Saturday, December 30, 2006

Slip Sliding Away

I would not want to be a weather forecaster in New England. The outlook changes constantly. Today we were supposed to have flurries, with acuumulation tomorrow. But I am sitting in the library, having just uploaded the latest gallery, and the ground is covered with snow. It's hard to tell out the library window, but I would guess at two inches.

It's probably more at home. But the good news is that now that this storm has moved through sooner than expected, we will likely have good weather for the First Night celebrations in Wolfeboro tomorrow. We are planning to attend several of the kid-friendly shows, including a melodrama at the Village Players. Then Karen and I are going to go out by ourselves for some of the later entertainment, probably including a repeat of the melodrama so we can hang out with some of our friends at the theater.

It will be cold, but it should be dry, and it should be a lot of fun. Hope you can find something enjoyable to bring in 2007 yourself.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Happy Holidays

Well, if you've gotten this far today, you've seen that the Web site has a completely new look. It's not as new as you might think; I actually designed the look of that banner at the end of the summer, but with all that was going on, it never came together. When I post the archive page, you'll get to see that banner that never got posted, with a glimpse of our summer activities.

The morning feeding frenzy is over, and children are up in their room breaking toys and making a mess, while Karen gets some much-needed rest and I prepare to do battle with the kitchen to prepare for tonight's meal.

I spent some time last night and this morning putting the finishing touches on a program I wrote to make it easier to post picture galleries to the Web site. Well, not the finishing touches, really. Just what I needed to get it functional. Now that it's all working, I will start adding little bits and pieces to the code to make it look nicer. But I plan to spend more time in the next week or so preparing pictures and posting them than on making the page fancier. After all, it's the pictures you log on to see, not my brilliant design sense (cough, cough).

Today is more a day for work around the house, though, with the usual preparations and clean-up that is so much part of the holiday. And, this being winter in New England (though you'd hardly know it with a temperature close to 40 outside), we have to go fetch and split some wood for the fire and mount the plow on the pick-up truck. There may be pictures of some if that, if Karen has her way.

Tomorrow Karen has to work, the boys will be in day care, and although Thomas has the day off, he will probably be spending it with a friend. Which leaves me all alone in the house. Poor little me. Excuse me while I cry. For joy. I never get any time alone anymore.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

A Night of Youthful Magic

A short entry today because it is nearly bedtime. But I had to talk about William's play. That's right, I'm not the only one to hit the boards this year; WIlliam and his kindergarten class participated in a half-hour spectacle called "The Incredible Reindeer," about a group of superhero reindeer who save the world--and, by the way, Christmas.

The little ones were part of the chorus, and I have to tell you I was amazed at how well they did. They learned four songs, and most of them were singing most of the time. They had dance moves to do, and I've seen adults do far worse on keeping together.

Older elementary-school children played the parts of Santa, elves, and reindeer, and they did a great job. For this recently-indoctrinated thespian, it made for a very pleasurable night. And WIlliam? He had a lot of fun and made Mom and Dad and brothers very proud.

Oh, and Danny got in on the act, too. When one of the reindeer gave the line, "Who can help us?" Danny piped up from the second row, "I can help you!"

Natural-born ham, that one.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

BIrthday Treat

Today was not Danny's birthday. But it was a day for his main gift from us, a trip to Santa's Village in Jefferson, north of the White Mountains. Farther to the north than we thought, actually, but worth the trip for the pleasure that it gave the boys.

Of course, being that far north it was also a bit colder than at home. Really quite cold. I thought my feet were going to fall off, especially when we had to wait in line for an hour and a half to see Santa. The other lines weren't nearly as long, and we got to go on a lit of rides, and the boys just had tons of fun.

Well, the little boys. Thomas had to work. Afterward he stayed around the library chatting on the Internet with friends and went over to the local pizza parlor (well, one of them; we have way too many, per capita). So, actually, he had a good time too.

