Santa Clause came to the country

Wow is Christmas over for another year? On Christmas Eve mom and dad came to the house to see our tree and how well Tweek can climb up it. They brought a venison roast with them and we had an early dinner before Andrew went to work. I watched a movie with the cat and stayed up late reading. Andrew came home about 8:30 and after a quick breakfast and shower it was off for presents. I took out booty to Mom and Dad's.

Andrew liked all his presents I think. I went to Urbana University a few weeks ago and they were having a book sale and had just weeded the roman history section so I got him a half dozen books on Rome and Italy history etc. He also liked this gadget Mom and Dad got him that opens wine bottles. He was also careful not to leave his candy keg* when he went to work in the late afternoon.

I got an ice cream maker so I can try to make ice cream with my lactaid milk and various frozen treats. Breyers has a lactose free ice cream but I am suspicious I picked up some and will try it later.

I also got the latest homestead longaberger basket and mom picked out the cutest liner for it. It's on my nightstand now, another Christmas present from Andrew, matching nightstands for our bedroom. He put them up in no time and they make the bedroom so much nicer.

The big surprise though was hidden in the back of the tree (because Dad told mom to hide it from me)

Inside the big box was a classic kitchenaid mixer!!! The stand kind!! The "now I can make any baked good on the planet kind!" It is so cool. I'll be breaking it out this week.

And last Friday I finally got my camera out of the box and it is just about, but not quite completely beyond me. I hope to take it outside on Thursday--the weather is supposed to be fairly nice. I've taken a lot of pictures of the cat so far. There is a lot to learn on it so I will be spending a lot of time experimenting. There is the ability to change a lot of things on my own when I am ready. For now though it's about mastering all the basic settings.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.


* A Candy Keg is a Perdue family tradition. When my Dad and his four brothers were little my Grandma Perdue would keep and empty quaker oats canister for each of them, wrap it in wrapping paper and fill it with their favorite candies. So each keg had the same candy with favorites mixed in. I imagine there are few unbreakable rules in a house with five boys but one was never touch another's candy keg.

Grandma doesn't do the candy kegs anymore, Mom does and Andrew gets one too and guards it ferociously around Dad and Uncle Barry.

Since I put out blog address on the Christmas Cards

I figured I better but something up here during the mont of December. I managed to take a somewhat wintry picture for the cards and even though we haven't had much snow it has been very cold all week. I have been working at the bookstore 5 to 10 hours a week. It's fun to help people find gifts for the chilren and teens in their lives and I get a bit of Christmas shopping done myself.

Andrew and I have spent some time working on things around the house. Glamorous thinks like changing light bulbs, water and furnace filters, and general housework. Even with a new house there is always something to do.

Tweeker who hasn't been a vigorous eater--he has never been one to hound us in the morning to get up and feed him, has been cleaning his dish and crying for more. Part of the winter chill I guess. He is starting to get too fat to jump through the stair banister spokes.

Last weekend we went to winterfair and saw many neat booths. Wildlife photograpy, pottery and wood turned items were my favorite spots.

All for now, J

Christmas at the Scordato Grotto

Well last night I put up the tree, an artificial one Mom and Dad used to use that we inherited. I am pleases because I actually know how to put it together. I put on 300 clear lights and to my pleasure, found a box of ornaments I hadn't been able to find in years lik ecookie monster, strawberry shortcake and snoopy. I got an ornament every year so the tree looks okay. We got some blue and silver bulbs at Target, some wiht snowflakes and there are a few presents under the tree.

When I put the tree up and turned my back on it, Tweek promptly climbed 3/4 of the way up. I don't know how since he doesn't have any claws, but he was so scared that when I plucked him out he didn't seem to have any interest in doing it again. He likes to bat at the ornaments of course.

Tonight I will hang a light up wreath on our cleaned off front porch, put out a new welcome mat, and do some other house-y things.

The good news is that Andrew has accpeted a job offer with Doctors West. He starts January 8th in their ER and we will actually be able to commut together during the week.

The Amazing Adventures of Tweek Or, How Our Cat Nearly Caught Fire

I love candles in the wintertime. I love how they add a cozy touch to a room and their subtle fragrance that fills the area. I know that candles cause all kinds of house fires but I am very, very careful or at least I was until Tweeker.

