Am I the only person in the world who hasn’t done their Christmas shopping? I have to admit that I am patiently waiting for the Christmas bug to bite me so that I can even feel like shopping at all.
I don’t even have much shopping to do. Since Kristen has pretty much taken care of it, I only have 5-6 people to buy for and I don’t know what my problem is. And I haven’t even started the annual Christmas letter. Ugh.
Last night we got a fair amount of snow. Practically speaking this means that Kristen and I got to do a little bonding this morning as we shoveled the snow in the driveway and the sidewalk.
Since Romeo didn’t have school today this hardly seems like a big deal, but there is a village ordinance and we don’t want a ticket for not clearing our sidewalk!
Each you we put candy canes on the family Christmas tree. It’s a fun little treat for the kids and a great reward for them.
Well, that is until this year. We keep finding candy canes all over the place and Paulie has been stealing them off of the tree and hoarding them all over the house. In fact, in a 2 year old kind of way, Paul announced to Kristen "look what I’m hiding" and found a whole cache of them hidden in his "secret hiding place."
We know when our little theif is up to no good. He disappears under and table or behind the couch. When you catch him he throws his arms back and hides the candy cane behind his back! It’s cute, but naughty!
There is a spiritual tie to this as well. Don’t we try to hide our "candy canes" from our Heavenly Father in the same way? We know God is omniscient and omnipresent… and yet we try to hide our shame behind our back.
This morning I had the pleasure of seeing Polar Express with my kids at the Henry Ford Museum’s IMAX.I can’t express how much fun this was for the whole family.
It didn’t even matter that we were a bit late and I was a bit miffed about the bad directions… a Detroit tradition of terribly marked roads strikes again… none of that mattered.
What did matter is that we were treated well when we got there and we had a really nice time. A friend from church gave us tickets last night to this "special presentation’ paid for by a financial services company. It came complete with free popcorn and drinks.
This was the 3-D version… very cool. I had a blast watching my kids enjoy the thrill of a massive screen and the visual trick of 3-D imaging. It was fun going to Paul’s first "real movie" and having him sit on my lap mesmerized. Not to mention, it’s a nice film worth seeing.
It has been quite a productive week away from the job. Today we spent most of our time taking advantage of the lull in the weather (mid 50s today) to take care of oodles of yard work one last time. So far this fall we’ve done a lot of big minor things to the house with the electrical clean-up outside being the major one. (Having good wiring in the house makes for better sleep!)
I just have 1 project to finish and 1 to complete tonight and I will be very pleased with the last week. First I have to finish updating our Microsoft Money. I’ve been keeping tabs of our bills and we’ve not had problems, but it has been about 6 weeks since I last balanced the checkbook and that is bad. Bad bad bad. I’ve entered in about 160 total transactions! Just about 10 to go as of right now. It’s kind of weird assigning all these categories to things you bought a month ago. I think Kristen is tired of me saying, "Hey babe, what did you buy at KMart on October 22nd for $13.80?"
The last thing I have to do is to install 2 more "windows" in the shed behind our garage. I don’t think the previous owners stored anything in there… there massive windows in that thing are just screened in and there wasn’t any way to keep the snow or rain out. So I’ve hung some plywood over them and mounted them with some hinges so I can open the windows in the spring but still protect our stuff in the winter. About 2 hours with a saw and a screw gun and it should be all sealed up.
Big props to Kristen who spent the entire afternoon cleaning the garage out. I just looked in it and realized we really do have a 2.5 car garage!
Well, today is it. The last week I’ve just layed around and rested… but today is the last day. At 6:15 AM on Tuesday, I’m officially back to work.
OK, let’s face it… I’ve been working a bit today as well. Drats!
The really cool thing is that in less than 1 month I get another week of R&R. This has all be much needed since in a lot of ways I still feel behind from last summer’s mission trip. As soon as I got back we launched Light Force, bought a house, golf season began… and life just spun out of control. For the first time since then I feel pretty grounded.
Well, after liking this game for almost a year, looking for it in 2 countries, and just plain liking the thing… I finally bought it today from Amazon.
The funny thing about me buying this thing, I hate board games… I generally call them bored games since they are so boring to me. But this one is different. It is a mental test and a downright physical test sometimes. If you’ve never played it, I suggest getting it… I will guarantee you’ll like it.
Gadget guide? I am looked at as someone "in the know" for what are the cool toys out there and all kinds of techie stuff. So, I just thought it might be nice if I started posting some of the gadgets I’d suggest looking into. Some of these things are what "everyone knows about" and others are ones I’ve picked up or seen online somewhere that qualify as uber-cool. So if you think it’s just a cheap excuse for me to put up more Amazon.com crap… you are wrong. After the holidays I’ll get rid of it.
Thanksgiving Day went off without a hitch. While we had some power problems early in the day, for some reason the power held steady until about 3 PM when everything suddenly went off again. Not too long after that the lady from DTE showed up and did some sort of band-aid. We have some power, but our stove and washer/dryer won’t work until after they finally do the work. So the pressure is on DTE to get this done.
It was nice having the family here. I think it was less stressful here as opposed to having it other places. (Cough cough… no names mentioned!) Like almost American in the country… I am slowly waiting for my body to digest just enough food so I can feel a little hungry… at least enough for some more pie.
By the time I was up this morning we had our first emergency of the day. At about 7:30 we lost half our power again. This happened about two weeks ago, the power company sent out 2 supervisors to evaluate our problem but then the truck never came to string our new lines. Long story short, we were without power for about an hour of turkey roasting time. We’ve got power right now, but I don’t know how long it will last.
With the kids driving us nuts we pulled out our secret weapon. Megan and I went to go see Madagascar at the movie theater this summer, but Paul hasn’t yet seen it. So when they were getting really wild… we pulled out the new DVD and put it in. Worked like a charm.
The thanksgiving crowd is on their way. There was a decent snow, and it is butt cold outside… so they are going to be a little late. That’s OK by me, we need the extra time to make up for our lack of power earlier.
Sidenote to a friend in Shelby township: I found this picture and I thought you might enjoy it.
Have you ever had one of those restless nights of sleep where you thought you would wake up and find that your house had been painted say… pepto bismol pink?
Well, you can stay at our house tonight and have that very dream? The reason… we are painting our foyer a deep red and right now the walls are covered in a primer pink color. It’s the nastiest color I have ever seen in a house. I can’t wait to wake up in the morning and paint over it.
P.S. It’s vacation time. So far, so good… aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh….. rest is good.