Monday, April 30, 2007

I'm Back??

Well, I'm back from Florida at any rate. Right now I'm writing from my hotel room in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada.
In a word, Disney was magic. Pure and simple, it was magic.
The drive down went well. Kat and I took it in four hour shifts. We got on the road at about 6 pm and made it to the resort at about 10 am. We were both tired and grungy. We caught up with the family who were just finishing up breakfast. They all headed to Animal Kingdom and Kat and I headed to the room to shower and take a short nap.
From there on out we had a ton of fun. I can't say that everything was perfect. Zoe was tired and cranky at times, but did very well overall. Kat did get a migraine that sent her to the hospital Tuesday night and knocked her out for most of Wednesday. The family drove each of us nuts at one point or the other, but hey, they're family. It is their job to drive us nuts. I really do need to say a HUGE thank you to Uncle Jerry and Aunt Ellen. It was so very nice of them and above and beyond to pay for both rooms for the entire week as well as every one's park admissions. Well, every one's but mine, but I was using up old passes that still had a few days on them, so Kat had payed for that back in 2001 or there about.
I was so impressed with myself. I didn't take my computer and there were only a few moments when I wished I'd had it. Usually first thing in the morning or late at night when I wanted to write my impressions of the day. I didn't even take a notebook with me. Therefore, you're only going to get the most basic overview (that and I'm not sure you really want to read an entire week's worth of ramblings at one time).
So, with the thought in mind that I don't have that many readers and I really don't want to bore them to tears with a day-by-day, blow-by-blow recap of a vacation they weren't on, I'll summarize. I did take tons of pictures. They're all downloaded to my home computer (I'm on the work laptop) and I need to go through them and decide which are worth posting to Flickr.
I thought is was very cool that we spent Earth Day, which was Sunday, at Animal Kingdom. It is a very interesting park, but it still feels 'new' and doesn't have the shade or 'finish' that some of the other parks. They did do a great job with the park and you can't turn around without learning something. There is tons of environmental awareness there, and I was very impressed.
I do believe that Epcot was my favorite. Every corner was packed with fun and education at the same time. I loved everything there. Admittedly, I didn't get much time to explore the countries, but I did walk around them. I really loved both the Soarin' ride in The Land and the Energy 'ride' that stared Ellen and Bill Nye, the Science Guy. It was very funny and very informative. Epcot's fireworks show was also my favorite of the ones I saw.
The Magic Kingdom is just that. Pure magic. If there is any one was to describe why Disney is magic it is because they pay so much attention to all the little tiny details. You're constantly amazed at how seamless and easy things are. The whole place has a story (not to mention a sound track). There's always something to look at while you're waiting in line and lots of shade and fans keeping you cool. Other parks may have the bigger, faster, more adrenaline pumping rides, but they don't have the atmosphere or the unity (for lack of a better word...) that Disney does.
MGM was OK. You can easily do the highlights of that park in a day. Epcot and the Magic Kingdom you can go back to time and again and even do stuff over again but there's always something else. Animal Kingdom is one you want to do either early or late, but not mid-day.
OK, this has been a very chaotic and rambling post. I can't say enough though that Disney is really magic, in all the senses of the word. There's just this feeling you get as soon as you enter the Disney property (45 square miles is what Disney owns!) and it doesn't go away. When you stay on the property everything is right there and within easy reach. The transportation is almost seamless and if there is ever anything even the slightest bit out of whack that they can fix to make your stay even better, they do and quickly. I'm not sure what impressed me the most. In a way though, I am thinking that it is the fact that of the 45 square miles that Disney owns, 1/3 of this is a wildlife preserve and will never be developed. That and there is still 1/3 of the property that is yet to be developed. Everything was so huge as it was!
Gak and I are thinking of going down there for a week next October (we need a real vacation). It's also in the works that all of us will go back down in April of 2009. This is looking to be a group of about 15 or more people, including about 3 or 4 families and some assorted friends.