By the time we got Tweeker I was pretty much done with candles for the season. Last night I had one burning on my new old dresser (maybe you've seen a picture?) I left Andrew reading in bed, asking him to keep an eye on Tweek (who has been known to jump up an said new old dresser).

Apparently while I was in the bathroom, a fly (did you know Tweeker is the number one stalker of flies in Champaign county? Known to jump 6 feet off the ground in pursuit of one) caught Tweek's attention. The fly landed on the wall above the dresser. So Tweek jumped on the dresser.

This is where the recollection of events gets murky. I don't know if Andrew noticed immediately that Tweek was on the dresser or if it was only the bitter smell of burning hair that pulled him away from his Clive Cussler book. The long and the short of it is that the candle singed about a a baseball size area of Tweek's fluffy hair.

Now, do not be alarmed. We are pretty sure Tweek has no idea it even happened. Andrew yelled at Tweek so loudly that the cat immediately jumped down from the dresser. It's not that Tweek has no hair it's just that it is flat and short where the rest is fluffy and now our bedroom smells like burnt hair. So no more candles. I killed the fly.

Okay so make it November

Friends and Family,

Most likely you have seen the online photo albums first and that pretty much sums up my excuses for not posting or writing in ages. Andrew has his paramedic card and is in the process of following up on a couple of job prospects and in the meantime putting in lots of part-time hours. I love, love, love, my job as teen services specialist and have enjoyed some early challenges and successes. That keeps me pretty occupied but so far I have been pretty good about not bringing a lot of work home. We have our lawn in and trees; We now have four prairie fire crabapples lining the lane. I guess in the spring they are a jaw-droppingly bright pink so we will see. We also have a sycamore, a green mountain maple. We have 7, count em 7 adorable blue spruce pine trees and Andrew has quite the little orchard in the back.

I spent most to the late summer out at the club taking pictures. I am immensely proud of the deer shots but that was about as good as I was going to get with my trusty easy share and just a couple weeks ago I got a Canon Powershot 3. I can't make any promisies when I will get out into the field with it because of weather and other um, pursuits. In the meantime I have been trying to keep up with house and reading loads, I mean loads of outdoor photography books. I come home from the library and Andrew says, "Did you leave them anything?" Of course I did.

That's really all the news fit to print. Tweek is pretty much done growing I think. He will always be a small cat. He is starting to really snuggle with us at night now that it is getting colder.

Hope you liked the photos, will try to post before say, April :0 Jules

okay so make it October

Pics and update coming soon, really.

Seriously

Jules

yeah yeah I know

It's been forever. And, it will be a little while longer. Look for blog updates and photos in the album in September...

Time ticks by

Tweek grows fat and sassy, I finish up laundry from ALA, Andrew works, and it rains.

Started new job this week. A lot to do and getting settled but I think I'll like it fine.

We repotted our pine trees waiting till fall to plant and my dresser project falls to the wayside as I work on other things.

I am listening to "In the Company of the Courtesan" and am absolutely fascinated. It is a really good audio book. I read Janet Evanovich's number 12 and was pleasantly surprised. It seems like she is going back to the earlier novels and while I am fed up with the whole morellir or ranger bit, I liked how it ended, I think Stephanie is deciding despite herself.

In the YA world I read Whatever HAppened to Cass McBride by Gail Giles and liked it very much. Gail's writing is so taut--not one word is wasteful.

I have loads of books in the too read bin of course and I have started doing Yoga again and even worked out this morning. As thirty barrels down upon me I realize I better start getting in shape...

Back from New Orleans

Andrew and I got back on Monday and I've spent the past couple of days wrapping up things at the branch and doing laundry. Poor Tweek, he has separation anxiety and cries away when I am out of sight. Mom and Dad fed him up I think he gained a pound over the weekend.

Before we left for New Orleans, Dad and Andrew got the tiles all trenched in and a larger turnaround in the driveway cut out. Also Dad hauled in some dirt and graded our front yard out nicely. The front yard clover is rounded up and turning brown and we'll wait to plant grass seed in August.

New Orleans was okay. It was nice to enjoy quiet dinners with Andrew in the evening after a day of running around and getting professionally developed. Many restaurants and shops are still closed and one thing that struck us was the eerie absence of people. We saw the floodline where the water settled on the freeway sound barrier. We also saw a couple dozen abandoned cars below the overpasses.

