I am SO bored of walking this dog. Yet I’m bound (by choice) to it by two chains. One, it keeps Orbit sane, and two, if I want any chance of beating back the scale, I have to get my 10,000 steps in. I am desperate to make it bearable. I’ve burned through all the interesting podcasts I’ve currently found. I’ve worn out my favorite songs. Now, I’ve resorted to hatching Pokemon eggs and catching ridiculous numbers of Rattata and Spearow. Level 11 in da ‘hood, wooptie woo. *sigh* Sometimes I snag real-life “Pokemon” by photographing bugs, fungi and turtles. The blistering heat and sogginess of August don’t help. “Getting” to walk in the rain makes me giddy. Sometimes I mix things up by walking the in the opposite direction or adding or deleting a section of neighborhood. I’ve made a point to remember names of neighbors I meet (Yes, I write them on my list called “neighbors”). Sometimes the boys come along and we chatter for half the walk and then whine for the rest. I try to mentally focus on the benefits, but it can be a struggle.

I usually like it better when I’m not walking alone (since it’s “their” dog, but he’s too big for them to control), but, we have a deal. If the boys don’t come with me on the walk, they have a different job. It’s either a house cleaning task I assign or a school job. Today, I gave them the open-ended job of coming up with a school project of their own.

Ian invented a multi-purpose spoon that was also a wrist band, a cake tester and a writing utensil. My biggest question was how you feed yourself without stabbing your own eye with the toothpick, so he demonstrated how it barely grazes one’s forehead. I suppose that could help a person pace one’s self at the table.

Isaac invented a more imaginary gadget called a “Shrinkinator.” He jammed a bent paperclip through a bottle cap to make a selector that “clicks” along the ridges of the bottle cap and taped that to a ribbon spool, which also had a spoon taped to it to direct the shrink rays.

Elijah drew a picture of what he’d like the world to be like, which involved a powerful helmet that lowers onto his head, causing major electrical surges and allows him to then go defeat lots of enemies.

Next up, we have some Bible study and some geography. Happy Tuesday.