OK, enough about Disney. Today I'm in Canada. I'll be here until Wednesday. The trip here was relatively uneventful, other than the fact that all day yesterday I had a low-grade fever and either the chills or was sweating to death. Thankfully Excedrin fixes more than just headaches. My head is a little stuffy and I still have a few aches, but I did get some sleep on the plane rides. I also got to watch Eragon. I'm a little mixed about the book. Overall it was good, but it was a bit of a chaotic story that didn't always flow well. (That and some of his influences were a little too blatantly obvious.) It was a good enough read. The movie didn't do the chaotic story justice. Jeffery Irons did great in his role, but it felt like I was watching the Cliff's Notes version of a badly flowing story. It could have been worse, but It could have been much, much better as well.
I hope this week goes well. It should. I need to be on site by about 7am to start training around 8. Hopefully I'll get a decent night's sleep and will be able to do a decent job and not fall asleep on my feet. We'll see.
OK, I've got to finish up a few things and I want to relax a bit before I have to crash. Peace to all and may you find some kind of magic in your life!

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Sunshine State Bound!!

Well, I will be heading for the sunshine state shortly, as soon as Kat comes to pick me up.
My computer problems can be safely ignored until next Sunday.
I payed all the bills I could before I left.
Everything (including Gak) can take care of themselves for a week. (They've done it before, but usually because I was gone on business, not pleasure...)
I'm still fighting off a little bit of 'vacation guilt'. I know I have earned and deserve this, but still... Ah... whatever! I'm on vacation!
It was a little touch and go with Kat this week as well. She had a bad reaction to some new headache medicine last Sunday at Zoe's birthday party. She's been sick all week. Well, hind-sight being what it is, we finally figured out that all the puking wasn't from an allergic reaction, but probably the flu or some kind of stomach bug. She's on stuff that's helping now, so she's at least alive again.
I really can't wait for this trip. It's been ages since Kat and I have had any extended time just the two of us. For ages it's always been with the guys, or with Zoe, or some other family member or friend. We get to be us for the entire ride down and back and don't have to do anything we don't want to (other than follow the traffic laws etc.).
Well, I'd better check to make sure that I've got the last few things tucked into my bag. Kat should hopefully be here shortly.
Peace to all and may you find some time to RELAX and enjoy life (not to mention this GORGEOUS weather, this is what April should be like!).

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Computer Troubles Comlpleted?


First off, Happy birthday Jon!! My brother is almost old today. He turns 29. Yes, he's still younger than me, but hey, he's almost 30!
OK, I've posted before this week about my computer troubles. The photo is what my computer looked like at about 10:45 this morning. Well, I hope they've all been fixed, at least for the time being.
When I left off my tale Tuesday morning, I had no network card. Well, Tuesday when I made it in to work, the computer gods must have been smiling on me. My computer booted up, it saw the network card and life was good.
That is until about 4pm.
I decided I really should back up some important files onto my new 1GB memory stick.
The computer didn't like that idea and froze solid.
Sigh. I call the help desk to update my ticket and said that no, the deskside guy hadn't called me that day. I also didn't expect a fix as it was 4pm. I went home instead.
Yesterday I try and boot my computer. It's docked in the station and I hit the power button. It blinks at me.
Lights came on, lights went off.
Try again.
Same result for the next four tries.
Crap.
I undock the computer and amazingly it boots just fine. It even sees the network card and I can work! I get a call from deskside telling me he won't be in until today. I said it was OK since I could limp along as is, but I think we need to reload the computer and give it a memory wipe. He agreed.
This morning it doesn't boot in the dock (I'd put it there overnight). When I undock it, I get a nasty blue screen. Nothing too bad, but not like before where it automatically reboots. One of my friends had a blue screen this morning as well on his laptop that is the same age. Uh-oh. I call the helpdesk yet again to update the ticket (it is now just before 10.) About 10 or 20 minutes later my deskside guy shows up and we start working on the thing.
It took us until about 3:30 or 4:00 to get me back up and running. (But I'm still not connected to the dock, so I can't use my monitor, just the laptop screen.)
Everything went well at first. Then he tried to put it back in the dock.
No network card again.
*cry*
After a bit of poking and prodding, he comes to the conclusion that it must be the mother board. Oh boy, this is going to be fun. Both he and I are on vacation next week and I need my computer early the week after. I work on Plan B (borrow the sales demo) while he works on Plan A. Plan A involved moving my hard drive into a computer that's not being used right now, but has the same chipset. Both plans worked. At least so far. Tomorrow I'll be loading the demo back onto this machine and we'll see. I also haven't had the courage to dock it again. I'm not going to either until I get back from Canada and he can put in my new motherboard. I still have Plan B available to me if the demo install doesn't go well. I really hope it does though, the demo is much older and much heavier!
This is what my week has been like. A lot of frustration and a little bit of work. I didn't get anything accomplished that I needed to, but at least I have a working computer. It's amazing how hopeless we become in certain instances when our technology abandons us. I literally couldn't do anything today. I take that back, I could make two phone calls, because I got the phone numbers from coworkers. I couldn't respond to any email inquiries, update any travel plans or anything else remotely productive. I couldn't write any training materials or cobble together the custom stuff that I need to for a couple of people. Talk about frustrating.
Well, I've got a few more emails to answer and things to try and do before I leave tonight. Peace to all and may your technology not abandon you.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

What a world!