Andrew went to Cafe Du Monde, the Audubon Aquarium, Jackson and LaFayette square and a few other places. One night we ate at the buffet at Harrah's and I lost five bucks to the slots. It was hot. Our hotel was pretty darn comfortable and it was nice to be back in the room by 9 each night.

ALA was satisfying in terms of contacts and development but I won't go into it here as it would bore some readers.

That's it for now, more soon--probably, Jules

I got the job! I got the job!

I start July 3rd, as the Teen Services Specialist at main library across from grant hospital. In this position I will be responsible for teen services at Main but also be looking at several system wide initiatives and projects. I am really excited and will post more soon, with pictures in the album.

I found out thursday the 8th which was the same day Andrew graduated from paramedic school so a big day for us both!

Good bye, Kitten

Today I write this with a heavy heart. The past few weeks Kitten had been very ill, losing weight, continuing to get sick once or twice a day, not grooming herself and crying at times in what I can only assume was pain when we picked her up. Last Sunday, the 21st Andrew and Dad planted a nice golden delicious apple tree and dug the hole. Andrew made a poplar box and on Thursday Kitten visited the vet for the final time. I am very sad and miss her terribly. Tweek is lively as ever and while he does not sleep with us all night, he pops up to visit and likes to cuddle in the morning. There really isn't anymore to say I suppose.

Moving on to things less sad, Andrew is less than two weeks away from graduating paramedic school. At the end of June we will be going to New Orleans for the America Library Association Conference. This weekend Andrew worked on his term paper while I got serious about refinishing and oak dresser Dad picked up for me last summer. The drawers inside are disgusting, mildew-y and dirty. I wanted to completely redo those drawers saving only the solid oak fronts but because the drawers are dovetailed, Andrew worries about damaging the joints. He’ll be sanding those. The dresser still needs a lot of cleaning on the inside (grooves of wood hold abandoned wads of spider webs) and the dresser top needs quite a bit of sanding. I will send pictures out soon.

For not “blogging” in a while I guess I don’t have that much news. We’ve hung more pictures and things and the house is really starting to come together. Once Andrew is out of school we’ll begin working on the yard in earnest. I’ve been doing more non-professional writing this past month and in April but now outdoor pursuits will be calling.

As for Reader’s Advisory I am listening to Wendy Wasserstein’s Elements of Style, which would be just another Upper East Side elite love fest if of course, it was written by someone other than the late and very talented Wasserstein. The characters will rarely likable except for a couple, are much more real than the usual New York Society books so popular right now. I read a really great YA book last week called Dead Connection by Charlie Price. It’s kind of a murder mystery set told through the eyes of several characters with a sixth sense like twist. I am also listening to the captivating yet very dark “Geek Love” told by a 38 year old albino dwarf about her childhood in a traveling carnival. Her parents intentionally experimented with all kinds of harmful substances to produce natural geeks like Siamese twins who play the piano and a boy with flippers instead of limbs. I have Ladies in Lavender in the DVD player—it’s pretty cute but also a little sad.

Lawn and Garden

I write with a very heavy heart. Kitten has been ill all weekend and especially ill this morning. I think very soon we will have to make a decision about her, you know, THE decision. While a blood test last week revealed nothing amiss, the vet agrees she is a sick cat and told me we could spend $1,000 looking for the source and never find it. Kitten walks with a hunched back and rarely relaxes into a little ball anymore. Sometimes when I pick her up she cries in discomfort. Yet other times she acts like herself. But cleaning up after her is exhausting and being gone 50 hours a week and Andrew even more, it is getting hard to care for her. If I didn’t brush her, her coat would be tacky. She is only 6 years old but eats without gaining any weight. She is down to 7 pounds. It is hard to see her compared to Tweek, who is eating like a horse and playing like one too. He wants nothing but to play and be loved and Kitten is just not Kitten. I am very sad.

What I was planning on writing about came from our activities yesterday. If you take a look at the phrase Lawn and Garden and the phrase Julie and Andrew, well, I would be the lawn and Andrew would be the garden.

I spent the morning picking up ancient half buried trash from the front yard. Pepsi cans circa 1985 that my mower has revealed, bits of chip bags and even a light switch plate I am sure fell out of our electrician’s pocket last fall.