Speaking of time, we got home late and the only people sleeping in the car were William and Daniel, so I need to get to bed. I'm taking Thomas into work in the morning and Karen will be leaving for work shortly after that. And so I have to get to bed.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Brrr!

So much for the weather predictions. We woke up this morning to around three inches of snow, with icy roads that, while they had been plowed, had not been sanded. It took me half again as long to get to work. And it stayed cold and windy. Probably normal for this time of the year, but a rude awakening after the mild spell we'd experienced until now.

I had a chance to test a couple of bits of wood splitting advice I got earlier in the season. One from the Internet said to use a six-pound maul rather than an eight. Easier on the body and better speed. The second was from Alan, who said that the best time to split wood was when the temperature was staying below freezing, which certainly described today.

Well, my new six-pound maul (from the local hardware store--the big-box guys only had eight-pound) and I gave it a go, and boy did it work! Pieces of hardwood from four to six inches in diameter and sixteen inches long yielded to a single blow. As Alan predicted, it made me feel like a king. And burning the wood gave me, shall we say, a warm cozy feeling.

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Snow TIme For Snow

I am writing while sitting at my desk waiting for account information to load from EZPass, the automatic toll system used by many states, especially in the Northeast. While she is training, Karen gets reimbursed for these tolls, along with a mileage allowance.

It is snowing now, big fat flakes, though it is not quite freezing and so the snow becomes less like flakes and more like mush when it hits the ground. Unfortunately, Karen has to drive home in it, and we both have to drive to work in the morning.

Snow is, of course, a normal part of winter in New Hampshire. I'm just not ready for it. I've got a couple of cords of wood that my neighbor helped cut to length, but it still needs to be brought up from the vacant property, split, and stacked out of the weather. I haven't managed to mount the plow on my pickup. And I need to throw a tarp over our trailer. Have I mentioned the trailer? We have a 27-foot travel trailer. We were going to camp out in in between closing on one house and building a shell for the new one. But, of course, we have not sold the old house and we are withdrawing it from the market for now.

Fortunately, the snow will not stick around for long this time. By tomorrow afternoon it will have melted, by Saturday all will be dry, albeit quite cold. We are taking Danny, the birthday boy (he turned four yesterday) to Santa's Village Saturday as a birthday gift. Thomas will not be with us; he will be working, and then get a chance to hang around town on his own for the afternoon and early evening.

And Sunday is supposed to be another sunny day. Karen will be working, no doubt, but the day off will give me the chance to prepare for the next snowstorm--and the rest of winter. At least a little.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Blogging Away From Home

Thanks to my wireless connection, I can now update the blog from wherever I can find an open network to tap into. Usually this is at the Wolfeboro Library, but on this holiday weekend it is in the neighborhood of my brother-in-law Alan and his family.

We had a fine Thankgiving, seeing most of Karen's family, though John and Katherine are in Palm Springs for a field hockey event. Although the weather was very wet for the drive down, the last two it has been truly beautiful here in New Jersey, and we are expecting the same through tomorrow when we must, alas, return to the daily grind at home.

Karen's job is going well, although the hours will require some adjustments from the rest of the family. I am done with Forum, and I don't expect to be onstage for The Village Players again until next fall (though I am going to be directing a play in late summer, and volunteering backstage before that). So my schedule is a bit better than it was.

And we'll get into the swing of this soon. But for this weekend, we're just going to enjoy the company of our family and try to relax a bit.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Magic Night

Last night was the opening night of A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum, starring, well, me. It was a great night. Everyone did a terrific job, and the audience was wonderful, about a hundred people laughing in all the right places (and even at a few jokes we didn't expect anyone to get), and giving us many compliments afterward. It was an exhausting, exciting, exhilerating night, and I'm looking forward to doing it all over again tonight. And tomorrow. And next weekend. I just wish I could make a living doing it; it's a lot more fun than my day job!