Yesterday was a tough day, and it just didn't get any better as the day went on.
I went to George's funeral yesterday morning. I dropped Gak off at work and then went to the viewing and service. I was there for Joan and the kids. Her two sisters and mom showed up too. There were some bitter things said by some of George's family, but not as many as Joan feared. Mel and Ant did very well. Ant was acting up and 'showing off' but that's how he handles stress. Mel was being clingy and gave herself the 'job' of introducing people. Again, this is how she handles stress. The service was nice. Mel (and Ant) sang along to a song for their Dad, and some people said some nice words. I did like George, at least mostly. I was never close to him, but he was a good enough person most of the time. I just think that Joan drove him nuts (she drives me nuts too) and they just weren't a good pair. I know he drove her nuts.
Mel and Ant both said some words about their Dad. When Ant went up, he was just barely taller than the podium. Joan lifted him up and he said something, I can't remember what, and mid-sentence broke down. My heart ached. He's only 6! I don't even want to imagine the pain of loosing a parent. Mel said how much her dad had been there for her all the time and how good he was. She was crying too. By this point, there wasn't a dry eye. It just hurt so much to see two young kids trying to deal with this big of a loss.
I was impressed with the new wife's one cousin though. She came up to Joan afterwords and said that even though she hadn't been mentioned by name she understood that she must be going through a huge loss as well and that she could tell Joan was a good and caring person... I think she's the only one that came up to Joan to offer support other than me and her sisters. (Kat couldn't come, migraine...)

Then I went to work. Or at least I went to my office. I fired up my computer as I ate Wendy's drive through. I opened my email, opened up the inter-office IM and started talking with a friend while the email downloaded. Then, suddenly mid sentence, my network connection drops.
AARGH!
I go downstairs to talk with my friend before dealing with my computer.
I then reboot and go through some other rigmarole. Oh, did I mention that they're changing domains on us as well? At any rate, it turns out that my laptop lost my network card. I have no idea what happened. I had two bluescreens last week and some major issues rebooting yesterday. It was about 3:00 by the time I figured out what needed to be done. I had to call the help desk to get them to send someone over. We had someone in the building that day, but he was backed up on the migration stuff. Therefore, no network connection, no work. AARGH!

Then I come home. I fix dinner and Gak tells me about the Virginia Tech shootings. Great. Just what I needed to hear after a long, stressful, unproductive day. One of my high school friends went to Tech. I think she even lived in the dorm where the first shooting happened. I'm not sure, it was quite a while ago now that I was down there. I hear people talking about why didn't they shut things down earlier/faster, how did this happen. I mean, this could have happened anywhere, a mall, any college campus, anywhere. I'm sure the administration did what they could with the information they had. You have to remember that hindsight is 20/20. You can only do so much with the info that you have. Did they do the best with the info they had? I don't know.

Well, I've rambled on long enough about the trying day I had yesterday (don't get me started about snow in April!). All the friends and families of VA Tech are in my thoughts. Mel, Ant and Joan are in my thoughts. I've got to get ready for work and see if I can't get anything accomplished. Peace to all and may you have calm days ahead of you.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Canada Photos

Yesterday we went over to Kat's for Zoe's birthday. Her brother Michael and his friend Trish came up from Virginia. Joan and the kids stopped by. (The viewing and funeral are this morning and I'll be there.) Aunt Ellen was there. Zoe's dad was there too. It was a small family gathering and a lot of fun. Zoe loved the teddy bear clothes I'd crocheted her as well as a couple of craft kits I picket up too.

