Plodding along.

What's new around here?

Kids have taken turns being sick. So far, I seem to have sufficient antibodies.

Buying a camper. Just in time for gas prices to go up. Jeez. The kids have slept in it already. Might actually take it out sometime soon.

Kyle is swamped with editing projects.

Got the tree taken out with the help of our own personal Eldon.

More adventures with lawn mowing.

Otherwise, pretty boring around here.

Zombie rock

Night shift last night. Blearg. I actually felt pretty good all night, up until about 45 minutes to the end of the shift. I had a decent nap, but it always seems to take longer to get up and running when my schedule goes wonky.
I picked up a home health client as well
I have all sorts of grand plans to be productive this week. I pulled Geordi's carpet out and put it on the clothesline, fully aware of the weather forecast for 7 days of rain (which turned out to be 9/10 days of rain). However. It's old, hand me down carpet, and I felt rain and fresh air would be just fine before we set up her new room. We now have a forecast of 7 days of sunshine, so I should be able to get it back in soon.
The little projects around here pile up and intimidate me, but I keep plugging a little at a time, and try not to get down.
I should be off and running by now. Just one more cup of coffee...

Dance-o-rama

The aforementioned change of address is coming, but everything is now usurped by the Dance Extavaganza!!! Not only do I have 3 kids dancing in 2 shows today, but Firestorm Films is the Official Videographer of Puttin' on the Ritz Dance Studio, so we will be on camera for 6 hours, and Kyle will be editing for at least 3 weeks (37 dancesx4 camerasx2shows=hell). Blech. Coffee, tylenol and valium will become commodities here.
Now I have girls showering so I can do their hair, so I'd best get at it. Grandma normally does it, but her arthiritis gave her problems on picture day, so she bowed out. She's been doing it since the 12-year-old was three, so I think she's ready for a break. Off we go like a herd of (really cute and frilly) turtles.

Boom boom boom boom

I am writing out of sheer habit of sitting at the computer with my coffee. I have no internet service at the moment, and I don’t know quite what to do with myself.
Storms rolled through last night, loud, nasty windy ones. We had a substantial power outage for the first time since we bought this house. It went out about 1:30 this morning and came on sometime around 7:30. The freezer items are still stiff, but we lost a lot of the fuzz off the freezers. The only other time we lost power here was when the Granite Falls tornado took out a station upline, but they had us rerouted and back up and running within 20 minutes or so.
Kyle and I went patrolling window, lit some candles and found the flashlight (where it belonged, for once!) and sat listening to the radio and enjoying the show. I got to use my makeshift daybed on the porch and watch the clouds and lightning pass over to the east. When all the streetlights are out, it’s amazing how far light travels. There was very little traffic during the brunt of the storm, but when a car did come, especially the sheriff with his spotlight, you could see the light in he trees and on the street for a long time.
The windows in this house are so old and brittle that they fall out of the panes and crack if you look at them too hard, but they all stood up to 75 mph wind last night. I may have to go out and take a peek at the shingles.
One of the trees I was planning to take out anyway snapped in half and landed very nicely between the house and the shed. I was quite impressed God took the time to do that for me with everything else keeping Him so busy these days. Now I’ll be able to take the rest of that one out myself and not hire a tree service. Yay!
It has been so wet. Sunday was the first sunny day in a while, and we did not take the opportunity to mow. Storms rolled through Monday night as well, but we probably could have mowed by evening time yesterday. We didn’t, of course, and then this storm drenched us again. So far it’s just cloudy out, but we’ve been so thoroughly soaked at this point I’m starting to grow fins. I checked the weather channel Monday; it was partly cloudy that day, then every day until next Tuesday had showers or thunderstorms in the forecast to some degree. I’ll go check on TV in a bit, assuming we have cable. The cable and internet have some sort of partnership here in town, but I don’t think they’re actually the same company.
I still haven’t found my weed whip, so I’ll call in the cavalry. Once it dries out I can mow a fair amount of the yard, but the building lines look like jungle.
The internet is back now, so I’ll post and be done with it. Then I’ll get to work…
PS. Watch this space for address changes. Kyle discovered a blogging app on the hosting package from ou ISP, so I may give that a whirl. Or I may leave well enough alone. Who knows. He may actually write again soon.

More of the same

Had to battle a slow sewer drain again this morning. Luckily, today I was alerted to the slowage in the floor drain by the nice clean overflow from the water softener cycling, so we were able to avert any nastiness. This time Mark was able to knock the drain loose with just the hand snake, so it was quick and cheap.
Got a little more purging of junk done today. Since Mark was in his "handy" clothes already, he fixed a couple of drawers and installed a new screen door for me. Slow and steady around here. Hopefully we will get Geordi moved into her own room next week, then finish painting the hall. Then begins the scary basement cleaning project. I want to clean and beautify the basement as much as possible without any structural work, so we can move the arcade down there but have it be nice enough to actually use. We've been slowly moving junk out of storage. The goal is to pare down from four storage rooms to two, so we can use the others for games and actual shop space. Tedious work, that. Now off to bed so I can get at it in the morning again.

Random serendipitous quote

"If by a 'Liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind; someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions; someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad; if that is what they mean by a 'Liberal,' then I'm proud to say I'm a 'Liberal.'" (John F. Kennedy)

Need to rest from vacation...

Our weekend at Grandpa and Grandma D's lake condo can be deemed a success. The weather changed frequently, and we had our share of rain, but we had games, a DVD player, and an indoor pool that the kids were in and out of on an hourly basis. The girls spent a lot of time catching sunnies on the dock and commandeering the paddleboat when the clouds weren't dumping on us, and the sun was out for longer and longer periods as the weekend wore on. Sand was played in and boat rides were taken. My brother also found reason to question the sensibility of riding on the tube behind the boat on his stomach.
We finally found someone with a baby as good-natured as ours have been. Little Izzy (as the kids have dubbed her) was smiley and content for most of the weekend. Austin is a little card. He's every inch of four and showed great patience with the attention showered on him by his youngest female cousin. She was tickled with having someone littler to play with for a change, and unfortunately latched onto poor Austin.
Right now I have a happy giggly little boy here demanding my attention, so you kind people will just have to wait.