WInter is approaching, but you would never know by the weather. It's been mild with occasional rain, and few freezing nights. Good for us, as we are currently able to heat the house with just our wood stove and some hardwood harvested from the property we have been intending to build a house on.

But that will have to wait. Our house hasn't sold, and with winter on the way the chance of getting a good price are very low. Karen is starting a new job, so it would appear that, for the time being, we are going to stay put. That's frustrating, but also a relief, because knowing that we are going to just stay here for awhile, we can move back in. For more than two years we've been living as if we were going to be moving, and it's been very hard on the children, having so many of their toys in storage, not being able to have pictures on the walls, and worrying more about how the house looks to a buyer than how comfortable it is to live in. While staying here would not be our first choice, I think it will make everybody happier. It occurred to us recently that, for as long as he can remember, Danny has been waiting to move. That's awfully tough for such a little guy.

So, at the end of our contract with the agency this month, the "For Sale" signs will go down, and we will begin in earnest making our house, once again, a home.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Another Week Comes To an End

I was trying to post this last night, but something happened with the Blogger server and it wouldn't publish. So I'm posting tonight with appropriate temporal modifications.

Tuesday I stopped by the studios of Citadel Broadcasting, parent company of the local country radio station WOKQ. The producer of the morning show, Megan Brady, happens to have appeared with me in That Darn Plot over the summer, and she recruited me, without resistance, to record the promotional sport for out upcoming production of A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum. The session went well. Well, until the file with my voice-over got lost somehow, and so I'm going back on Monday to try it again. Or I might try to do it in my home studio, such as it is.

Thomas started driving classes yesterday. Not behind the wheel, yet; this is the classroom portion. But soon Thomas will complete his training, get his license, and be able to drive himself to work on the weekends. So I may sleep later on Saturday and Sunday. Or I might not be able to sleep at all. Time will tell. Ouch! I think I feel my hair getting grayer already.

This weekend we will be starting to prepare for winter. I have already brought back our winter clothing from storage, and as I've mentioned, I'm harvesting wood from our other property. We'll have to bring things in from outside--lawn furniture, outside toys, and the like--so that they won't get buried under snow. And, for the first time since moving to New Hampshire, I'll soon be mounting a snow plow on the front of my truck. That's right, the truck came with a plow, and Gordon is going to be pushing snow this winter. Oh joy. That means I get to wake up even earlier than usual on snowy days. What fun!

And speaking of waking up reminds me of going to sleep, which I must go do.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

HIgh Winds and High Times

The power went out last night about 10:00, and no surprise there. The wind was blowing so fiercely that Karen and I, while sitting in a parking lot at Alton Bay talking (after a rare night out to dinner), watched as a sign was ripped right off of its post. Our own "For Sale" sign had been knocked down by the time we got home, and the wind was rattling windows all night. Danny, never a fan of darkness, came into our room to sleep when the lights went out. WIlliam preferred his own bed, but panicked a bit when he couldn't locate his flashlight in the night. I woke up several times to check the time, since I wanted to make sure that Thomas didn't sleep in and end up late to work.

As it turned out, the lights came back on at around 7:00, just when Karen would have been coming home from taking Thomas to Dunkin Donuts. I fell back to sleep, but Danny woke me up with a loud, "I saved some donuts for you!" Thanks, Danny.

The rest of the day was busy. During the day I worked on my resume, updated my Web site (the professional one), and researched the companies that are going to be at a job fair I'm attending on Tuesday. I'm trying my best to leave NPC for something with more pay and more potential. I'll also be at WOKQ FM, the most popular local country station, to record a promotional spot for Forum.

After Tom finished work, we went out to give WIlliam a late birthday treat. We had originally planned to go to a local theme park named Storyland, but they are closed until Spring. So we treated Will to a movie (Open Season, which he watched with Tom and Danny while Karen and I hung out at the local bookstore), ate at McDonalds (which had Hot Wheels cars in the Happy Meals, much to the delight of both boys), shopped at Toys R Us where Will spent birthday money and both boys spent some money we found from last Christmas (having you house for sale is a sure way to lose track of just about everything), and finished the evening with some play at Chuck E. Cheese's.

