December 23, 2003
es,
I have been remiss in posting, lo' these many weeks. To tell the truth,
I've been a bit depressed, with the anniversaries of the deaths of both
my mother and Suz, and then I caught the flu, and finally work overcame
me with both a substantial milestone and a demo for the company to prepare
for. Sure, weakish excuses, I'll agree, but I'm sticking to them. I have
had the fortune of having my father come to town, and he's been here for
about a month now, helping out in lots of little ways. He and I have completely
replaced the light switches in the house from the old style, to the new
rocker panel style. We've also replaced five outlets near sinks (one in
each bathroom, two in the kitchen) with Ground Fault Interrupt outlets,
to help bring my house a bit closer to current code requirements.
We also went out this last weekend and bought a nice noble fir tree for Christmas, and have decorated it with the only decorations I have left... a strand of Christmas tree lights. Seems as though the majority of the Christmas decorations we had were in Suz's things, and were taken away when her brother came to clear out her stuff. I thought about nipping out and buying some replacements immediately, but the Scottish side of me came out, and I decided to wait until after Christmas, so I can get them on the cheap. Only need a couple of boxes of glass ornaments, I suspect, and a star for the top of the tree, but we'll see what I find when I'm out.
Of course, the home improvements aren't going to stop, either. I'd love to replace the rest of the outlets too, just to ensure they're properly grounded. When we replaced the light switches, we found none of them had been grounded, which scared me. Sometime soonish, I would like to replace the toilets with low flow models, and eventually I'll have to bite the bullet and get the house wired with RG-6 (coax) and Cat-5 or Cat-6 (Internet) cable. I'm still dithering over whether I want to do it myself, or pay some experts to do it. Ah, well...
In any case, I just wanted to let everyone know I'm still alive, and still plugging along. I'm hoping that each and everyone of you have a lovely Holiday (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, whatever you may celebrate during this time), and a joyous new year. If I could get around to give each and everyone of you a hug, I'd do it.