But, I promised you pictures from Canada. I didn't take any pictures of the town itself for whatever reason. It was a small town like almost any small town I've seen in Upstate New York or the like.
Just outside of town, about 5 minutes from my hotel, there are lots of lakes. It's April and you would have thought things would have begun to thaw. According to the people at the plant, all the snow had cleared a week or so ago, but it's back. This is a frozen lake. You don't realize it's a lake unless you see the sign telling you it is.
Kirkland Lake was a big gold mining town at one point. Just like Bethlehem with the Steel though, when the mining left, so did the town. It was much more dramatic here though. A town of 45,000 turned into a town of 10,000. Bethlehem is still a busy place and is beginning to recover, but it survived a bit better. I guess warmer winters and other stuff around will do that.

Anyhow, almost across from my hotel, just on the edge of town, is the Miner's Memorial. I really liked the way it looked in the snow. I wish I'd been able to get some pictures from the front, but I couldn't get there without sinking up to my knees in snow.

I hope you enjoyed these few pictures from Canada. I'm sure you'll see more pictures soon, from both Florida and Alberta, Canada. I honestly don't know if/when I'll be able to post next week while I'm on vacation. I'm NOT taking my laptop. If I can find a computer at some point and can get a few minutes of time, I'll post an update. If not, you'll have to wait.

Peace to all and may you see beautiful places and have wonderful friends in your life.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Too mad for words

OK, my pictures from Canada will have to wait for tomorrow. I was going to post them earlier, but I haven't cleaned them up yet.
Right now I'm livid. One of my best friends in the world is Joanie. She drives me insane some days but she's a good person. She's had a couple of bad marriages, several bad relationships, but has two wonderful kids, age 10.5 and 6.5.
Her ex-husband was diagnosed with cancer a while back and it had spread throughout his entire bod, including bones and brain. Mind you the divorce was bad and messy, including several threats against Joanie's life. (For some odd reason this happens to her a lot... Like I said, I love her very much but her judgement in men stinks big time!!) Well, he passed away earlier this week, Wednesday actually. Kat just sent me a text message with the details about the funeral. Monday morning. Bonds for the kids in lieu of flowers. The new wife cut the kids out of the will and the obit.
She what?
Wait, he had a new wife??
HUH??
Somebody explain to me!?!?
I'm so livid I can't even see straight. The only remotely good thing about George having cancer and passing is that the kids were going to be set. He had everything left to them and it was a nice amount, including a very nice house. Yes, George is the kids' father. They haven't been divorced that long, but long enough that he could have remarried... a few years now.
Joan was in the process of trying to move the kids in the middle of the school year back down here to be closer to George because the doctors said he probably wouldn't last until the end of the school year. That and about a million other bad things are going on in her life, as usual. She's one of those people who if there wasn't bad luck, she wouldn't have any.
OK, I think I'm done venting. I know this isn't the most coherent piece of writing I've ever done, but I needed to get that out.
I'll post pictures from Canada tomorrow, I promise.
Peace to all and may your loved ones be many and your nasty surprises few. (Also, say a prayer for Joan and the kids if you're so inclined, they need all the help they can get right now....)

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

O Canada

Well, this week has been interesting. I wouldn't really call it an adventure, but interesting.
Sunday was a good day. There were 8 of us for Easter Dinner. There was more food than we knew what to do with and it was all very good. We enjoyed each other's company and Gramma Sue got to see Zoe, which made both of their days.
Monday was surprisingly an easy travel day. I got to the airport almost 2 hours early because of Gak's new work schedule. That's OK, it gave me a chance to start a new Project Linus blanket. I hope to have it finished or almost finished by the time I get home tomorrow.
My first flight was a little turbo-prop up to Toronto. I managed to get through Customs with no problems and a relatively short line even. I had about an hour to kill once I got to my gate for my flight. This one was a slightly larger turbo-prop (2 seats on each side instead of 1!), a Dash8 or something like that. The flight to Timmins was easy and short.
Of course, I came back into the land of snow. They've had weather like ours lately. It was really nice and all the snow had melted a week or so ago, and then it dumped another foot or so that's now hanging around. It's been right around freezing and a little gray. It's OK.
The drive from Timmins to Lake Kirkland is about 2 hours on a back country highway. In some ways it was like driving from Gak's parents' to Dallas, but on a smaller road and with no 'big' towns on the way. It's actually quite pretty. You can see the snowmobile trails following the road and spiderwebing through the adjacent woods and fields. This town used to be a pretty big mining town, now it's a town of about 10,000 people. There really isn't anything here.
The training went well yesterday. I hope it goes well today. I'm not so sure. We'll survive though. The people are nice at any rate.
Well, I should probably quick check the work email and head over to the plant. I may have a pic or two to post when I get home. This laptop doesn't like my camera. (That and it gave me a bluescreen twice yesterday....) Peace to all and may you have a good week.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Productive weekend?

