12-22-12

We had Christmas today.  Woke up this morning and the kids came down to open the presents we gave them and their stockings.  It was the full Christmas experience, just a few days early.  The kids let us sleep until 7 am, which was nice.  After some much needed coffee, we changed clothes and headed out to Matt and Jenny's house, which used to be ours. 

It was strange, because all of the signals had been Christmas morning.  Then we went outside and the normal Christmas lull wasn't there.  Usually, when you go out on Christmas, there are only a few people driving and some folks outside playing with their new belongings.  They wear that dumb smile on their face that communicates they are really pretty happy.  None of that.  Instead we met heavy traffic and people wearing the grim countenance of last minute holiday shoppers.  So, we battled our way over and made it to our old house.

I like what Matt and Jenny have done with the place. 

When we left, we left a lot of stuff behind.  Our living room furniture, the guest room furniture, lawn care tools, appliances, tables and chairs, patio furniture, all still there.  Heck, even the Christmas tree was the one we left behind. 

After some breakfast, we eventually opened presents.  All of the gits were great and everyone had a nice time.  I think everyone was happy. 

After presents, we had lunch.  We got to see our old cat that stayed behind with the house.  We went for a walk through the old neighborhood, just like old times.  We talked to our old neighbors, it was neat. 

Both Sarah and I were struck by something.  Nothing much had changed.  When we left, we felt like we weren't going anywhere, just spinning our wheels.  We came back to find that most things were just like we left them.  Kids were older, adults were older.  People had different cars and some people had moved.  But really, it was all the same.  We however, had changed quite a bit.  We had been places, and seen things. We had discovered things about ourselves by being in unusual places and circumstances.  The same lawn had been mowed, the same commute driven, the same television shows watched. 

All this same happened while we were out doing different. It made both of us happier with our lives.  I think that is the best holiday gift so far.

Pictures will be posted once we make it back to the house.  I forgot to bring the cable that connects the camera to the computer.  Merry Christmas.

12-21-12

Well, the world ended and apparently no one noticed. 

I hate it when that happens.  They threw an apocalypse and nobody came. 

I choose to look at it like the world did end and now we have a brand new shiny one to work with.  Let's try not to screw it up too badly please.

We drove back to Houston today...again.  Since I work on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we are having Christmas tomorrow.  SO we drove here and plan on having our festivities in our old house, now the residence of Sarah's brother.  Should be kind of neat and kind of weird and fun all at the same time. 

Being the busy people we are, we also fit a doctor's visit and a visit to the optometrist into the day.  We are finishing up some of the paper work for the cruise ship job.  Hard to believe, but two weeks from today I am scheduled to be on board the Eurodam.  Wow, that is pretty soon. 

Oh well, I can't write too much tonight because I have to go play Santa Clause. 

Merry Christmas everyone. 

12-20-12

2000 words. 

I read another writer's blog, it was about working and learning a craft, and she brought up Stephen king's 2000 words a day edict.  He stated in his book, On Writing, that he wrote at least 200o words a day, every day.  Yep, even on those days when 200 feels like an accomplishment.  It is the work needed to hone your abilities into something good. 

I am writing a book about our adventures, the page count stands at 78 right now.  I try to write something for the AFO challenge every month. I have an idea for his month, but haven't put it to paper yet.  Sigh.   I am trying to keep my daily word count up.  One, two, three, do those count?  How about these:

Callipygean. 
Misanthrope.
Opprobrious.
Pinguesence.
Apoplectic.
Salubrious.
Macroverbumscialist.


Good words.  I think that will about do it for today.  BTW, those words were some of the ones I chose for the word of the day at work.  I do try to keep my co-workers entertained. 

12/17/2012

OK..I'm here. 

You can make me show up, but you can't make me do anything. 

I'm tired.  A trip to Houston with a visit from the in-laws following, then three pretty busy days at work.  Mix in another head cold and you have the recipe for a tired blogger. 

Last night I got home and the kitchen sink was dripping.  Sarah's dad had looked at it and said something to her about needing to replace some part inside the handle.  I was so tired I was just going to ignore it, but the dripping noise achieved a certain cinematic tell tale heart quality in my brain and I decided to try to fix it. 

Probably not the brightest idea under the circumstances. 

I found the part that needed replacing.  I also managed to change the drip into a torrent and that led us to turning off the water for the night. So, first thing this morning, I was up and out to the hardware store for a tiny little rubber piece.  Got it, got it home and installed and we had water again.  Somewhere in there, another piece broke.  Now, the handle turns the water off, but instead of turning 90 degrees, it turns all the way around.  Something more to fix.

At work, I recently started a word of the day.  Somehow.  Not sure how that happened really.  One of the recent words came in to play with this incident and I will share it with you now.

Lalochezia.

Go ahead and look it up.  The more you know...