Both boys are, as you can imagine, sound asleep, and I would be too, except that I had to finish a few things on the Web site before I forgot what they were.

But now it's off to bed; I've got a lot more preparation to do for Tuesday, plus all of the usual chores, including taking the trash to the dump (something you city dwellers wouldn't know anything about), and hauling, cutting, and splitting more wood.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Change of Season

Fall foliage season has come, and almost gone. The flame-red maple leaves have left, with many other colors covering the ground (though still holding on to the trees in large numbers), and the nights are beginning to bring temperatures near or below freezing. We have already fired up the wood stove, and are harvesting wood from the property we keep intending to build a house on. And I am, for the first time in my life, wielding a chain saw and splitting hardwood.

It is satisfying to finish with a pile of firewood, though less so when I discover that it will only last a few days, and even less so when, by the end of the day, my wrists, knees, and back are crying for a good dose of ibuprofen, and I sleep until around nine in the morning because I'm so exhausted. I can't get away with that tomorrow, though; up at 5:15 a.m. to get ready for work.

Winter is on the way, and here we still are, in our drafty lakeside home, trying to figure out how we're going to stay warm. Potential buyers, like the foliage season, have come and almost gone, with none offering, and many worrying about the condition of the house, the size of the land, the size of the pond, and the tax bill.

The real estate people say that it is going to be better in the spring. For us that may be too little too late. I don't know. I am more encouraged by advice from by brother-in-law, Alan, who tells me that the best time to split wood is when the temperature stays below freezing. The wood gets dry and brittle, and splits easily, making you feel just like a lumber jack.

Right now I just feel like getting another pain pill.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Ch Ch Ch Changes

I've you've read this blog before, you know that I've changed the template recently. This one's for you, Mom! My Mom was having trouble with the display of the blog on her ancient Web browser. If this doesn't work, we may have to see about an updated browser, but I don't want to do anything radical.

What I haven't changed in the long time is, well, anything else. There's just been too much going on, some good, some not so good. But it's kept us very busy. But as summer winds down, the children are going back to school (Karen never stopped), and the days get shorter, it seems like a good time to try to revamp the old Web site, to give it a little style, and, most important, to make it easier to update with new stories, pictures, and perhaps (for those with faster connections) some home movies.

Meanwhile, allow me to update a few things:

Me and the Theater
That Darn Plot was a rousing success, so much so that I was invited to appear in a fundraiser for the theater group. On September 21st, The Village Players will present the last act of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite at an invitation-only event. I will play Roy Hubley, father of the bride who has locked herself in the bathroom and refuses to come out or even speak to her frantic parents. I also auditioned for a minor role in A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To the Forum—and ended up with the lead. Whew!

Karen and School
Karen got an "A" in Algebra this last session! She expects to finish her third Associate's Degree, this on in Interior Design, by next spring.

Thomas and Work and School
Thomas is doing great at Dunkin Donuts, earning himself enough money to pay for Driver's Ed, and buy a new MacBook and iPod. School is going well; in fact, one of Tom's teachers asked to to speak to the Freshman class this year. After a rocky start with high school, Tom is now considered quite the success story.

William and School
William is in kindergarten! He's still very excited about it. He also lost his first tooth while we were on a trip to the Canterbury Shaker VIllage. The tooth fairy left him a Susan B. Anthony dollar!

I don't want you to think that I've left Danny out. No milestones to speak of, but he's doing great and being, well, three.

The House
We haven't sold the house. Still. Sigh!

Saturday, July 29, 2006

My Premiere!

Last night was the opening night of That Darn Plot, at the Village Players Theater in Wolfeboro. And who do you suppose played a major supporting role? Me! Yes, me!