I also marked with flags a half dozen rocks missed last summer. Then picked them up or had Andrew shovel a couple up. I also weeded the south end of the house, where I plan to transplant some poppies, plants that were once Grandpa Perdue’s this fall. Andrew meanwhile planted tomatoes, herbs and more herbs in the raised bed. He retiled his garden and planted our sweet corn, sunflowers, and watermelons. I think cucumbers are the only thing at this point. Other than picking and cleaning, I am not that interested in gardening. I think I could get into container gardening but even then, I have a feeling plants may feel like they are on death row. So far though the pansies, violas and phlox I bought nearly a month ago are surviving so I must not be that bad.

A lawn though, I want a nice lawn. Might take a few years to get it, but walking on Mom and Dad’s lawn is like walking on carpet. Walking in our yard is like walking in a mown field, field being the operative world. Or, in a baked wasteland full of rocks. But this will change I just have to be patient.

Andrew is basically indifferent about the lawn. He looks forward to having grass, but I will be the one mowing in a zen like state with the roar of the blades in my ears and the gas fumes in my nose while Andrew is in his garden.

I started scraping paint off the oak dresser, refinishing project number one. The first layer flips right off and I figure why waste the stripper? If it is warm enough this weekend I will start stripping the dresser drawers in earnest.

Andrew is exactly 4 weeks away from his Paramedic final. He still has 60 hours of ride time to do and has already done 60 hours. We are on the home stretch.

What a busy Sunday

Andrew had the Sunday off and boy were we busy bees. We went out to breakfast with Mom and Dad and then stopped by the Penney's sale and picked up a dining room rug. We moved that into the kitchen. Dad helped Andrew get started tilling the garden and I mowed the lot...well the part of the lot that isn't mud and rocks. It was a beautiful day and fun to be out and about. Our strawberries in the raised bed that Andrew made are already blooming. In the afternoon I ran errands in town while Andrew finished the back bedroom for the cats. They now have a bed and more space to spat. I picked up some black mulch. We are going to mulch some grass bald patches at the end of the drive-way to put our rocks on...that won't happen for a while though. Let's see, did some laundry and sundry cleaning. We watched our last sunday night of free Sopranos and now into the week ahead.

For those of you not in the immediate vicinity, the spring here has been really beautiful. We didn't have a late or killer frost so the flowering trees are especially full, crabapples, cherries and magnolias are really showing their stuff.

reader's Advisory, I am still working on Fareed Zakaria's Future of Freedom, what a clever guy. I am also listening to A Perfect Union, and interesting biogrpahy of Dolley Madison. I am also listening to nickeld and dimed that is a few years old but still very relevant about the working poor.

I am also reading the second in the enjoyable Djinn series by scholastic starring John and Phillippa Gaunt. I am also super pleased that Brian K Vaughan has decided to extend his teenage runaways stories and plan to read volumes 5 and 6 tonight.

I have already gotten the much anticipated Charlaine Harris book, Defintely Dead on audio even though the print version doesn't come out for another week. It was wonderful with lots of twists and bombshells so now I have to wait another year for the next installment...sigh.

I'll try to post pictures of our landscaping endeavors soon...

Meeting Chris Moore

Well I managed to leave work early yesterday and go down to the wonderful book store, Books and Company in Kettering to meet Chris Moore. I was so excited he was coming to Ohio after all this time because he rarely rarely appears this far East. I got there and hour early thinking I would have time to work on the laptop but there were so many people already waiting, I was lucky to get a seat in the very last row. By line number was 40 but by the time it was all said and done one of the latest to arrive got a line number of 98. Chris Moore was really funny and down to earth and with the kind of fans he has, there was a bit of improvisation and banter. It was a lot of fun, especially when he held up a Las Vegas newspaper article about him and his latest book and on the back of the page, was ads for escorts. Chris is now on the bestseller list for the first time and about time I say. He's one of my favorite authors and if you start reading him I suggest reading them in order of publication even though they are not a series.

I saw a buddy from Columbus, got my picture taken with Chris and AND won a cool little t-shirt. Got home at 11 exhausted and the cats fought for about an hour over the bed and neither ended up sleeping in the bed. I think Tweek just wants to cuddle with Kitten. He is perfectly happy sleeping at the foot of the bed until she jumps on the bed and then he is all over her. She hates it of course. Tweek is gaining weight now.

