macaroni and cheese

Extracted the tree from the house having extracted the three strings of "rice" lights from the tree prior to extraction of tree from house. Extraction of tree from yard is scheduled for "Sooner or Later" at this time...

Made some macaroni and cheese. When it's cooled and set a bit I'll see if I can get Cassidy to try it. It has broccoli and some peas and some corn in it. "Food touching other food" has been an issue in the past.

Maybe I can get Flynn to connect his game to the big television out here. He's been sequestered with one game or another his entire Christmas vacation, I believe.

Another year begins tomorrow.

Cleaning

Spent an hour or two cleaning Cassidy's room. Doing some more laundry. Looks like it's sprinkling out. Still no word from Diane.

Throwing some older toys out. Throwing some toys out that I didn't care for. At least I can see Cassidy's carpet now. I need to put the kid's clothes away. That always gets put off for some reason.

The house is looking cleaner. I'd like to get Thank You cards from the kids in the mail on Monday morning. Find time to address and write those at some point.

Bob's birthday is this coming Wednesday. Send him a card. Send Bob a few gifts from Diane that were overlooked. Also a present for Toni, I believe.

Get back into the routine on Monday. Keep the kids organized and moving forward.

Clean Flynn's room next? Take a stab at that?

One part of the futon order arrived yesterday. So I guess that the rest of the pieces will not be too far behind the first one in arriving.

I'll be glad to see the trash hauled away on Monday. I still need to throw more things away to make it all fit in this house.

Get bills organized and keep on top of them. Organize brochures and manuals that came with various purchases.

Noonish.

Ate two pieces of a super-sugary sweet roll along with the kids. Huge sugar rush.

Went to the market earlier. Got the mail. Came home, put the groceries away. Want to clear out the refrigerator today. And clean the kid's rooms, which I haven't started yet.

Headache since early this morning. Took two aspirin earlier.

Happy New Year

The end of the year at last. The end of the two-week break around Christmas, too. Not very relaxing. My shoulders feel like they're one solid block. Things are going ok. Things will get better.

Sign Cassidy up for soccer soon, find the postcard announcing the soccer league sign-ups. Rain on its way later today? Sounds too good to be true. I love rain.

Go get the mail, go pick up some milk.

Eat more healthy food, get some exercise.

I was going to clean up the kid's rooms today. Get those straightened out and organized.

I was glad to have the trash collected this past Monday. I had things organized and cardboard cut and neatly stacked, boxes collapsed, stuff like that. Everything was picked up.

This past fall Diane had half-filled the trash container with soil and rocks from the front garden, I could barely move the container and mentioned it to her. She removed some of the material but we got a note from the trash collector. Embarrassing. I was not enthused about her decision to do some gardening one weekend. She stuck some Home Depot plants in the ground. And threw out the topsoil. And the pile of rocks I'd collected over time. She just dove right in without consulting me or asking. Which was pretty typical.

The rain has meant that I didn't do any further work on the lawn area. I'd forked most of it over and spread the amendments I had available on it. So it doesn't look like it's just been destroyed by dogs and neglected for six months.

Quarter to nine and the kids are still asleep.

I'd like to get rid of the last bits of clutter which I ended up stacking on the opened drawers of the tool chest. I need to go through the clutter I have and edit it so that it fits the space I have for it.

The end of the year.

taking decorations down and putting them away.

The tree is still up and has its lights. The lights along the side of the house are still up. Everything else is put away. I thought I put decorations up as early as I could this year and it still didn't seem like long enough. I like Christmas. I like Christmas decorations.

Tomorrow I'll clean the kid's rooms and take down the last outside lights and take the lights off the tree and move the tree outside. Or not. Leave the tree until the kids are at school on Monday. I like the tree.

This was a good Christmas. We saw everyone and the kids got a lot of presents. Toni and Kelly and Bob and the kids drove down here to see us, which was nice of them, it's a long drive. I can't believe that Christmas is over already. Tomorrow is New Year's Eve.

Clean the kid's rooms, take down the last of the lights. Make cinnamon rolls for New Year's Day. Could use some more milk in the house. Maybe I'll drag the kids out tomorrow morning to the market.

Diane was going to come by today, no sign of her, no call.

slam

goes the door, Flynn leaves. I'd asked him to return a new video game so that Cassidy could play it. He did not look pleased as he left without a word to spend the night at Jimmy's. I get a lot of amateur sullen behavior from him.

...

Ate the rest of the Texas caviar. Ate some cheese. Drinking half a glass of wine. Some college football bowl game on ESPN in the kitchen. Cassidy is playing the new video game in Flynn's room. Flynn is off at Jimmy's house.

Waiting for the bread to rise a bit more. Punch it down and form it into a loaf shape and let it rise again in a loaf pan. Another hour or so. Then bake it. Fresh bread. Hooray.

Too bad Flynn isn't here to smell it. I like to plant those home-is-warm-and-good type of memories as often as possible... a fire in the fireplace, something tasty cooking in the kitchen... fresh bread...

I guess I'll take down the Christmas lights tomorrow. I could leave them up longer. I'd just as soon get on it sooner than later. I really enjoy Christmas lights. They're almost worth climbing that ladder to staple them to the eaves. When Christmas is over it's just -- winter.

odds and ends

I figured out a problem with StickyBrain, the wonderful catch-all program I use to snag information. I figured out the archiving problem with Blogger. I was ready to spend hours scanning in a file box full of ... nothing? No drawings or photos or interesting odd bits, just notes from a financial planning seminar I'd taken once upon a time. So. It didn't take all that long to discard that pile of clutter, nothing to scan.