I played the part of Geoffrey Regent, a veteran stage actor stuck in about the worst play he's ever seen. But he's actually a product of playwright Mark W. Transom's imagination, as he struggles to meet an 11-hour deadline for a new play.

We had 115 people in the audience, and they were great! They laughed in all the right places, and I got lots of compliments after the show, from actors and audience members alike.

We have four more shows to do, one tonight and three next weekend, and I'm really looking forward to it. And I've already been asked to appear in another short play in September, and I'm auditioning for another that will open in November.

This is fun!

Saturday, July 22, 2006

An "I Don't Know What" Kind Of Day

I'm writing this under what I consider, as a computer old-timer, extraordinary circumstances. I'm standing at a shelf at the local library, typing this blog entry directly into the online Blogger posting screen, connected to the Internet through a 2X3-inch card inside my computer--and no wires!

The card in my computer is not even the latest technology. Karen's has the latest and it's about four times as fast as mine. But mine is plenty fast. And it's great to be able to watch the boys coloring or reading or playing at the library and still do something useful (or just fun).

Today Karen is in California, attending a miniatures convention and trying to get a bead on the state of the animation industry. While she walked right into the middle of a massive heat wave, we're catching the tail end of a tropical storm. It's raining, it's pouring, and so forth.

And so, an indoor kind of day. No lookers for the house (although possibly tomorrow) so we'll probably end up back home this afternoon. But I had to get out to the bank, so we are at the library fetching a prize from the Internet that the boys got by getting a certain number of points from their Leapster game, and allowing me to blog, download, and explore a bit while the boys keep busy. Thomas has wireless, too, so he's off in another part of the library surfing.

Then I think we'll go out for lunch, something we don't often do, but this seems like a good day for it.

Thomas is working tomorrow, so I'll go off somewhere with the boys (the weather will determine where) and leave the house empty for, I hope, potential buyers.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Front Page News?

Referring of course to news about the front page of TheBrooksBunch.com. I am sitting in the Wolfeboro Public Library updating my blog. They have gone wireless and so have I (along with Thomas and Karen), so that while we wait to sell our old house, build our new one, and finally install a high-speed network at home, we can take our laptop computers to the library and connect to the Internet at high speed.

Mostly this is used for downloading pictures, video, music, and software, not necessarily in that order of importance. But it can also be used to upload at high speed, so that when I finally get the elements of the front page assembled on my laptop, I can quickly upload them to the site with just a quick library stop on my way to pick up Will and Danny after work.

Now I just need the elements. The hardest part is a new picture; getting us all in one place at the same time is, to put it mildly, a challenge. But I'm still working on it, I promise.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Working My Way Back

Obviously, I have been off the blogosphere for quite a while, at least with my personal blog. There has been a lot going on with work, Karen's schooling, and trying, once again, to sell the house.

And, of course, the death of my mother-in-law. Pat was a dear friend, something most sons-in-law might not even think to say. But I remember the first time I met Pat and Bill. They had come out to meet me before I married their daughter. I had them over to my little apartment for dinner, and then Karen left us alone while she went to some kind of craft class. We were supposed to meet her later.

We were late. Because we lost track of the time. Because we were having so much fun just talking.

I'm sorry to have lost Bill in 1995 and Pat less than two weeks ago. But how much poorer I'd be had I never met them.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Blogger On Ice

Yesterday I took Thomas to the Dover Ice Arena, about forty minutes away, so that he could break in his new skates before the show on Tuesday. Thomas had a relaxing hour or so gliding around on his new skates. And Dad? He put on Tom's old skates (we're the same shoe size now--frightening, huh?) and got onto the ice himself.

And lived to tell about it! In fact, I didn't fall at all. At first my feet hurt terribly, but that was because I was wearing the wrong socks. Back on the ice with thinner socks, my feet felt much better, and by the time we were done, I was getting around pretty well. Not bad for an old guy!