In other news, I will be meeting Laurie Halse (pronounced Haltz) Anderson this afternoon to get Prom signed and maybe get a picture. Later, Jules

Tweek Spends the Night

I was trying to work through the 3rd Season of Allo Allo last night before Andrew came home. I dropped off and Andrew woke me up and I had tweek in between my feet and Kitten cuddled in the crook of my arm. Tweek was so cute and Kitten didn't seem to mind so instead of putting him to bed in the study we let him stay with us and they handled it just fine. Had a thunderstorm this morning but the sun is out now. Won't be long now before we get that airconditioner cable hooked up...

A quick post to show I am truly reformed

Sort of.

Well Tweek is no longer jumping on the counter because I put this tape called sticky paws up and he hates it. I have never seen a cat scrunch up its face before and I have to say it is pretty darn funny. Andrew caught them sharing the bed together yesterday, not curled up into each other put at least sharing the same space so that's a good sign.

Kitten continues to be on again off again sick. Vet says it is hairball season.

Mom bought me some Johnny Jump Ups AKA Violas this weekend. I haven't killed them yet and have actually brought them in on nights it got down to frost levels. THe spring is young though and I have plenty of time to kill them later.

Reader's Advisory:
I just got done reading the bully of Bentonville by Bianco interesting and depressing as was the documentary "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices."

I also watched Walking with Monsters last week, yet another in the addictive BBC series narrated by Kenneth Branagh where amazing computer graphics allow you to time travel. My favorite is still Walking with (Prehistoric) Beasts.

On audio I am listening to Freakonomics. It's kind of hard to explain here but I thought it was very, very cool. I am also listening to the redux of Chronicles of Narnia featuring Jeremy Northam, Lynn Redgrave, Branagh and Patrick Stewart so that's a lot of fun.

I am reading The Future of Democracy by Fareed Zakaria--he writes for Newsweek and is on the Daily Show a lot and has his own show on PBS now. Google him, he's a smart guy.

I have Chris Moore's latest "It's a Dirty Job" it isn't my favorite but there are some real laugh out loud moments. I'll be meeting him next week and posting pictures. (yeah right, I know)

I have the 4 and 5th season of Allo Allo that cute British Comedey set in WW II France--it works really. I had no idea they did 9 seasons and am looking forward to them all.

I also watched derailed this week. I really didn't like the movie but I love clive owen who acts like a major wuss for the first 3/4 of the movie and then KICKS ASS.

I have the new Jennifer Crusie book Don't Look Down in the too read pile.

Okay that's it. jules

Oh there's really no excuse

Accept maybe that we had no Internet at the house because out line was dead in the study but Dad fixed it. Right now though even though the line works we are being cheap and not getting the Internet quite yet. This puts quite a dent in activity. I will post pictures of Tweeker (also known as Baby Tweek, Get-off-that-counter-right-now and Grrrrrrrr that would be Kitten's name for him)

Yes and it turned out Tweek is a boy after all. He is all recovered from getting neutered and declawed. We still keep him in the study and night and when we aren't home. Kitten is growing gradually more used to him. She basically has three modes: ignore him, growl at him, and casting looks of murder at him and despondency to us. Tweek doesn't understand what she is upset about and can't see that running up to her full bore or swatting at her tail are not interepreted as overtures of friendship.

We have the guest bedroom almost done. I got a second coat of paint on and Andrew had to pry off the trim for us to lay laminate. Andrew just has to put the last row in, that needs to be cut lengthwise to fit against the wall. Then we'll rehang the trim, out the guest bedroom together and increase both cat's territory a little bit.

Dad has been using the skid loader in the backyard so spring must be here. He's trying to get us a better grade off the back for our curtain drain. We now have enough dirt to fill in around the septic in the back and grade the front out a bit. We have a lot of work ahead of us and I am not sure how we will do it with Andrew's hectic 4th quarter schedule. We gotta trench the tiles in the yard. Rock hound about half of our yard and do the grass thing. Plus we are going to expand the driveway a little bit and of course Andrew is planning the beginnings of his garden. He wants strawberry beds, a handful of vegetables to start and of course get his orchard going.

