What number goes with the bike-riding Suciches? Read on!

(Sunday Paper, Year V, Issue 17)

Wow.

Hard to believe we’re doing another one of these.

Week 6.

It’s hard not to get a little bit down looking at that number and thinking about what it means.

So in another effort to shake things up this week, let’s take a look at some different numbers.

Last week was the Sunday Paper in picture form.

This week it’s By The Numbers.

4: I mentioned before how I got our youngest to ride her bike independently earlier this quarantine. We have progressed to the point where she can take a pretty lengthy ride with her older sisters. It’s not perfect - she’s still a little behind and it’s hard for me to keep an eye on everyone at the same time, but it’s nice to be able to do it with the four of us once or twice a week.

I’ll add this - since we had such little snow this winter, I had the two big bikes (our oldest is using Kathy’s bike, which hasn’t been used in a while) tuned up at the bike shop before the end of February. I picked them up the first weekend in March, I think it was…and I’m so glad I did. Last year we were woefully under-biked for the summer. This year we’ve over-used them already, if there’s such a thing. (I don’t think there is.) If I hadn’t tuned the two big bikes up it would have been an even longer six weeks.

Hundreds: I don’t have an exact number for this one so we’ll just estimate. Here’s the deal: Last year I started cleaning the office out and transforming it so I could use it and there were a ton of papers that needed to be shredded and I started shredding them and the shredder overheated a couple of times. Normally it bounces back after a bit and it did once or twice but then the last time it never kicked back on. So it’s been sitting in my office and I plug it in and turn it on every so often but nothing happens.

This week I was about to throw it out and then I remembered I’ve fixed two electric pencil sharpeners by taking them apart so I unscrewed the shredder, saw nothing amiss, jiggled some stuff, and then screwed it back together and figured it was done for but I plugged it in and by jove it worked. So I’ve been shredding hundreds of papers this week. Good feeling of accomplishment there.

100: I haven’t told you about my exercise regimen lately. Last year I did 75 push-ups a day. I would find a quick moment in the day, do my push-ups, and that was my exercise plus any added running or walking or something else. This year I started pushing it to 100 push-ups a day. I’ll do this in different sets - sometimes it’s 70, then 30. Sometimes it’s 4 sets of 25, sometimes 5 sets of 20. Mostly it’s 50, then two sets of 25. And then I mix in some sit-ups in between, and I do about a hundred of those total. I do this mostly when I’m playing video games, so I feel like I’m not totally wasting my time playing the games. (But it’s not a waste of time. It actually gives me a little treat to look forward to and I feel like I’m working towards a goal.)

I would be in great shape if I haven’t been drinking and eating so much.

24: As of today I’ve done 24 lessons on-line. I’m going to stop after tomorrow. I feel like the market is saturated right now with things like this - and how can I compete with the likes of Michelle Obama doing read-alouds? Here’s what I suspect though - by the time summer rolls around the school end of at-home work will dry up, and kids might need some kind of diversion. Assuming we’ll all be at home through the summer (I hate to break it to you, but I’m not optimistic this won’t be the case) I’ll form the teaching idea a little more solidly, and I’ll pick up again once school winds down when there might be more of a need.

For now, though, if you want to check out the lessons I’ve already done - or play along with the review game-show we did on Friday - you can find all of the videos at this link.

4: Four again - this one refers to Toy Story movies that we watched…all in the past week. We held another vote on what movie to watch and Toy Story was the winner. So we watched the first Toy Story last Saturday, and then on Sunday watched Toy Story 2, and then on Monday watched Toy Story 3, and then after taking Tuesday night off we watched Toy Story 4 on Wednesday. I had seen the first Toy Story before, but didn’t remember it all that well, Toy Story 2 had huge gaps I didn’t remember (though I did remember the ‘bad guy’ so I must have seen it at some point), Toy Story 3 we had seen in the theaters with two of the girls, and then we all watched Toy Story 4 for the first time this week. Once again, Disney+ is just paying huge dividends during quarantine.

3: This week the New York Times (at least in the print edition, I’m not sure about online) introduced a few new puzzles that will appear alongside the crossword every day. I’m already addicted. There’s a word puzzle (they’ve been cryptograms and brain teasers), and something called ‘Two Not Touch’ which is challenging for me but something I’ve tackled every day. So, along with the crossword, I’m doing three puzzles a day, which is good for the ol’ bean. Also, the Times said last week that in May they’ll be putting out another puzzle-only section, like they do around the holidays in December, for everyone stuck at home. Hopefully there will be a Super Mega Crossword.

1: The number of haircuts I desperately need and still haven’t had the guts to do. We’re going head shave mode, I’m pretty sure. Maybe tonight.

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Thanks for reading - Feel free to share your own number for ‘This Week By the Numbers’ in the comments here or on the Facebook page!