You know that thing where I finally make a post on here like a year after my previous one, and I promise to get better about it?

I’m not going to make that promise.

However, I was reading the boys the entries about their births this evening, and it made me sad that I have missed out on documenting so many things in their first five and four years.

So I’ll try.

Today was my nephew Jackson’s 19th birthday. Jackson started attending college in this town at the beginning of this school year, so we see him a little more often than we used to, though not as much as we thought we might. Which is understandable, him being a college freshman and away from home for the first time and all.

We didn’t have the busiest of days. Spent some time this morning on a video call with my Irish cousin Lu. Always fun talking with her.

Tristen took Griffin to do a Target pickup and some other running around, but she said the line just for the pickup service was ridiculously long, so she went back in the evening.

I took Fawkes and Phoenix on a surprise shopping trip to pick up a couple things for Tristen. They were both hungry and wanted lunch. Fawkes wanted Subway and Phoenix wanted McDonald’s. They couldn’t agree, so I didn’t mind getting them both what they wanted. The one surprise I did receive was Fawkes pointing at a sub with meats and lettuce and tomato on it. I can’t remember which one it was, but I got him a six-inch cold cut combo, the only thing added to it being some ranch. I knew it was likely a bit too much for him to eat on his own, but he ate a good third of it. (I finished the rest.)

I watched Duke football win a bowl game against Troy. With all the turmoil of now-former coach Mike Elko leaving in the middle of the night to take a job at Texas A&M and the resulting staff shakeup and players transferring and decommitting, it was nice to have something positive happen.

I did some work. Tristen watched Christmas movies, the boys did some stuff in the playroom and played on tablets.

Griffin was energetic this evening. I don’t know what got into him. He wasn’t bad, just very loud and very… kinetic.

Tristen and I had our annual viewing of Love Actually after they went to bed.

Yesterday we went to the Aquarium for the Festival of Trees. Laura was diving and we met Torrie and her boys along with Heather and Zoey there. Leigh was there with Hadley and her parents, but we really only saw them in passing.

My parents arrive with Erin in tow tomorrow after spending a day or two in Gastonia.

I’ve got a lot of presents to wrap.

Oh, I just remembered the title of this entry.

“It was the darnedest thing,” is what I said to Tristen when I was explaining that I’d found my AirPods.

Many months ago I lost them for a while. Long enough that I ended up buying a second paid on eBay. I randomly found them deep inside the couch while looking for something else, even though we had both checked the couch before. (I gave the extra pair to Tristen.)

A couple weeks ago I realized I couldn’t find them again and thought maybe they’d fallen in the couch again. I hadn’t gotten around to checking, but I did so tonight, prompted by the fact that I couldn’t find the TV remote. I didn’t feel them in between the cushions, which is where they were before (deep in a pocket at the back of the cushion, to be exact). I shined a light between the cracks and didn’t see them there either, but I did see other stuff: some socks, underwear, an Oscar-Meyer weenie whistle, a toy car, some Halloween-themed cloth napkins, a popsicle holder, a Freaker.

I pulled a bunch of those out but couldn’t reach a few of the them and noticed that I could get them from the floor behind the couch, so I did that. After I got it all out I went back to the front to pick up a blanket that had fallen off, and there was the controller, under the blanket.

There, too, was my AirPod case! I suppose I somehow knocked it loose or it was mingled in with some of the other stuff I pulled out… I don’t know! I checked the charge on it and the Pods themselves were at 100%, the case at 60-something. This was after missing for at least a month.

The darnedest thing!