I hope he will be allowed to do 24 hour ride time shifts. For this last quarter he has to ride at one department for 120 hours opposed to the 60 of previous quarters. If he isn't allowed to do 24 hour chunks, I expect it will be more difficult to get all that we want done, well done. We'll see.

Not much else really we are all healthy and busy etc. I will try to post pictures soon and blog more often. I know, promises promises.

A Second Cat

Well, we find ourselves preparing to adopt a second kitty. You know when Chubby died last year Andrew promised me that when we got the house we could get a second cat and it would be orange. With all the hustle and bustle and with kitten getting sick on and off we shelved the idea. But a cat has presented itself to us and we are both in love. The family friend that lives behind us has this very young barn cat. She used to sleep in the kennel with the old family boxer, sharing both body heat and dog food. But the boxer died before Christmas and since then the little cat has been living in the barn. Dad has been messing with it for about a month now, feeding it pounces to gain its trust and then handling it. This little cat lets Dad and me flip her on her back and rub her tummy and feet. The neighbor remembers seeing her around since summer but she is very small, tiny at less than 5 pounds but she is gaining swiftly. We have her in the tack room only, she has her own bed and litterbox which she uses regularly. She loves to be brushed and cuddled. She loves Dad best since he has spent the most time with her but she is very affectionate with me and Andrew too.

In a couple of weeks we will take her to the vet and then home. We are finishing the larger small bedroom. It is already painted and Andrew will be laying laminate so we can keep the kitties seperated. I am reading all kinds of books and online info about how to introduce them in the least stressful way. Plus I will be on vacation when we do this to supervise everything. I am excited about having another cat. I think kitten will adjust fine. She is curious more than territorial and she has so much affection. It will be a while before I can post pictures of the cat though, sounds still frighten her.

There really isn't any other news. I am preparing for my first SUS training outside of the system. I am back on as a VOYA reviewer and just finished being an audies judge. Andrew is doing okay. Third quarter is nearly finished. He pulled his back Sunday messing around in the basement but is on the mend.

Reading:

I have just rediscovered Octavia Butler, God rest her ingenius soul. I read her latest and last, Fledgling back when we were in the apartment. I just finished listening to Parable of The Talents and have Bloodchild in my bedside stack. What an amazing writer, the world is less without her.

I just finished reading the long awaited sequel to The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner. This makes a trilogy of the political intrigue/fantasty series that is a blend of middle age government and ancient Greek like culture. I highly recommend them.

I am also reading the Future of Freedom by Fareed Zakaria--I first encountered him on the daily show but now he has his own show on PBS. Speaking of PBS, the frontline they did in January of Country Boys was absolutely amazing, and I watched David Sutherland's earlier work, the Farmer's Wife, earlier this month. Get them.

Other things I am reading are the Bully of Bentonville (read Wal-mart as evil corporate entity).

I also just finished reading a Bad Boy Can Be Good For a Girl. If you are a YA person, get it. NOW!

I'm really excited about titles coming up. Christopher Moore's latest, A Dirty Job comes out at the end of March and I will get a chance to meet him at a bookstore in April. A short story collection featuring Kim Harrison, Dates from Hell, comes out in April along with the new Mary Janice Davidson, Dead and Loving It. May, May can't come soon enough, the 6th installment of my beloved Sookie Stackhouse series, Definitely Dead comes out--a galley on EBAY went for over 75 bucks yesterday!!!

Okay, that's it, Jules

Library Time

Sometimes, I think time moves faster for librarians and staff. Last week I was helping someone check out their books and the receipt read March and I thought to myself "March alread?" Well not really, not for another few weeks but working at a library reminds me how fast time is going be regularly showing where time is going. It's a bit depressing. But March means warmer weather around the corner. Soon we gotta start planning how we are going to tackle the myriad of projects around the house.

We are pretty much settling in. Can fit one car in the garage and hopefully both once Andrew gets the home weight set moved to the basement. We had, oddly enough, a bad mosquito problem a couple of weeks ago. They were living in the sump pump and floating throughout the house but a good does of plant based raid seems to be taking care of the problem.

There really isn't any other news or anything special. We managed to get some time outside on Sunday and that was a real boost.

I am listening to Parable of the Talents, and extremely interesting sci-fi novel set in an America no one would want to live in, set in the early 2030's, many themes are eeriely similar to some of the things going on now. Very thoughtful, and by the immensely talented Octavia Butler.

