Mother's Day

It was Mother's Day today, and we all showed my wife how much we love her. I spent a couple of hours scraping the leftover grout from the tiles we pulled up off the floors so that it was all finished.

We've been putting in an hour or so a day for the last little while trying to get it all cleaned up so that we can put in new flooring, and my wife just hates it. It's really physically exhausting to run the jackhammer-like tool that we have to use to get the stuff off.

It also tends to take a physical toll on you in ways other than just exhaustion. Here's what my hand looked like after I put in my first hour on the jackhammer.

The skin peeled off of that red spot, and became a scab that stuck around for a long time. Now it's a very visible scar that probably won't fade for months or even years. I learned to wear gloves after that.

So, my present to my wife for Mother's Day was to get the last of the grout scraped off the floors so that she didn't have to do that anymore. Oh, I also got her some flowers.

Except we have already emptied out the cupboards in preparation for tearing them out and replacing them with new, non-water damaged cupboards. So, the vases had all been put away. I had to put the flowers in a water jug I found stored in the pantry.

Guess I should have thought of that. Not really the ideal presentation.

My daughter created a homemade card for her mother, and any art that she makes is always worth sharing.

Her little brother also made a card for his mother at school.

It wasn't too bad, I'll have to say.

My wife went up and dug around in the boxes where the kitchen stuff was being stored, and found a vase so she could display her Mother's Day gifts properly.

I made us a dinner of barbecued steak and a premade salad from Costco, and afterwards, we sat down to watch a movie together. My wife looked at what was up for offer on Disney+ and decided on Pollyanna.

I don't know if I'd ever seen it before. If I had, it was in 1978 or so, so I didn't remember it at all. I mostly knew Pollyanna from its cultural significance, you know how sometimes people call somebody who is excessively cheerful and optimistic a Pollyanna.

The kids had certainly never seen it before, but they really seemed to enjoy it. So, I guess the youth of our nation aren't completely lost. The movie is two hours and fifteen minutes long, but they never complained or even seemed to look antsy. I guess they still have some of that elusive attention span intact.