This weekend we are cleaning up the house so that next weekend we can host a hoard of hungry teenagers for Thomas' birthday party. He's turning 16! Yikes! His actual birthday is Tuesday, which is also the day of the skating show, so we'll have a little family party at the local pizza house. And then we get invaded. If we survive, I will report.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Still Around . . .

I'm sorry that I haven't blogged much lately. I try to report good news, and there isn't a lot lately.

Not that anything really horrible has happened. It's just that day-to-day life continues to be, well, quite annoying.

It's snowing tonight. The prediction was for from 2 to 4 inches of accumulation. We already have at least 9. Snow is, of course, a normal part of February in New Hampshire, and this snow, falling on an exceptionally cold day and night, is dry and fluffy and will be fairly easy to remove. But in two important ways, these signs of Winter cause us problems right now.

First, we still live in a very drafty, poorly-heated house, originally designed to be a summer home and never quite properly adapted to year-round use. And the price of propane and wood have both shot up considerably since last year.

Second, my all-wheel-drive Chevy Astro is not, currently, operating as all-wheel-drive. In fact, with the AWD engaged, it is actually fighting me, making it more dangerous to drive. I found myself, during the last snow, just two days ago and only an inch deep, driving sideways down a rather long portion of MIddleton Road. Which made me jittery and extremely out of sorts for the rest of the night.

As you might expect, I have not tried to take the van out in this storm. I also am not quite sure how I'm getting to work on Monday.

And we won't be able to take the van on a planned trip to Connecticut and New Jersey at the end of the week, which means we get to squeeze into Karen's wagon for the long trip.

But I complain too much. You don't need to hear this. And that's why I haven't written too much lately.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

This Is Just Silly

As I'm writing this, it is about 10:30 in the morning, and it is raining outside. We have had quite a bit of rain, and sunshine, and temperatures well above freezing this winter. Today, just looking at the calendar and remembering where I am, I would expect to look outside and see a deep coating of fresh snow, instead of the soggy, thin layer of ice that is the remnant of our last, and not terribly impressive, snowstorm.

I remember that we had a blizzard before the official start of winter, but that is now just a memory. And predictions of colder weather in the coming week don't amount to much: the lowest temperature predicted is 14 degrees overnight, and only for one day. There is snow in the forecast, but only showers with little or no accumulation.

I am not complaining, really. It's kept our heating bill down and allowed us to get our leaky roof fixed much earlier than would have been possible during a normal winter.

But it's weird, you know?

Thursday, February 02, 2006

What a Week It's Been

Last week, we took delivery on a new stacked washer/dryer combination. This was not a proud new purchase, but a necessity as our old washer/dryer broke down, requiring $500 in repair. A new machine costs $700. Easy choice.

Somewhat less easy was finding the replacements machine, but we finally bought it from a local store that had the best price, offer fee delivery and set-up, and could take away the old machine for only $15. Great!

But setting this machine up proved to be anything but easy. When they went to take off the old hoses, they decided that the cut-off valve was broken, because water started spraying out of the hoses. Of course, they hadn't done anything to relieve the remaining pressure in the hoses. I did that when I got home and found them easy to drain. On the other hand, removing the hot water hose proved to be pretty much impossible! As did actually plugging in the new machine without getting trapped in the closet where it is installed. Neither the power cord nor the hoses were long enough for that.

Eventually, they brought the hoses, I bought the power cord, and I ended up cutting the hose connector off the faucet with a hacksaw and a pair of heavy-duty wire cutters. So we are finally doing laundry again. What's really funny it that, except for the knobs and a couple of settings, the machine is pretty much identical to the old one.

And then there's my van. Nobody seems to be able to figure out what's wrong with it. I've got the mechanic tearing his hair out over this, and nobody he's talked to has any insights either. So I'm driving a loaner. It's a GMC Jimmy (a version of the Chevy Blazer) from who-knows-what model year, with a very bumpy ride and hardly any luxuries. But at least it's four-wheel drive to get me up the icy driveway.

