Stories and other stuff

I put the tree up about four days early this year.  I'm not anxious.  I just know that there's a better than fair chance I'm going to be working 12 hour days starting Tuesday.  Maybe even as early as Monday.  Rumor has it, anyway, so I took what day I had to do this kind of stuff and did it.  I'm glad I did.  I found a beautiful tree for a really fair price at Home Depot. I am 6'4" and I like my Christmas tree to be taller than I am.  It necessitates purchasing a larger tree than normal.  I found just the one.  I actually bought the first one I saw because it was as close to perfect as I've seen in years.  It appears to be fresh, too.  I like these trees because when you trim the branches you don't put huge holes in your Christmas tree.  This one doesn't even have an ugly side.  That's a blessing. Putting up a Christmas tree can be an ordeal.  I purposely bought the "Swivel Straight" tree stand the first time I sa...

Well, they're up!  And they're finally on! I finished hanging up my Christmas lights this afternoon.  It took a lot longer than I thought but they're up.  I only had fight with lights for about three hours. I did something this year I always wanted to do.  I went around the street side windows with white lights.  I think it makes the house look neat.  I always wanted to do it but was told no.  Instead I just wrapped the 7 wreaths (one for each window) with lights; four in white lights, three in red. This year, I found some lights we had.  I strung them around the windows instead of plugging in the wreaths.  It looks really neat.  I didn't stop there, though.  I did the garage door too.  And the electric post light in the front yard.  I thought maybe my neighbors might be a little tired of the same old same old so I mixed it up some. You can't be grinchy.

Thanksgiving at our house this year was a bit different.  We ate on borrowed dishes.  We sat on folding chairs and ate at a table the folks at church were kind enough to loan me.  The plates used to live here and I'm grateful to Wendi for loaning them to us.  It was a small touch of what home used to be.  The tablecloths were clean but well worn and stained. The turkey was lovingly cooked in a pan that has seen better days.  We lined the pan with foil and dinner came out well.  The table was a hodge-podge of dishes because Wendi has most of them still packed up.  There are orange and red mixing bowls and baking dishes here that were my favorite pattern these days (on clearance at Wal-mart!).  It beats cool whip and sour cream containers we've been using for tupperware around here.  We had no turkey platter this year, either, so I used a cookie sheet.  June bought drinking glasses on clearance at Wal-mart as well, so we have matchi...

A couple of things happened today that told me I needed to write this blog.  I've been trying to for about a week now without much success.  It's tough enough to think about, but writing about it has proven extraordinarily difficult.  Mostly because I had to deal with some stuff I didn't even know I was carrying around. First off, for clarification, my NO! has a name.  It's Tami Jo.  Actually, she has a new name these days because she's the one that got married.  The title might suggest and after reading what I'm writing, you might be thinking I'm thinking she's the one that got away.  Tami Jo didn't get away.  She wasn't the one for me.  I could, and have, come to think of it, tell lots and lots of stories about broken things, scratched cars, lost jobs, and any number of disasters we faced when we were seeing each other.  Sometimes even talking about seeing each other would result in disaster for either or both of us.  For His re...

This was on my Facebook page just a few minutes ago: Which is just perfect for tonight. My "No" got married. Congratulations!

The interweb is kind of cool for some things.  Like trying to figure out how that last software update screwed up your computer. This is the first kind of issue I've found with a mac that things weren't backward compatible.  Turns out though that my all in one fax copy scanner didn't like the last upgrade to Snow Leopard.  After playing with it off and on for a while, I remembered the little oddity with Apple:  The plist file. I don't exactly know what the plist is for but I do know if something ain't right, the plist file has to go.  After several attempts to re-load the software from HP that's supposed to work with the scanner, I got the scanner to work.  But not with the software that came with it. Apple has two functions that make the scanner work, Image Viewer and Preview.  Both work for scanning and to upload what I had to scan, it actually worked pretty well.  It took a lot of research to find all of this out.  My old friend the ...

I've been very blessed to do a job I really enjoy for the last 30 years.  Granted, the fuel tank gig wasn't exactly my favorite thing, but I was always grateful to have the job.  Lately, though, I've had the opportunity to reflect on a lot of things and in the examination of things that have gone wrong over the last four years, it seems to me that the wheels came off the tricycle shortly after I started at Hill field. In just the last two years, this job is taking it's toll on the body.  I've had bursitis in both elbows at the same time and now I'm laid up with the same thing in my knee.  My right knee and ankle are a mess at any given time and still ache from past surgeries.  By the time I get home from work, I can't hardly move some days.  Those some days are getting more and more frequent. Last night, I went to see the Dr.  After reviewing my chart, she was convinced that I was having a gout attack.  I haven't had too many of those since I ...