Warning! This post is going to be photo heavy.


I've had a somewhat productive weekend. Did I get everything on the list done. Of course not. This is me we're talking about. The one who gets distracted by anything even remotely interesting. Especially if it means getting out of something icky.

Yesterday was full and busy. I dropped Gak off at work, did the laundry and went to Walmart. I hate Walmart, but our Target isn't open yet and I didn't want to drive all the way to the old one. (That and I knew I'd never actually come home and do anything I was supposed to do.) I picked up some organization stuff and came home. I figure all this spring cleaning is appropriate, I mean, isn't this supposed to be the season of new beginnings and the like?

My first job was to tackle the storage thing in the middle of the floor. It really needed to be put together.
Here you can see the problem I was having. There is almost a 1.5 inch gap between the back and where it is supposed to stop.

Here are the instructions that I was reading. See that little talk bubble. Yep, slide on the extra piece silly!
Well, I did and here is what it looks like. I have another shelf to add yet and everything to put on and in it. I'm not thrilled with it. The bottom of the cabinet attached fairly well, but the top was a bugger. They both came from Ikea. They're both from the same series. Why in the world is there a .25 inch gap between the bracket and the top of the cabinet part? I give. It is together and should hold what we need it to.

I also spent quite a bit of time yesterday cleaning up the bedroom. I found out that Gak had 15 pair of white socks (plus about 3-6 pair I threw out) that were clean and didn't include the couple of pair of white he wore during the week. (He normally wears black with his black pants, but figured he was out since I didn't do laundry for about 10 days.) I also re-folded all the clean laundry that was in the room and even got his put away. Mine had to wait until today, I had to find my dresser and go through everything to get rid of stuff. I also came up with a pile of crud that just didn't belong in the bedroom. (Why did I have a box of plastic spoons in there? I don't think I want to know...)

Yes, I haven't touched the back bedroom, at least not much. I've touched it enough to know it's not going to happen right now and I'm OK with that. I did fix a few things and got some stuff up off the floor at any rate.

Today I spent the morning working on a tote bag for my projects while I'm on the road. It's about the size of a plastic grocery bag. This has been my favorite size. I made it a little too deep front to back though. I did add a pocket, and a very ingenious one at that! It's a flap closed pocket (need to add the Velcro) and an open one all in one! No, you won't get pictures of this because I just couldn't figure out how to take a half-decent one of it.

You will however, get pictures of a little bag I made up for my asthma meds. OK, so it's not so little. This picture shows it full. I've got one of my XL sized tank tops in there and there's room to spare. I made it a little bigger than I meant to, but that's OK. I've got my peak flow meter in there as well as my Advair. Once my prescription comes in I'll have my cingulair in there too. As you can see by the dramatic color pattern change about halfway up, I did a decrease in stitches. I wasn't expecting it to work out that way, but it did. Originally I was going to make it a little smaller again in another few rows, but I decided I liked this pattern.
Here is a detail of the top. I think it's pretty cute. I didn't feel like going around and around any more, so I did one round of shells. OK, the crafty geek info, I used a D hook and number 10 thread in Mexicana (somehow, I'd thought they'd call it Rainbow, but what do I know?)

I'm all worked out for the most part this weekend. This evening we're heading over to Kat's house to hang out and help her get ready for Easter tomorrow. Tomorrow we're having Easter dinner over there with a few people. Zoe is with her dad at her PopPop's house. I hope she's having fun. She probably is, she loves going up there.

