Dressed in holiday style

 

Electricity made easy

The wife bought some new ceiling lights for the kitchen about a month ago. They were cheap from Amazon. The old chandeliers have hung in three different houses and are easily 30 years old. I’m pretty sure they were expensive at the time (I did not ask). Now the wife is looking for a less primitive country look and moving to more farmhouse. That’s what she tells me,  they are just new hanging lamps as far as I’m concerned. 

Wednesday afternoon I took the old one down, wired the new one just to make sure it works before actually hanging it. The lamp lit even though the switch was off. Something isn’t right and I can’t figure it out, after many attempts and plenty of checking I’m stumped. It doesn’t help that the contractor was pretty free with paint so it is difficult to figure out black vs white. 

I moved and replaced the one over the island with little trouble. 

A more experienced buddy is coming today to help me with the one over the table. 

What confuses me, is I’m the one who put up the previous light with no trouble. 

I’m not sure why a simple home repair always turns sour. 

Happy Thanksgiving

 What are you doing here? Go watch a parade or something.

Tanks Fer Everyting

In March I will have been at this goofy hobby for 20 years. I have written more than eight thousand posts. Even if the majority of my writings are complete crap, that’s still a lot of words. Sure, some of you have been at it longer. You are the reason I started in the first place. 

A lot of bloggers have come and gone. My sidebar used to be much longer. So it goes. So I suppose I earn a point or two for perseverance. 

The real point of this post is to thank you. Without you, Dear Reader, there would be no point in the exercise. So, Thank you. 

Explain it all with a sigh

 A cold front is coming, I can hear the wind outside and the wreaths on the outside of my office window are shifting and rubbing against the glass. It is okay, cold and stormy fits my mood. 

I took yesterday off. It was grandparents day at the girls’schhol. I’ll have two quick days of work and then a long weekend. I have to travel the following week. Before you know it it will be the Christmas-New Year. 

For some reason I am just not in my normal holiday jolly mood. 

Go forth and enjoy your Tuesday. 

PS You are in my prayers . I know this week is hard. 

Second verse same as the first

 

Hmph

Blogger isn’t cooperating and I won’t either.

The snow is melted

It is still dark on this late November Saturday. My coffee is hot. Music gently plays in the background. 

I got a work email last evening informing me we are finally approved on a chunk of new business I’ve been chasing for nearly a year. It will be about $4 million in sales. I was so thrilled I even sent a text to my boss at 8:30 ladt night. He was pretty happy too. 

I’m not sure what tasks the wife has planned for today. There is no end of stuff that needs done, the question is what are her priorities?

Have a great day.

Friday Thoughts

His place is back along a tree line overlooking a ravine and small stream. The undergrowth is of typical Hoosier variety; mulberry. sassafras, wild blackberries. At first, he had few neighbors and it was not unusual to see tracks of deer, of fox, of the omnipresent squirrels in the winter snow. Over time, there came more neighbors, and I was saddened, but not surprised, when bulldozers cleared a large swath of trees nearby. This part of Hamilton County is among the fastest growing areas in the country.

I used to visit him every week, then once a month. Now, I talk with him a handful of times a year. It is not fair of me. He got me through the most depressing and darkest times of my life. When I said I could not go on, he told me "Not today, things will get better. Not today." 

I smile when I think about how he wrestled with his little sister laughing and shouting, his older sister supervising with a wry grin. There are the ball games, the soccer games, school plays. All fictitious memories that never happened. The baseball and pleather glove I gave him lie unused. The ball rotted away a few years ago. The glove lies cracked and faded. On each visit I think of him as he would be, growing older, playing, going to school, not how he is, a little baby boy who lived but a day.

I will go visit him Monday to celebrate a bittersweet birthday. Tuesday is a black anniversary I will try unsuccessfully to forget.  

Next Friday I will go down and put a little metal Santa Claus next to his grave as I do every year. 

And life goes on, the way of the Lord mysterious. 

Snow, snow, snow

 Imagine my shock to find the ground covered in fresh snow this morning. The driveway snd  pavement are clear, it was too warm to stick to concrete. There is not a lot of the white stuff, enough to cover the leaves still on the front lawn. It must have snowed a lot, the ground has to be warm. Temperatures hit seventy Fahrenheit on Tuesday. We have not seen sub-freezing in weeks, if at all this season. 

I’m tempted to break out the snow song from the movie White Christmas, but I’ll refrain. 

It is beginning to look..,

Temperatures hit the upper sixties yesterday. It was spectacular weather for a mid November day. The weather quacks were warning the spate of nice weather is about to change with wind, rain, and even snow in the forecast. With that in mind I knocked off work a bit early to get the outside Christmas  decorations on the house. My neighbors across the street had the same idea. 

I’m skeptical about snow sticking on the ground Thursday. It has been so warm I just don’t see it. There are still flowers blooming in the pot on the porch! 

