Ealdercote experienced a minor cleaning frenzy in preparation for a Visitation. The niece is looking at various colleges and universities to attend after she graduates from school. She was only a couple months old at our wedding, so now we can officially Feel Old. She and her mom spent the night with us and we took them on a little driving tour ( Read more... )

We had a bit of a rough weekend. My father-in-law had to go in for emergency bypass surgery on Friday. We postponed the HVAC installation in order to go be there and help prep the house for his return home. He seems to have come through the surgery fine and will be home by the end of the week. I was able to telecommute, so I didn't disrupt some ( Read more... )

We spent the weekend with the in-laws to celebrate our niece's birthday. One of the little ironies is that we drove a long way to do a bunch of stuff we could do at home--sit and watch television, go to the movies, go out to eat, go shopping. Somehow it is different when you are away--all the other pressures of daily chores aren't there ( Read more... )

We finally got to have our postponed Christmas with the in-laws this weekend. No decorations, just presents and a serving of Christmas pudding. It was actually pretty relaxing. No one had to dash off anywhere (other than our brother-in-law, who was helping a client at the track for the weekend). A little photography of the "town that looks like ( Read more... )

The idea that we would not do any more layout construction and only focus on running trains for visitors during the month of December lasted about 2 minutes. The model of the town of Seneca is starting to take shape at the front of the layout and I expect the new yard will be in place before summer. Since so many club members were there each day ( Read more... )

The first batch of holiday cards are complete and should be in the mail today. The holiday cards to the family take the longest to do. Each one includes a handwritten "Christmas letter" that gives a brief review of the year. Although I do like getting that type of letter for catching up purposes, I can't bring myself to print my own out. Blame ( Read more... )

This was the first year since we've been married that ealdthryth and I have spent Thanksgiving apart. Ignatius's intransigence over traveling has put a crimp in our holiday plans for the foreseeable future. I decided to go a day early and come back on Saturday--which proved to be an excellent choice in terms of severe lack of travel hassles. Since our ( Read more... )

Thanksgiving weekend snuck up on me. For some reason, I thought I had another week. Time to plot logistics for cheap refueling before the prices spike. I think the pickup has enough gas to run for a few days, so I can fill up the moderately more fuel-efficient vehicle early and use up the gas in the truck until I actually need to drive a longer ( Read more... )

Ten-mile long traffic jam this morning. Luckily, I spotted it early enough to take my main alternate route to work. Except the entrance ramp back onto the Interstate merged us in right where one of the three major accidents this morning on the Interstate near the office was being cleaned up. Bleh.The late evening news was spewing some statistics ( Read more... )

I was looking forward to being able to start moving furniture into the refurbished library this weekend. I was disappointed. The trimwork has all been painted and repainted. The baseboards refurbished, installed, and touched up (where the hammer marked them). New cover plates for the light switches and outlets all give the room a little more ( Read more... )