carrying too many bits while running

They're still forecasting snow for us on Friday - and it keeps getting bigger and bigger... the mechanic has not come and gotten the little car to look at the coolant leakage and overheating issue yet. I have been driving the mail truck - and did the bank yesterday after work, the feed store today (it was closed yesterday) and going to have to figure out some way to get a 20 lb propane cylinder tomorrow since the little car is down and Mark will run out sometime over the weekend otherwise. I've termed all of these extra chores on top of work 'quests for humans' to Esme in a conversation recently and boy... there have been a lot of extra 'quests' this week, and the quest time is limited because I get off work at 3:30 and everything closes by 5. And it's not even Friday yet.   

 

I really wish the car was working as well because Esme has to wait at the cold bus stop now with no shelter a half-mile from the house and the temps are in the 20s, and being a teenager she won't wear a coat (I'll just put my hands in my hoodie and use my breath). Most of all, I wish the cold weather would back off and we could have Spring.  Sure.  Yea.  Grandma was saying the birds were telling her it was going to finally be winter the other day.  Work is going well if I can just keep getting there every day - and then there is the post office on Saturday to get to, as well.  GROWL (at weather).  When I got home tonight I tried to clean out the back of the truck because Mark was sure if I just removed some of the junk there I could transport the 40 lb propane cylinder in it. But I could not find a way to strap the 40 lb. one securely, even empty, because of the topper brackets. I succeeded in cleaning out junk and soaking both of the knees of my jeans with questionable oil, mud, battery acid and who knows what else from the back of the truck bed.  

 

Esme took the 150 lbs of feed down to the garage for me using the sled, and had lots of paperwork to sign for her new semester which includes Spanish, Criminal Justice and Chemistry. I was in a 'frantic mood' (batten down the hatches, back off because she's spinning and getting it done but she's obviously a firecracker waiting to blow)  while I made the rest of dinner for Esme and I to go with the leftovers Mark already had started before I got home. I said 'en trousse se quoi' a bit louder than I expected and had Esme come out of her room and ask me if I was really okay.  I told her it felt a bit like I had been a fox chased by hounds all day, and that was the essence of what I had said - a bit like 'now what else in the world is chasing me'.  She said she knew that was a frustrated saying but she didn't know what it really meant.  Once I had eaten something, it was a bit better.  

 

It has been years since we called and tried to find out how much getting a large propane tank in the yard they would come and fill up was -- and the plumbing required to get the line put down near where the heater is in the house.  As I recall the price was very prohibitive for it being the only place we have propane in the house.  But then, it was easier (but not easy) to transport single tanks in the other truck before its engine blew up.  If I have some time on lunch tomorrow I might call them from work.  It will be another cold hectic morning tomorrow.  I've done French and Japanese today.

Quests for Humans

 It's been busy weeks - on top of busy weeks.  The cold let up a little - we're getting some rain but hopefully no ice overnight.  Got the little car's heater fixed.  Mark had his birthday - I gave him some clothing and some candy that Esme and I had picked out when we got propane one day.  He watched a lot of the cartoons and movies he likes - and ordered some things for his computer that is only just now arriving.  

It doesn't feel like Christmas will be here in a few weeks.  I've only bought a few things and to be completely honest - I never even took the little tree down last year. It's still up from LAST YEAR.  But it does need to be taken down and cleaned and the lights replaced and put back up.  If I can figure out time that I have ambition that isn't used for making dinner and laundry and existing.  I've come home and just sort of collapsed on the couch for a while and not been very conversational a few times.  That isn't really my style - It's been a bit like the epitome of 'flattened'.. edging back towards human at the end enough to eat and talk.  Usually my style is to come home and eat a huge pile of food and chat way too much until I deflate from the anxiety of the day and then ease back down from the high-tension end of the slide into normal.  I've had fewer of the 'keep doing what needs doing but anxiety of single being in a single timeflow with multi-dimensional timeflow thoughts that I can't process so I stick them down in the box all day until it overflows' type of days.  But I'm not sure if this is better or not - the 'I've kept doing all that needed doing but my 'brain box' is only full of dead space - no brain, no thoughts, just 'stop' or 'go' and now that I've stopped I'm flattened' feeling is a bit worse.  I guess other people would explain that as : 'I'm tired'.  But I guess that is proof I do still have those multi-dimensional thoughts when I start to think about it... when I'm not so tired.