I know, it would be weird to discover the weather forecast is wrong!

I wanted all of these bleeping trees

I came home from the doctor yesterday morning and decided to rake some leaves since I took 1/2 day vacation. 

I raked the entire front yard. 

The front lawn is covered in new fresh leaves this morning.  *#%@&$.

Start the day off right

Happy Monday. I’m off in a bit to the eye doctor again. I’ll let you know, but I suspect I am going to have to have surgery. The gel separation is worse and I can only see about 50% in my right eye. Maybe not, I did not sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night and my medical degree is non-existent. 

Edit: i am going back under the knife in a few weeks. Oh, and I thought I attached this song this morning. 

As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly

Cappy says we cannot go into the holiday season before the WKRP turkey drop and he is right. Thanksgiving is an artificial construct, the date has changed often in our nation’s history including when FDR fiddled around with the official date. 

Here’s the thing. We are having our family Thanksgiving today. Two-thirds of my kids and their related offspring and significant others will be on hand at the old homestead to feast and enjoy one another’s company. I will be tired and stressed to make sure everything is finished on time and fit to eat. It is just after 5:00 AM and I’m already plotting the cooking schedule. 

It will be without remorse when I drag out the Christmas decorations next weekend.

The turkeys have dropped. 

What?

I love Christmas and everything about it. We decorate the house inside and out. I enjoy the music, the food, spending time with family. Most of all I love Christmas movies - the classics, the Hallmark ones, the cartoons, the newer flicks. 

Last night the wife and I went to see The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It is terrific. It may be in my top three favorite Christmas movies ever. 

So I looked up some reviews when I got home to see if my opinion was valid or if I was high on seasonal endorphins. Most people agreed it was pretty good. One person gave it a 1 out of 10. Their reason? I’ll have to paraphrase, “I went to see a Christmas movie, instead I got a religious lesson. The whole thing was about church and the birth of Jesus.” 

Sometimes words fail me. 

How long until baseball starts?

I started working a part time job at 13. I saved every penny and my first purchase was a stereo. My brother sold me a pair of speakers on credit and I was in business. I next bought a turntable and the world of music was opened to me. 

My first records were the popular tunes of the day. Soon I delved into Zepplin, Yes, Blue Oyster Cult, Jethro Tull, and  the Stones. Sure, I played my parents Herb Albert albums. I lived to hear music. 

Now for a lot of people that passion led to learning to play an instrument, alas I lacked that talent. What I could do was lay on the floor between the speakers and hear each instrument individually. I could pick out the bass, the drums, the rhythm guitar from the whole of the song. I would listen to a song over and over studying the parts that made up the whole. 

I could slip on my what was then very good Koss headphones and go into an almost trance. 

A couple of years later I added two more speakers. I had two Utah speakers with 12” woofers and two Pioneer speakers with 10” woofers in my little 8x10 bedroom. When mom and dad were at work I could literally shake the windows in our modest pre-fab National Home. I’m sure the neighbors loved me. 

I tell you this because it is Friday and that means Friday music. So for little 100 pound teen me, lying perfectly still in complete concentration I give you this:

Not hers

 The wife and I went to Subway for lunch yesterday. 

This is how they identified my sandwich vs hers.

I found it amusing. 

We have seen some much needed rain in the past 24 hours. One result is the leaves finally are falling. Right now my front yard is ankle deep with wet leaves. I hope I can get some of them cleaned up over the weekend.. 

We are hosting an early thanksgiving dinner Sunday. Turkey and the works is on the menu. The kids have other plans on actual Thanksgiving, so this is the only available weekend. 

I had hoped to start dragging Christmas decorations out, this weekend but that will have to wait. I  suspect between the leaves and dinner there is not enough time. 

Humping extra hard on hump day

I’m up and at it early this morning. There is no particular reason, I woke around 3:30AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. I dozed a bit and finally got up just shy of 5:00. So it goes. 

I have plenty to do. I have a couple of conference calls today. I have a bunch of studying on tap. One of my colleagues is leaving the company (a better opportunity, so good for him) and I picked up half of his accounts. So a busier job is a good thing. Transitioning accounts is always tricky, especially this time of year when the holidays and end of year vacations makes customer visits difficult to arrange. 

It will all work out. 

Not one mention of the weather

Little things amuse me. You might have concluded I was late getting a blog post up yesterday. Nope I scheduled it to go live at 11:11AM on purpose. 

Or you might not care at all and mutter under your breath “Joe, you narcissistic jerk, I didn’t even notice you did not post until late.” Valid point indeed. 

I raked up a couple of bags of leaves from the front yard before I realized the wind was just blowing more all over the portion I had just cleaned. I went inside to watch an old episode of Emergency! Instead. 

We had pork chops, baked spuds, and green beans for dinner last night. 

Frankly, I don’t know why you would care about any of this. 

Veteran’s Day

 

For the millions who served to make us free.