went to the circus

Yesterday I got a little bit of online work done. I played with Feedburner and reworked my blog layout a bit. I joined a few networking sites, too. I only managed to get a few posts written.

Dancer had tennis lessons in the afternoon. We took one of her rackets in to be restrung earlier in the week. She picked it up when she got to her lesson. She said it made a huge difference in her strength and control. She was actually able to put a top spin on the ball.

My mom and step-dad picked her up from lessons and she spent the evening with them. They went to eat at a fish fry that a school here in town was having as a fundraiser. She spent most of her evening putting some left-over vinyl flooring (that looks like hardwood flooring) in the smaller dollhouse.

Dodger and I just hung out. He made dinner. We usually have steak on Friday's when the girl is out. He's getting really good with cooking without oil or butter. We watched some TV and I attended an virtual party.

When Dancer got home around 11, she and I played on the Wii for about an hour. She went to bed around 12:30. I was up till about 2:30. I'm having some difficulty going to bed earlier.

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This morning we had to get up early so Dancer could attend the last horse class in this session. It was a beautiful day. I temps got into the mid to upper 60s. We really needed the sunshine and warm weather. The rainy and cloudy days plus the colder weather has had us stuck inside and we all seem to be feeling a bit of depression from it.

Dodger picked up his *new* truck from my step-dad today. The truck was free but it's going to need new tires. Maybe we'll be able to find some used ones in good condition. It's not like we can afford 4 new tires. Dodger still has to go to the DMV to transfer the title and plates before he can drive it.

Tonight Dancer and I went to the circus with my mom and step-dad. Dancer started feeling bad on the way there. Her neck started hurting really bad which gave her a huge headache. Her knees got weak on her, too. I don't think it helped that she was playing some educational game (the questions were from different categories much like Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader) and she couldn't answer some questions. My mom makes her feel stupid when she can't answer questions.

I talked to Dancer more about it at the circus (out of earshot of my mom and step-dad, of course). It seems that my mom has been telling her that she needs to go to school because she doesn't know things that school kids should/would know at this age. My mom also tries to change Dancer instead of just accepting her for who she is. It's always subtle crap like forcing her to wear a few rings last weekend to the turkey supper or saying something about the fact that she always wears ball caps and has her hair up in a ponytail. It's gotten to the point where Dancer doesn't want to go over there much anymore.

When we got home from the circus, Dancer and I played Brain Age on the Wii. I could see her attitude improve after we got home but I noticed that she was flushed on her cheek. So I felt her other cheek and head. One cheek was hot while the other cheek was cool. Her forehead was a little warm, too. I hope she's not coming down with something but this could explain some of how she was feeling earlier.

I'm headed to bed now. It's 2:15 and I told Dancer that I would make sure that I start getting up earlier to spend more time doing stuff with her and helping her learn some of these things that my mom has been giving her a hard time about.