zola | Entries tagged with family and friends

Not much exciting happening, to continue the theme of "I have no life", but that's just how it is sometimes.

It's warmed up here beautifully, I was just gloating over the ten-day forecast that shows we'll be in the fifties and sixties for the entire period. Of course, this means that it's time to go outside and do yard work.

( Droning on about yard work )

This will all have to be figured out while we work out how we're going to accomplish all the OTHER stuff that needs to be done. A lot of it we can do ourselves, and I figure the exercise does me good--I try to think of it as strength training.

( Now for some boring weight stuff )

heavyarms02 is temporarily laid off from his main job, but hopefully he'll be getting a call in another week at most--they got through the worst part of the year already, they're about to hit the busy season. He happily has the part time job to fall back on, and they've increased his hours, so it's not nearly as bad as it could be.

Ben is doing well, his hours fluctuate lately, but that's normal at this time of year--he'll get scheduled for only twenty hours but then someone will quit and they call him in. His hours will also increase once we get into the spring/summer season. He's actually working on illustrations for a children's book, although we aren't sure if the project will ever get off the ground. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I think my stepdaughter is going to visit us soon, she's actually only about six hours away (as opposed to about 12 hours away from Massachusetts). It will be nice to see her, we were just talking about how she and Ben used to watch every horror movie they could get their hands on and mock them unmercifully... Our house is not the place to be if you expect to watch a movie in rapt silence, LOL!

My two are doing well, my son is going college in the fall, and

heavyarms02's two daughters will be arriving at the end of May. Rumor has it that Jesse will also be making his annual visit, so I guess we'll have plenty to do.

And now back to work. *cracks whip over self*

The roommate's munchkins are visiting for Christmas this year...

So today, I pulled up the NORAD Santa site, where they "track" Santa's progress, and called the eldest over. "Look!" I said. "He's almost in Africa!"

"Come and see!" she called her sister. "He's real! Look! They have him on radar. The italicized word, you understand, was pronounced in a tone of smug, knowledgable satisfaction. She wandered off again, completely content. She's sort of on the border of belief this year, so I don't expect to get away with it next year. It's a fun site and I've been just dying to get a chance to impress a child with it--when I found it some years ago, mine were past the age of believing in Santa Claus except in the spiritual sense.

The youngest came over and I showed her the youtube clip NORAD had up there of Santa leaving the North Pole to start his busy night. (All the clips).

I almost died laughing when they showed Santa passing the North Pole, a candy-cane striped pole in the snowy expanse and she suddenly said "There. The North Pole," in much the same tones her sister had used on the word "radar". Apparently she believes that there is an actual barber-striped pole stuck in the ground there.

I'd hate to disappoint her, does anyone know anybody who lives near the North Pole who can go put a striped post in the ground? ;)

Been wildly busy again, I'm working on several code projects when I'm not chasing children--

heavyarms02's other daughter arrived yesterday, so we're all adjusting. There was a bit of drama with their grandmother that I may go into later for my f-list, but I put an end to that very quickly and the dust settled without incident.

Jesse has been visiting as well, I can't believe he's almost sixteen! He's doing really well, he's been wonderfuly patient with the girls even when they're driving him nuts.

SBO is temporarily shut down, apparently there's a new exploit somewhere in Nuke, but I wasn't able to find it quickly and they kept coming back. I've got my own fix, I just have to convert it over, but that requires time, which I just haven't had. I'm hoping to be able to take care of it over the long weekend--

heavyarms02 is off on Monday as well and thus can field the small and noisy humans so I can get some things done.

The projects are so cool--one of them has me working with AJAX and I've already thought of several places in my old stuff that it would be amazingly helpful, so I'm looking forward to winding up what I'm doing with the current project.

I'll probably post more later, right now I need to get back to work.

Delenn made out like a bandit, LOL!

All joking aside, the big thing was of course sneakers. I don't know how she was getting her feet into those old sneakers at all: they were a size 2 and the new ones, which are just right, are a size 3 1/2.

They had some things on clearance, we got her a couple of long sleeved shirts for $3.00 apiece, a purse also on clearance for $3.00, a sweater on clearance for $5.00, some mud boots since the snow season is almost over and the mud season is about to begin, and a couple of badly needed belts--for all that she's getting tall, she's still very slender and her pants are the right size and length but will slide down her hips if she doesn't hike them up constantly.

She needed the shirts, all hers are sleeveless and short-sleeved and it's colder here than Florida, and we got a size larger than the one she's wearing now so she'll get some wear out of them next fall too. The comical part is that most of her wardrobe when she arrived was pink, and now she is preferring black, just like a certain beloved anime character, and apparently left the house attired in a way suitable for Smith Mansion this morning. I don't suppose it helps that just about everything I own is black as well, for all that I mostly wear sweat pants and t-shirts.