Eventually I ought to be able to whittle down my former mountains of clutter into -- nothing. Next to nothing. Product information about the washer and dryer, stuff like that. I've been getting rid of stuff as quickly and as thoroughly as possible.

Maybe beginning with the '76 Campmobile last summer.

I enjoyed re-equipping the house after Diane's departure. Still reeling about that. All year long it's been something I'll think about for a few minutes and then put it out of my mind. Just too much to think about. Another insurance company letter arrived indicating that she'd been in ANOTHER accident. I ought to be taking care of her, but she had to be her usual smarty-pants self and handle her own medication. After all I've been through with her being accused of treating her in any way other than loving and gentle remains a stark insult. The gas leak that night, to say nothing of her delusions, brought about a mechanical reaction. Go. Gone. Stay gone. Don't call. Don't write. Just go away.

It's not healed, it's barely closed. This year had an odd sense of finality about it, but I didn't expect Diane to be departing. Yet here we are. Wait until the end of January and see what transpires. She'll always be the kids' mom, but I don't want her driving them anywhere or have them stay at her house without additional supervision. I don't feel that I'm being unreasonable.

I'm glad to have straightened out the software issue and the archive issue on blogger.com. It's good to have things straightened out and working right. Like keeping your lines clear on a sailboat.

It's been a long year. Now it's nearly over.

I feel like making some bread. Something positive and home-inducing to work on. I ought to get busy on that.

Tremendous rain earlier. Never seen it rain harder here.

Had considered a trip out of the house, but I don't want to conduct the excursion underwater. I would like to get the mail at some point, however.

Today is the... 28th? Yep. Last night the thought occured that I might normally relax after Christmas but still feel defensively tense and coiled after the events of the year. Things are not as enjoyable as they once were. Christmas was very good. But it's difficult to relax and enjoy anything anymore. Things will get better. I'm looking forward to resurrecting the once and future lawn area. And growing salad food in the planter boxes.

Need to address Christmas cards. And mail them. Christmas Eve is this Friday. Mom ought to arrive sometime tomorrow. Dug up part of the once and future lawn area yesterday. Would like to lay in some more amendment to add to the lawn area. Looking forward to the time after Christmas to catch up on things.

I appear to be watching Diane's dog for another month. Diane is back in the hospital. So we went to her new house and retrieved the dog. Not happy having the dog here. Everything was neat and squared away.

Didn't hear back from the lawyer about whether or not to show up on Monday at 9 since Diane is in the hospital.

Mike and Pat came over this morning and took the kids to the Pancake House. I dug up part of the sprinkler pipe in the garden and mowed what lawn has come back. Looked better. Then I fiddled with the aquariums and then baked some cookies with Cassidy.

Surprisingly warm today. Could have been summer.

Started to put tinsel on the tree yesterday. Looks nice. Christmas is two weeks away.

...

The dog departed one week later. Bye, dog.

Saturday afternoon. Agreeably overcast and cool outside. Built a nice fire in the fireplace.

I love the fireplace. Buying a half a cord of decent wood gives me a real feeling of wealth and security.

Today is Saturday. Pat and Mike dropped the kids off this morning. Mike stayed in the car. The kids had stayed at Pat and Mike's since I dropped them off on the way home from Kelly and Bob's on Thanksgiving.

Yesterday I put up the rest of the Christmas lights (up on top of the 16-foot ladder) and then shoved off for Ikea, Kelly and Toni had both warned me that yesterday was not a good day to go to a shopping mall.

I got on the freeway and was just thinking "Why, this doesn't seem so -- " and traffic stopped dead for about four miles, until the cut through the hills just before Mira Mesa. Then it really wasn't so bad. Found my way to Ikea, found a place to park, poked around until my shopping cart was quite full. Made my way outside and loaded my vehicle. Drove home.

Enjoyed that trip. Bought four lamps, a chair, a bookcase, a pillow, some other small items. Very happy with the new lamps.

Today I ordered a ping pong table and TWO futons, one "semi-double" size for me and a "single" size for Flynn. Real futons. That will be great.

I also ordered the bench legs for the Soloflex, cannot locate those anywhere.

Can't do much of anything without the bench legs. So, another delay. It'll shine when it shines.

What else? Washed a lot of dishes, did a lot of laundry, put Cassidy's clothes away. Finally got around to making some coffee around noon.

Monday afternoon. Picked up my watch from the jewelry store. New crystal. New crown thread. Glad to have it back again. It stopped working when I was assembling the planter boxes. Maybe it got vibrated a bit much.

Organized a lot of trash this morning and got it all out for collection. Looked at the remaining pile of clutter in the garage. Seriously considering throwing out all of the camping stuff. I'd like some more room in the garage.

I'd like to get a ping pong table for the garage. That sounds like fun.

And get a ceiling installed in the garage. With real lights set into the ceiling.

The kids are annoying me. They seem to be a bit stir-crazy. They haven't been assembling furniture and painting the interior of cabinets and cleaning and all the other stuff I've been busy with since Friday.

The house looks really nice with the counter stools in place. I still haven't figured out what's wrong with the VCR, but I connected the old HiFi VCR to the big television. I can watch videotapes that way. I just don't want to deal with the connection issues any more. I just want it to work.

Rain this morning. Not much of it, but any rain is always welcome. Lots of rain this fall compared to past years. A good thing.

I guess that's all I have to say. Maybe look at the security camera television's new wall mount and figure out what will be involved in getting that installed securely.