Our leaky roof is now fixed, and we should be getting some estimates for the interior damage soon. We'll be trying to have to house back on the market by the first day of Spring, and we are still planning to build a new house after we've sold the old one.

Wish us luck.

Monday, January 23, 2006

Florence Longstrreet 1907-2006

Our dear Aunt Flo, my grandmother's sister, and the last surviving sister of five, died last night, just a couple of weeks shy of her 99th birthday, and just a couple of weeks after our last visit with her. We are all very sad, of course, to be without her, but hers was a good, long life.

Like most of my own generation of our family, I didn't have much contact with Flo when I was growing up; in fact, I only remember meeting her once, at my grandmother's house. Most of the time I spent with her was after I got married, and she was an important part of our family, being sort of an extra great-grandmother for my children, Thomas in particular, although she also had a special soft spot for William.

Flo always had a remarkable amount of energy. She and I used to go out to the DaBelle par-three golf course in Burbank fairly regularly, a short course but one with no carts. She'd walk and play the entire course except on the hottest of days, and would get absolutely disgusted with herself when she missed a putt. We continued this until she was about 94.

Flo introduced us to one of our favorite eating spots in California, the Tam O'Shanter, a Scottish pub and restaurant with spectacular fish and chips, and Toad in a Hole made with filet mignon. Other members of my family had been there, before I was born, and it was my great-grandfather's favorite restaurant.

She was also a regular at our parties, where she charmed and impressed all of our friends. We all agreed that if we had to grow old (and it's either that or die young), we wanted to do it like Flo. I know that if I live into my nineties, I want to do it visiting with friends and family, and swinging a golf club.

Good-bye, Flo!

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Sigh!

It's been one of those weeks, and it's only Wednesday. Danny is sick, has asthma and so has to take breathing treatments. Our washer/dryer stack is broken, and not worth the price to fix, so we will be on the market for a new one immediately. My car is back in the shop. And the roof is leaking again.

On the other hand, the snow is mostly gone, taken away by rain and temperatures in the forties (fifties near my work). This week is shaping up to be fairly dry and no too cold, which is news I can definitely take right now, especially when I am driving a rented car without all-wheel-drive and leaving for work at 6:00 in the morning.

But I complain too much. Perhaps next week will be a bit less frustrating.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Brrr!

I think I jinxed myself by saying that the weather hadn't been so bad. Last night it started snowing. An inch of snow and ice was expected, but instead we got a think layer of ice and about four inches of snow. And the temperature outside as I write this is 8 degrees. That's Fahrenheit, not Celsius. Overnight, the wind chill is expected to get to 10 below.

But there are warmer days ahead, and hey! I have tomorrow off and so I'm going out for a relatively rare lunch date with my lovely wife, even if it will still be well below freezing at high noon.

And some more unseasonably warm weather is, supposedly, on its way (although my favorite weather Web site, weather.com, missed the boat on this storm), with rain predicted for mid-week. Of course, by the time I have another day off, it will have turned wintery again. Sigh.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

First Week Home

Sorry I haven't updated since we came back from California. After a day of recovery from jet lag (the children slept until after 9:00!), we just sort of hit the decks running, and this is the first chance I've had to sit and type.

The weather stinks. Oh, wait a minute, it actually hasn't been so bad. Raining today, but sunny several days during the past week, and mild temperatures. I'd just gotten used to California. Sigh.

All three of the boys starting skating this week. We missed the first of the two sessions, but this second one will last until March. It's Danny's first season on the ice, Will's second (and he's off to a good start), and Tom's--well, I've lost count, but he looks so comfortable on the ice that it seems like he does it every day.

I'm back to work at NPC (oh, joy) and Karen is back at school, this time taking Interior Design 2, which she really likes, and Accounting, which is a required subject for her degree. She hasn't given me an opinion about that class yet.

Meanwhile we are trying to whip this house into shape so that we can sell it and start over. We'll let you know how it turns out.