Day 3,740 —5 Today! —

 

         It was a soft rain this morning, and I had a simple mission to complete: to go to the store and buy some alternative sugar for pancakes. I usually use a mix of agave syrup and alcohol sugar, but I was out of the alcohol sugar, so I decided I would get some today. Also, more frozen broccoli. Last night, I was snacking on some broccoli I made, and both my daughter and son were demanding more and more. I put some steak seasoning on it and some vegan cheese and they both were loving it.

         My wife is still against 99 percent of vegan cheeses, so she didn’t want to try it, but 2 out of 3 isn’t that bad. It is my daughter’s birthday today, so I didn’t feel bad at all about not running that much and planning on spending as much time with her today as possible. We were all going to go to the new library together, which wasn’t the first plan, but with the weather prediction being stormy, it seemed the logical move.

         When we went out, it started raining harder, and I was going to tell my wife we should call it and stay home, but she was determined, and we were off with both kids. The rain was relentless and the splashing in the flooded roads was anxiety-inducing. We weren’t a half mile from our house when my wife hit a puddle that was so big that we couldn’t see anything for 5 seconds. We both sat there and braced for impact and when it didn’t come, and we could see the road again, we turned around and went home.

         There wasn’t power at our house, so we sat in the car for a while as we decided what to do next. One thing was for sure: it was going to be a memorable birthday.