Peace to all and may the rest of your weekend be good.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Mid-week Musings

Why have I started trying to use alliterative titles for my posts? It's kind of cute, I guess but it makes it challenging some days to come up with something new and accurate.
This has been a fairly normal week at work. Nothing too exciting. I am traveling up to Canada next week, it should be both cold and fun. Well, cold compared to here, it is supposed to be above freezing at any rate. I'm flying into Timmons and will then have about a 2-hour drive east. You look at the map and there are no roads, no towns nothing. I'm sure there are farms or ranches and there appear to be some Small settlements, but it really looks empty. You don't see that much here in the US, unless you're in one of our northern states like the Dakotas, or Idaho or a few more southern states such as Nevada or Utah. But those are all hard places to live really.
I'm looking forward to and dreading this trip at the same time. It should be interesting because I believe that until May, this will be the furthest North I've been. Manitoba last year might have been further north, but I don't think so. It will hopefully be a nice drive at any rate. I'm just not looking forward to the site. My chaos sensor is on overload. We've only been trying for over a year to work this out and schedule it. And there are still questions and uncertainties.
We'll find out next week I guess.
I tried putting together my new furniture for the living room on Monday. I started with the cabinet, since I need that in order to put the side rails up and the shelves. I laid everything out and have all the right pieces and the instructions are nice and clear like Ikea instructions tend to be. I got step 1 done with little problem (I even lined up the slot for the back up right!). I went to slide in the back before putting on the final side and ran into a problem.
It's too small.
Huh?
Turn it around silly, the thing's almost square.
Nope, that doesn't work either.
Huh?
I'm about a half to a whole inch short in one direction no matter which way I turn it. I'm having problems finding the Ikea phone number. I really feel silly that step number 2 has beaten me. We'll see how the book case goes this evening. Usually I have absolutely no problems putting the furniture together. I'll probably add it to my ever growing list of things to do Friday.
I'm glad I have off on Friday. I've got a very long list of things to accomplish between Friday and Saturday. This list includes finishing the furniture, pull together all the computer stuff to go through and put away or trash, find the back bedroom, go to the gym, do laundry, put the laundry away, find the front bedroom and find my desk. Phew! Do you think that's enough to try and get done in two days? I'm not planning on trying to get any of this done on Sunday. I do things like this so much better when I'm by myself. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I don't like having someone watching over my shoulder (whether they really are or not) while I work. I guess that's the Katz genes coming out in full force. I've seen my dad be that way as well as my brother. I'm doomed. (Stop laughing mom, I know you're laughing at this one too... but you're right.) I'm not even going to get into the obsessive about perfect (which doesn't exist, or so I'm told) things that my family does. I'm an amazing contradiction, I'm a live-in-the-moment, don't worry about planning too far in advance perfectionist. Help! (This just means that I'm really good at putting stuff off and then getting really mad at myself when I don't do it or don't do it 'right'.)
Well, I guess I should attempt to get a few more things done today at the office before I head home. (How'd you like that sudden change of topic?) I hope everyone is having a good week and has a good weekend to look forward to. Peace to all.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Family Fun

Well, yesterday was quite a bit of fun. Gak and I enjoyed ourselves immensely.
We started off the day by doing a quick raid on Ikea. In my cleaning mayhem on Saturday, realized that we really did need more storage in the house if I actually wanted to put some stuff away like it belongs. We picked up another book case. We now have three bookcases for the dining room.
What? Doesn't everyone have bookcases in their dining room?
Huh, I guess that makes me and my parents odd. I've always had at least one bookcase in the dining room.
We also picked up a storage/shelf thing for the living room. (Actually, the bookcase may end up in the living room too, we'll see.) It has a cabinet in the bottom and then three shelves up top. We'll be able to use the cabinet to store all kinds of computer stuff (after we've chucked everything unimportant that is...) and put some neat stuff on the shelves as well. Either that or more books on the shelves. We'll see.
Now we just need to solve the storage problem in the closet. But that can wait.
We also made a quick tour of the mall on our way to my parents' house. Gak picked up a new T-shirt and we found a little something to add to the package heading to Michelle. She should get it in the next few days.
We had a very enjoyable day at my parents'. I always have fun talking with my aunt and uncle. They are fun people who understand my sense of humor. We don't get to see them often enough, but we've got an entire continent between us. I know I'll get to see them in August, which will be nice.
We didn't really do much other than sit around and talk and laugh. That's a good day if you ask me. Oh, yeah, we watched squirrel-o-vision quite a bit as well. The living room has a back deck and sliding glass door that looks out on the wooded area behind the house. There were a couple of squirrels who were having lots of fun chasing each other around all day. It was really quite fun. These squirrels at my parents' place are about the size of small cats. It was a nice change from sitting around watching TV or watching people watch TV. The only thing that might have been more fun is if Gak and I had remembered to bring Killer Bunnies with us. I'm sure my uncle (and my aunt) would have had a lot of fun with it. I know my mom would have. Maybe next time.
We had a very nice dinner that mom made. We had chicken with carrot stuffing, corn, homemade apple sauce (yum!) and rolls. Everything tasted great and we had a nice wine to go with it. Most importantly we had great people to share the food with. A fabulous tasting meal looses something if you can't share it with someone fun. Eating really should be a community event. Everything tastes even better that way. I liked desert though. We had not-oatmeal cookies (snickerdoodles mom had made one day when she was hungry for oatmeal cookies but out of oatmeal) and lemon sherbet with crunchy bits it in.
It was hard to say good night and good bye. It'll be about four months until I get to see my aunt and uncle again and then it'll be for a family gathering. My younger cousin is getting married. It will be a fun event, but there will be lots of people so I probably won't get to see them much. It does mean I'll get to see my brother though. I do miss him.
Today has been a Monday of a work day, but that's to be expected. Tonight I get to pick up Zoe because Kat has a late customer meeting. I get to take her to a Daisy meeting, which should be fun. I have no idea other than that what is going on, but we'll see.
Well, I've got to get back to the grind of writing training materials I don't want to write and will only be used once (long story). Peace to all and may you have family and friends you enjoy!

