reading some of Ms. Atwood's works. I remember reading Cat's Eye and I know I read some of her poetry, but I don't believe I ever read The Handmaid's Tale. I am leery because I know how much Carol loves her (and I love Carol), but I am worried that I either won't relate or won't enjoy it. I will, however, read it because I feel like it's important.

I need to mention an opinion that I know may not be popular with my Christian friends. I do not care for Christian fiction. I feel it has a valid place in the canon of fiction, but it has never resonated with me. I find that, for the most part, the characters feel like purified versions of what Christians deem as morally and spiritually fit.

The one exception I will make to this is the Elizabeth Gail series. I remember this series fondly from childhood. The protagonist resonated with me. She had an attitude, she felt like an outsider, she struggled. That felt real to me. It wasn't a whitewashed version of things. There wasn't swearing or sex or anything (to be clear, I don't believe a novel has to feature that to be considered well-written), but it was relatable.

Aside from that, I do not read Christian fiction at all. I apologize to my brothers and sisters who write it. I know you have an audience and I know you are good writers. It's just not my bag, in the same way that though Tolkien was an amazing author, The Return of the King kept me in a semi-vegetative state while I tried to get through it.

I went far afield, but here is some of what I was trying to say.

First, I now (in large part due to Carol's encouragement) consider myself gifted. I may not understand discrete equations and calculus, my grasp on physics may be tenuous at best, but that does not negate the true talent I have.

I love to crochet and for a long time, I hesitated to share my work with people. I have acquaintances who crochet and who have been doing it for a lot longer. I was ashamed of my work because I thought it was inferior to theirs.

Here's the thing. The things I crochet have been well-received. I have improved from when I started. I now receive compliments on my work. That doesn't mean the others aren't also talented. Me crafting beautiful things, be it in the written word or in yarn, isn't negated by what someone else creates. It's not an all-or-nothing proposition.

Second, I feel very strongly that evaluating writing as good or bad is very subjective. Everyone is different and has different tastes. This is why there are so many authors. This is why there are millions of different books and genres and types of fiction.

I have been in the process of writing a novel. I stalled out a couple of years ago. I developed a lot of self-doubt. Someone asked me what genre it was. Someone else asked me another question about it. I allowed those questions, which weren't bad questions, but I allowed those questions to take all of the wind out of my sails.

This is day number eight of my current writing streak. Every day that I write, I get new confidence in my abilities and I feel myself getting more empowered. I still am not sure what genre the novel is and whether or not a traditional publisher will every be interested. I have no idea if it will make money or change the trajectory of my family. I do know, however, that every day it lies dormant, I make myself vulnerable to believe the lies I tell myself.

I need to dust off the Google doc and get on with it. Stay tuned.

Coming Attractions

I am exhausted, but I don’t want to break my streak. This will be very short and to the point. 

In an effort to widen my audience, I am going to do two things. First, I’m going to interview people that interest me. My first interview will be a friend from high school. I have my sights set on someone else for the second interview. I am not sure how this will work because these two particular people live quite far from me. I will figure that out. 

Second, I am going to feature guest authors. My aim is for moms to write something. Ideally, I’d like it to be someone who is also trying to widen their audience. 

I am not much of a details person, so I’m not sure how it’s all going to work. I will say, I am very excited about this idea and where it may take my blog. 

I wore myself out today, but thankfully tomorrow will be a little slower-paced. Not by much, but just enough. 

In between these new features, I will continue to share my semi-humorous musings. Stay tuned! 

Ramblin' Sue

I have this thing that whenever I'm trying to do something consistently, I become very dismissive. I've been writing something for now six days in a row. I was out walking a dog today, trying to wrack my brain about what to write.

I don't lead an exciting life, by any stretch. I have four crazy kids, a dog and two guinea pigs. I spend a lot of time breaking up fights, trying (fruitlessly) to keep my house clean, explaining why it isn't [insert meal] time yet, and preparing meals when it is, in fact, time to eat.

So fundamentally, I don't feel like I have a lot to share with the world. It's not like I have profound wisdom that pours from me endlessly. Today, while cleaning up dog poop at my parents' house, I stuck my finger in poop. That is my day, going from one disgusting mess to another.

The idea of writing something every day, then, becomes tricky. Why am I doing it? Am I trying to wow my readers, the dozens of faithful readers that click the link everyday?

If that's the case, then I should, after all this time, pick a focus to my blog. Am I a food blogger? Crafter? Do I photograph things? Am I an activist?

I'm a little bit of all of those things, but not enough of one of them to feel like I can sustain a following. I'm not great at promoting myself.

I'm not really doing it for others, then. I'm doing it for myself. I'm demonstrating that I can show up for myself. Consistency is a good thing for many reasons. I'm doing my best to feed my passion, to feed my creative fire.

I have this group of friends online. We live all over the country, though there is a large concentration of us that live in Texas. I have struck up friendships with many of them. We may not have met in real life, but these are women that care about me, that have prayed me through tough times, have encouraged me and have challenged me.

One woman in particular, I'll call her Chris, has a habit of posing very thought-provoking and convicting questions of the group at large. Recently, she asked what we needed to give up so we could pursue what we love.

It was a simple question, but it hit me square between the eyes.

I talked a few nights' ago about how when I get low in the pit, I bury myself in useless endeavors, games and apps on my phone. I waste time. I don't feed the part of me that, as an artist, needs to be fed. So it shrivels up and dies and honestly, I think that contributes to my low feeling, to being in a pit where I can't see the sky.

I went to the library yesterday and checked out some books. No deep thinkers. In fact, one of them is one I've read before. It's been a while since I read this particular author, so I wasn't sure where I left off in the series. I knew within a few pages that I had read it before. That's never bothered me, though, reading the same book multiple times, so I figure I'll read it just for fun.

