November 19, 2025 - Wednesday


Today, we woke up, started school ON TIME for once, and got almost everything finished by the time I needed to head to the library to judge this speech and debate team competition. So, long story short, my friend Julia found out that I did copyright editing for my past work and, a couple of months ago, asked if I would judge this competition. I pretty much forgot about it until last week! But, thankfully, she reminded me many times over the last week, and I was ready to be there today. It was actually pretty fun! The kids worked SO HARD. Their speeches were awesome! I feel like there's no way I could write a paper and then memorize the entire thing and then present it to a panel of adults when I was that age. These presentations were all over 9 MINUTES. That's 9 minutes of memorized material! Just mind-blowing to me. 

The rest of the day was just driving, it feels like. We left the competition, I dropped some kids off at home, then took Clemi to choir in Westerville. She loved it and was so happy to be back. Her choir teacher texted me to say how happy she was to have her back too! I'm a little annoyed that I agreed to it again, but I am really glad to see Clem so happy. I had to run to the gas station while Clem was at choir and I saw this really beautiful part of Westerville I've never seen before, right along the river. It felt like a different area altogether! It was so nice up there. Then, after Clem had solo tryouts, we rushed home, Clem hopped out and Ruby hopped in to go to her choir. I drove her there, drove home, and started baking cookies for pizza and a movie night. Once I had the second batch in the oven, Ben and I drove back to pick Ruby up from choir, then we drove to Donatos for pizza. Finally, after frosting the cookies and getting everyone settled, I sat down for the movie and relaxed for most of the rest of the evening. 

I'm getting anxious about co-op tomorrow. There are so many pictures to be taken and I'm so disappointed in how my sculpture class turned out! I feel like the worst teacher ever. And this week has felt so busy. I cannot wait for it to be over. Is it time for Thanksgiving break yet? 

On the upside, we're a step closer to figuring out what we're going to do about Delaware and Christmas. I asked Kelly and Bumper if we could stay at their house if we went out and they said they'd be happy to have us. So, at least we know we have a place to stay! It's not close to dad and MJs, but we may not have to miss everything. We'll start talking about dates.

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