Today I pushed on and after work went to the bank (hard quest, it closes less than a half hour after I get out of work, about a half hour drive away from bank), feed store (also closes an hour after bank does, but only fifteen minute drive away from bank), then another store for Mark and the grocery store, and then home.  I am really glad the little car made it through all those stops.  When the mail truck was having trouble with its battery that was an ever-increasing anxiety making multiple stops without running the truck long enough to charge the battery in between.  Quests for humans, indeed... with difficulty settings.

Not to mention it gets dark so early now.  And is extremely dark and cold and sometimes icy in the mornings.  It could be worse.  I don't want it to be.  Boss was ranting to me about somebody taking days off and going to be fired for missing work - and I told her my anxiety stack is still on all the ice days of previous years and I can't say one word one way or the other about anyone else because I'm just doing my best to be there every day and anxiety about what will happen if/when the weather changes.  She tried to assure me that I can't control the weather.  Yea.  That is what worries me.

I called all of our errands and my work days 'quests for humans' the other day to Esme - as she helped us get groceries with Grandma, and propane.  I told her it feels like that sometimes, like ticking off parts on some video game quest until you get all the bits done - but then it's just done for that day, and it rolls back around the next day starting all over again.  I had a very very busy postal route the other day, but not so much I couldn't get it done.  I'm wondering what this weekend will be like - Christmas packages et al.  This is the time of year they used to call in some help.  I used to be that help, on the weekdays - but now I am at the office job during the week.  Last Saturday they said that they were surprised I finished it all without needing help, but I said I didn't know they were providing help yet, so I pushed through and got it done - by continuously telling myself during the day : 'It's not going to help to sit here and stare at it - up, onward, get it done' over and over until it got done.  Thus: the quests for humans.  There is a book I keep seeing that is close to that name but it isn't quite the same emotion.

And I feel like my hips, knees, ankles, fingers and wrists are all clicky at the moment - it could be worse, don't want it to be.  It's like my muscles are made of toothpicks bound together with lots of rubber, and the toothpicks are clicky and shifting around and hoping they don't break.  I am glad the weather has been good - hope that continues to be.  Just keep getting home from work, dinner, head to bed after a bit.  I played the game a few days (Sims 3) and it still feels like I've just wasted most of that time.  I discovered how some things work again - without going and looking things up - but still, it got nothing done in the real world.

I've sent out several copies of my Mikki Mack book to people - sold one locally, and still need to find a way to get the rest of the stack to the local gallery.  They are open later on Fridays (or, at least they used to be) so I might have to take up that 'quest for human' mentality and just push push to have that be something I want to get done so I make sure it gets done.  At the office job that is how I make things work - just push push and when I stop to breathe for a minute line up the next stack.  Same thing with the postal route.  Same thing with lots of things, it's the only way I keep the balls in the air.  I'm just still adjusting to that weird feeling of stopping and there isn't new material coming in from all sides of my brain that has nothing to do with the task at hand or minimal tangents.  It's like missing an old friend that don't hardly get any time to spend with, except the old friend is my creative side which is asleep in a chair in the corner.

Languages - lots of Japanese.  A little bit of Czech.  Not a lot else.  The Japanese on my highest Duolingo profile is actually getting into new words FINALLY.... why has it taken so long?  It really has.  And I do like the little yomu yomu app that has short conversations or stories to listen to.  The Czech language app is a bit annoying in that it is supposed to recognize your speech and there are so many things I cannot come close to pronouncing (acc. to the app) but yet I feel like I understand them and am saying them as best I can. 

Goat mmo simulator: Portal to riches: Android version

by EML, age 7

I went to every place in goat mmo simulator and no demon. 
I looked in Old Goat Mountain.  I found the old goat and no demon.  In Android version, there was a blue portal near a tent.  I went in and I was in a stone room. It wasn't fair to send me on a quest to get a demon horn. I couldn't find the demon. The portal to riches isn't true.

If we find out more at a later date, we will update this post. If you can help answer this question, please leave a comment below.

update: by EML age 8
 
I did find the answer.  I was looking in the wrong place, or I missed it the first time.  On Garblage Beach, there is a blacksmith place, near the gold hammer statue.  On the right of it is the demon horn - no one has it, it is just laying there.  When you find it, go back to Dumbledore and give it to him.  And the portal of riches quest is done.