I have a book that was gifted to me a couple of years ago. The author was my creative writing teacher in high school. I still consider her the gold standard when it comes to writing. The book is about how to ignite your creative fire. I figure, after I've filled my mind with something mindless, I will start going through that book.

All of that to say, I don't spend a lot of time worrying about how many followers I have on social media. I don't spend time curating an IG page. It's just not something that comes to me naturally. What does, however, come naturally, is recording my rambling thoughts in a mildly humorous way.

I'll stick with that for the time being.

Pleasant Valley Saturday

It was a really long day today. I woke up at 5:30 in a crazy panic. My to-do list was a mile long. I had a lot of different places to be.

I did not want to get out of bed and do *any* of the things. I wanted to stay in bed, pull the covers over my head and hang out under there until Sunday.

What I did instead, though, was take some action.

I sent out a couple of messages to trusted friends, asking them to pray for me. I tried to convey how I was feeling.

Then I started asking how I could be praying for people. I reached out to people to see how they were. I did everything I could to get out of myself.

I embarked on the day, though I was groggy and felt downtrodden.

I headed out to Palatine to pay my respects to a friend who passed this week. As I was standing in the receiving line, I chatted with a friend, remembering her. She was someone who radiated warmth everywhere she went.

She fought cancer and lost the battle. It was hard to see her family, but I knew that their faith was carrying them. I will miss her, but I am so grateful that she is no longer suffering.

I came back from Palatine and had to run errands with the kids. Bekah has her first sleepover tonight. She could be mistaken for a first-born, in that she is fastidious and driven. She has been packed for the sleepover since Tuesday.

She spent an afternoon the other day with the birthday girl, reviewing the party agenda, sleeping arrangements and timeline. She has been a nervous wreck, worried that she wasn't going to have time to get a present and worried that she would be late (this has become a common concern for her).

So we headed to Target after checking on my parents' dogs. Last year, she got her friend and herself a matching t-shirt. This year, she wanted to do the same thing. Money continues to be an issue, so I was concerned about how it was going to all work out.

I needn't have worried.

She received a Target gift card for her birthday. We had gone to Target a couple of months back. There was nothing that really spoke to her. She held onto it, though, and even accumulated some money by doing chores and odd jobs.

She knew what she wanted to get. We went to the t-shirt racks, she got a shirt for her and a shirt for her friend. She also said she wanted to get her friend a squishy. We headed back to the toy department, where she found the right one.

We went to check out and she handed the cashier the gift card. She didn't complain that she couldn't spend the money on herself. She didn't seem at all bummed.

Jeremy recently went to the zoo with NISRA. He had 78 cents leftover from the money he had taken to the zoo. He used most of it to buy presents for him and the rest of his siblings. All through Target, he kept offering his 78 cents to his sister.

By the time we got back from Target, we had an hour left before Bekah had to be at Urban Air. At 3:30, I told Brian to take her before I lost my mind. She was so excited that I swear she was levitating.

I sat for a while and crocheted, then headed back to my parents' house. I had to mow the lawn and while I did that, Jeremy helped me take care of the dogs. He had been harassing me about bathing Tucker, the Westie. I kept trying to push it off because I was tired, but once Jeremy locks onto an idea, there's no wiggling free from it.

I left there and walked Tony, the enormous giant Schnauzer, for another hour.

Over the course of the day, I found out how to pray for people and I prayed for them. I made dinner (chili).

I am still not feeling great about myself. I don't say that to be maudlin or attract attention. I say it to demonstrate that I didn't let my feelings dictate what I do or don't do. I don't do it every day. Sometimes, I stay in bed and wallow. And that's okay, too.

There's a prayer that I heard this morning. I've heard it before. I've tried to memorize it to no avail. I will have to try harder because I think it's an important one.

St. Francis Prayer
Lord, make me an instrument of they peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy

O divine master, grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console
to be understood as to understand
to be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
It is by pardoning that we are pardoned
And it's in dying that we are born into eternal life.
Amen

I do my best to live this out, even if I can't say it by memory yet.

Tomorrow promises to be a thousand times less busy than today was. I watched and episode of "When They See Us" on Netflix. Done very well, but not something my heart can take as a binge. So I'm laughing along with Ellen DeGeneres and her audience and am soon headed off to bed.

(As an aside, I checked out books from the library today. Cue the post six months from now with me complaining about how I can never return books on time.)

Short and Sweet

It has been a long day. I am beat. My stomach is full of dinner. I got to spend time with a couple of great dogs.

I was hoping to get out tonight, but I lost momentum. Dinner undid me. I had to escape to take a shower.

I started mulling over what I wanted to write today. I didn't want to dwell on the things that went wrong, or how I battled against my depression today.

I want, instead, to focus on my blessings. Summer is always rough because there is an utter lack of structure. This year, for the first time ever, we've been able to plan summer camps and activities for the kids.

Jeremy went to Brookfield Zoo today with a group of kids from NISRA. He had a blast. Dance starts up again next week. Doug has summer school. Every day, the kids have something to do. I've been pushing back against the "I'm bored" anthem.

We've made trips to the library and will make more. We have a freezer full of food (even though the eating frequency and quantity has increased exponentially since school let out.

I've been laughing hard at John Mulaney standup on Netflix. He is an amazing comedian and has brought me to tears over the past few nights.

I have an army of friends who are checking on me daily. I have a life I couldn't have imagined. I am grateful for so much today. And while I feel bad for bailing on plans, I am grateful for so much today. I am going to have a full day tomorrow, but I intend to keep the streak alive.