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Clean!

Well, yesterday was a good day, but not a normal Saturday.
I didn't go to the gym.
I didn't do the laundry.
Instead, I cleaned!
I'd mentioned earlier in the week that my battle with Entropy was more of a blow out with Entropy winning. (I know it will in the end, but I like to at least pretend that I've got some control over the universe....) Well, it all came to a head yesterday morning. I went to write the rent check, so Gak could mail it out. I couldn't find the checkbook. It wasn't in any of it's normal places. I knew it had to be in the house because that's the last place I was when I was writing bills.
I sent Gak off to work by himself and promptly started cleaning. Sometimes I write bills in the kitchen, so I started there. (It was also going to be the easiest to clean and one that had been neglected too long.) I spent a good 45 minutes to an hour just working on the kitchen. I think it was the cleanest I'd seen it in months. We'd been very good about getting surface spills and stuff up, but not so good on the cleaning part.
Still no checkbook.
After a short break, I went back at it. This time the dining room was on the hit list. (Can you tell I was just plain avoiding the desks or the bedrooms?) This actually didn't take as long as the kitchen. Partially because I decided that I just couldn't do anything with the few boxes that were there because I just don't have anywhere else to put the stuff. (We might be fixing that today at Ikea...) I found the table again, and the book case and I dusted! (Mom, stop laughing... I know you are.... *grin*)
Still no checkbook though.
I then took another short break to fix lunch. Or at least I planned to take a break. Instead, while lunch was warming, I scrubbed the tub and the sink in the bathroom. Gak does a good job of getting the major messes up, but it's sometimes the 'little things' that accumulate and make a place look bad that we're both not so good about. I'd had enough.
And no, I didn't expect to find the checkbook in the bathroom.
After lunch I tackled the living room. Not the office part of the living room though, that was just going to take way too much effort. I put away the extra blankets and found the tables. I still need to switch the lamps around. (The one with the broken pull cord is still at the end we use most...or didn't I explain that, I'll have to check...)
Still no checkbook.
I take a break as I'm tired out now. I'd been cleaning for most of the past 4 hours at this point. That's enough for any one day. I've put off the bedrooms and the desk areas until next Saturday.
Well, after sitting down for a bit with a hook in hand, I realized there was one part of my work bag I hadn't checked. The front pocket. (Usually I keep the checkbook on the inside, which I'd checked a dozen times.)
Guess where it was?
Yep, in the front pocket.
That's OK. I needed to clean the place anyhow. This just gave me the push I needed. I didn't do the floors, but I did everything else in those rooms. I figure I'd get Gak do the floors this week. There has been some seepage of Entropy back into the kitchen and the living room, but I'm OK with it. It's easy to clean up stuff.
Today Gak and I are going down to my parents' place. We're probably going via Ikea as we just need more storage. We need more book cases and a 'computer stuff' storage area. (That's part of why I couldn't put the boxes of stuff in the dining room away, no 'office' type storage!)
Well, I guess I should wrap this up. I've been up since 5 and I'm thinking I may just crawl back in bed for a few. (Ha! Like I'd ever be able to get more sleep...)
Peace to all and may you win at least one battle with Entropy.