(no subject)

I'm going to be spending a lot of time at the school during the next week. It's time for the Scholastic book fair, and the librarian is having trouble getting volunteers to help out. I'll spend two hours tomorrow helping set up, two hours Tuesday helping kids fill out wishlists, and my usual three hours on Thursday helping sell books. I may well end up going in at other times if nobody else signs up. Wednesday evening, there will be a big event at the school, combining the sale with some sort of dance for the kids. The librarian is actually hoping desperately that it will be somewhat under-attended because the previous two all school events were so packed it was hard to move around. There's got to be a happy medium where there are enough people present to buy lots and lots of books but not so many present that nobody can browse.

The book fair does mean that Cordelia may not have volleyball practice next week. The book fair will be using the gym, so practice will be impossible unless the coach can change the day of the week or the venue. Cordelia will be disappointed because the coach was planning to have a party for the girls and generally let them have fun. I think she'd still rather go to the book fair/dance, but she will regret the volleyball practice. Nobody had told Rec & Ed, so nobody had told the coach until I e-mailed her. It occurred to me that, since her daughter is no longer attending the school, she might not know.

Last night, our gaming group met. One player was absent due to a migraine, but his wife was present. We ended up discussing the FATE game and trying to do some collaborative work to try to reboot it as something that better fits what the players are interested in doing. We will be reworking our characters and backstories, too. Scott wants to start out slow and try to get us used to using aspects before we try to fuss with skills and such. Aspects were very difficult for us last time (I had trouble coming up with any at all), and I don't think any of us used them right. We also didn't really grasp that we were supposed to be collaborating with Scott to produce the setting, the npc reactions, etc. I think it has more in common with LJ/DW role playing than with the sort of table top games we're used to. A lot of stuff that's normally entirely the realm of the GM is open for players to manipulate as long as it furthers some aspect of the story we've agreed on.

(no subject)

If you could do anything, no restrictions (money, time, family, etc.), what is one big thing you would do in 2015? (for escritoireazul)

I think I would rebuild our house so that it had a usable second floor. That would be really major work; we couldn't live here while it was going on. The first floor isn't sufficiently structurally sound to support a second floor in general, and in particular, the room added on to the back of the house about ten years after it was built lacks foundations sufficient to support any added weight. When it was put on, it sank enough that there's a noticeable slant to the floor in the dining room.

The renovation would involve, also, redoing the kitchen with new countertops and cupboards. We'd plan out the rooms so that there was a better distribution of closet space and even a bathroom with a counter of some sort. We'd get rid of the window in the shower enclosure. We'd get the hardwood floors refinished and replace the ceiling in the basement. Maybe we'd even completely finish the basement (it's partially finished now). We'd certainly put glass block in the basement windows. We'd also build the new walls thick enough that it was possible to put reasonable insulation in them, something that isn't possible now.

It would be sort of a pity to do this so soon after replacing the roof, but having no restrictions on money makes that feasible.

With the extra space that a second floor would give us, we could actually think seriously about adopting a second child because we'd have a place to put him or her.