More later, Jules

the shortest blog entry in history

I have the computer hooked up and internet possibly next week, enjoy the pictures. Not much else exciting really. jules

No, sigh, I haven't hooked the computer up yet

But we are getting there. We may, dream of all dreams, actually be able to put our vehicles in the garage this weekend. We just have to move some things down to the basement and move in the rest of the books and get rid of our cardboard etc. The house this week is just starting to feel like a real home to me, more than the potential to feel like home feeling I had earlier. There are of course lots of projects of various sizes ahead of us. I have my area of the study pretty much the way I want it and may hook up the computer this weekend. I have taken a few pictures in the house. We had a bit of a hailstorm last night and boy does the wind blow on top of that hill. Trees, lots and lots of trees will be a priority this summer. Kitten seems to be adjusting better, eating like a horse and getting back to her fat and cuddly self.

Last night I played two hours of Simpsons hit and run on the new playstation, I can't believe you shell out 150 bucks and only get one controller and no memory card. It took me a full hour to realize that I will crash into less things if I deccelerate around the curves. I tended to fall apart under the pressure of time trials and timed missions and at one point gave up, and decided to run around springfiedl gathering money to amass a fleet of vehicles (plow king plow, duff truck, electrosaurus etc) kill wasps and find collector's cards. The wind was howling and Kitten was curled up beside me and it was quite pleasant.

I am glad that I didn't go to mid-winter, even though we moved in the week before, being home for three days to unpack and nest was a real boost to the ole mental health. The weather has gotten downright wintry and all day I have felt a bit off. I hope it really is just the weather, I don't have much of a window to get sick. I have given two presentations this week and one more tommorrow, so I can't run out of gas yet.

I've been listening to some adult fiction titles as my post of 2006 Audies judge..
http://www.audiopub.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3282

I've also been reading Breakfast with Tiffany which is pretty good.

Andrew is doing okay, back in the old school/work routine.

Thanks for checking the blog occassionally, I'll try to email soon. Jules

Unpack that box!

Well, we’ve been in the house 5 nights now and I am slowly starting to feel a) much calmer as each box gets unpacked and b) seeing the vision of what our home will look like once it is all put together. The first couple of nights it was almost too bizarre for words, not in a bad way just weird. We picked up our Mission oak table from the antique shop this weekend. It has a little mildew on the back side of the drawer and at some point, I’ll want to clean the varnish off of it but it is basically immediately usable. Andrew started unpacking some stuff in the study and tonight we will put together the dining room table together and I’m hoping Andrew will have gotten the chance to put the entertainment center together in terms of wiring all our stuff up so I can start unpacking audio stuff.

I don’t know when I will be able to post pictures. The problem is even when we get the computer hooked up, we can’t even begin to get the internet until we get our phone line put in (Verizon has sent two notices confirming to set up service but won’t give us a date and calling them is a joke.) Mom’s computer doesn’t have a cd burner and the cd burner on my laptop won’t burn easy share files. I may burn a cd at cord camera.

Not much else to report really. The mission doors look really great and maybe by this weekend we will be able to put the cars in the garage. Later, Jules

We're In!

Well we picked Kitten up from the Kennel Sunday night and kept her in the family room. We moved a couple of the leather recliners in for her to sleep on and she did fine. Those mission doors have been really helpful in keeping Kitten separated from people walking through and getting into trouble. She has been eating like a pig ever since we got home and her coat is glossing up again.

Our final inspection was on Wednesday afternoon and it passes. Andrew had the afternoon off between work and school and he moved all of the essentials that we were keeping at Mom and Dad’s so we spent our first night in the house on Wednesday. I didn’t get much sleep though, without any furniture but the bed and some boxes the bedroom felt kind of creepy that first night. On Thursday Andrew’s day clinicals got canceled so he was able to help Dad and his buddies move all the rest of our stuff. It was great to come home last night and have plenty of unpacking to do. All the furniture is in the house and what boxes aren’t in the house are in the garage. I made some headway in the kitchen and bedroom last night and have all weekend to get us further settled. I’ll pick up our mission table for the study this weekend too. I will show pictures once we get the computer hooked up which could be as early as next week—but don’t get your hopes up. Hooking up the computer is a lower priority right now. Talk to you later, Jules