I kidded her that she could do the black and pink and get the Angel look going, and she just rolled her eyes at me and debated on whether or not she needed a wallet. She was hilarious at checkout--she had picked out a couple of books to buy with her own money, and she very solemnly dumped out the quarters and proudly took her receipt.

She's settling in nicely. She's getting the idea on what's expected of her very quickly, I was pleasantly surprised because I knew that the house rules here would be very, very different than what she was used to. I don't micromanage a child, so there are very few rules as long as said child exercises common sense, and generally, as long as they have done what they are supposed to do, like chores and homework, I leave them the hell alone.

I figured given she was used to a great deal more regimentation, it might take her a while to get the hang of it. She seems to be thriving under the looser regime, though, and is already making more sensible choices for herself. I was very pleased last night when she sat down after supper to do her homework and just plowed through it without dawdling--normally she would have done it earlier but we had gone out shopping, and all I did was to remind her of this and ask her to please not mess around with getting the work done since it was late.

Of course, this could just be the honeymoon period... *laughs*.

The comments to the last entry reminded me that one of my bookcases has my kids' height measurements on it--we'll have to add Delenn to that once the floor repairs are finished and we put the bookcases back together again.

LOL! I forgot how quickly kids can grow. Delenn complained today that she was having trouble with her sneakers. She said that even after unlacing them, she was having a lot of trouble getting her foot into it.

I had her bring them out. Holy cow! She's ready for the next size up already!

WalMart is rapidly becoming my home away from home...

Apparently, we aren't getting just one roommate, we're getting two.

The second roommate is the delightful young daughter of our planned roommate,

heavyarms02

She is nine years old and likes to read, especially about dragons and unicorns and other fantastic creatures.

*eyes 5000 books sf/fantasy collection*

Whee. Life just got INTERESTING.

We didn't do any decorating this year--I only just finished clearing out the storage unit in Massachusetts, and with a pile of boxes still awaiting sorting, I honestly wasn't sure where all the Christmas stuff was hiding, LOL! It will be a lot easier next year, we'll have gotten it all sorted out.

I left a message for my mother--I'm guessing she headed over to my sister's--and I talked to the kids while they were enroute to the Cape for further holiday celebration. They're both doing really well, my daughter started working at a bank and my son just got his own place on-Cape, they're talking about looking for a rental together once they've had a chance to save some money.

Ben has been having fun with baking Christmas Goodies, I finally got the laptop up and running again and later on, we're doing a sort of communal-effort dinner with the neighbor's son and his girlfriend--we don't have a stove, and they don't have a kitchen table, LOL!

They have a ham, so they're going to bake it over there and then bring it over. We're taking care of the potatoes and the bread and the vegetables, and it ought to be nice and relaxing.

I hope everyone on my flist has a fun and peaceful holiday.

Well, I'm pleased to report my roommate got himself a job at last.

We figured that it would take a bit because it's a small town and people need a chance to get to know you, but the call came through this morning.

Life is going to be a lot easier. Who knows, maybe I'll even be able to get a stove and refrigerator. ;)

Ours were exciting. My roommate was washing dishes and a glass broke on his hand and basically peeled off the knuckle.

We had originally hoped that if we splinted it and wrapped it firmly, we could avoid a trip to the ER on Christmas Day. When the bleeding wouldn't stop over several hours, that hope faded. However, happily, we had managed to delay long enough to miss the happy crowds, and they saw him right away. They had to cauterize it and he now is the proud owner of six stitches.

It's getting better today, he's starting to complain, which is a good sign. It looked real good when I changed the bandage. I told him it was a hell of a way to try to avoid doing dishes for ten days and next time he should just speak up. He told me I was lucky his hand was injured. *snerks*

Other than that, things are going fine. I've been busy at work on a new video, I don't know when I will release it because it's very time-consuming. Still, I'm enjoying doing it and it gave my head a much-needed rest before I dive back into programming for the sites I have to do.

I'm looking forward to 2006.

Addendum: Gacked from Advinius. You're so surprised by this result, right?

The Uber Geek
You answered 88% of the questions as a geek truly would.

You just completely conquered the geek test. Not only are you a geek, you're you're proud of it and wear it like a badge. Saying you're socially awkward is an understatement. Your hobbies include most things that normal folks cringe at.

You're obsessed with information and details. You'd skip a Friday night party if it meant getting your latest project finished. Your intelligence probably intimidates people, and you enjoy spitting out random trivia to annoy people.

So what does it all mean? Well for one, your claims of being a geek are true. You were probably picked on - heavily - in high school. You don't care about fashion, so generally you're easy to spot from a distance. In social situations, you're either perfectly silent or ridiculously loud-mouthed (true geeks always fall into the extremes). Cool people probably laugh at you behind your back, but you take gratification in knowing most will grow up to become career alcoholics.

In a nutshell, you answered almost every question as a true member of the geek philosophy. You're geekier than 80% of the population!