Scattered Thoughts . . .

O nce again, I have fallen behind in writing here.   My health has been really lousy...  the fatigue has been brutal and then I spent most of today in the bathroom.  I just can't seem to get much of anything accomplished.  Things have been lousy and leaning toward miserable (especially today).   I have a lot to get done this week and it's beginning to look like I will not get everything done before Christmas at this point.  I'm hoping that my health improves through the night tonight so I can jump on a few things tomorrow morning.  Honestly though, at this point, I don't think there are enough hours in the day to get done what I need to get done this week before Christmas.  Add in the fact that I need to sleep a few hours every afternoon and this means it is less likely that I will get everything done at this point.  To say that this is frustrating is an understatement.   Anyway...  I shot a few photos of our outside Christmas decorations a few days ago but forgot about

Sheila and I managed to get to the Christmas decorating a bit early this year so our home has been decorated for Christmas, inside and out, for the past two weeks or so.  For a few months, I was thinking we wouldn't do any Christmas decorating at all this year because I had been feeling so lousy.  Mostly, among a few symptoms, I was in quite a bit of pain and I was overwhelmingly fatigued. I then had a few relatively good health days...  not to be confused with a healthy person's good days...   and the weather was cooperating for outdoor activities with some unseasonably sunny and warm days so we tackled the outdoor decorations.  The weather had jumped into the 70s on this particular weekend so we were outdoors. While we were on a roll with decorating the outside of the house for Christmas, we then moved inside and put up the tree and the rest of the indoor decorations.  I started putting up the tree and put the lights on the tree but Sheila finished decorating the Christmas tr

It is finally beginning to feel like Christmas!  All the presents are wrapped and under the tree.  The house is decorated inside and out.  We'll soon begin our much anticipated Christmas celebrations at the house.   We had a little setback this morning.  When we got up this morning, both Sheila and I felt that the house seemed colder than usual.  Upon checking the thermostat, I noticed that it was indeed cold in the house compared to the thermostat's settings.  I had noticed some minor issues with the furnace a few days ago but didn't act upon it and now I was regretting putting off investigating further. The first thing I checked was the thermostat but that seemed to be working normally.  The next most likely culprit was a frosty/gelled fuel line coming into the house.  After finding a container to use for catching fuel, I bled the line from the tank...  we got about a pint of frosty, gelled fuel as I had suspected.  The week of sub-zero temperatures was too much and s

On our first night in Manhattan, we took a short walk uptown to see the Christmas tree and Christmas decorations in Rockefeller Center.  Somehow, we lucked out and avoided the typical Christmas crowds. I don't know how or why it happened but we actually had plenty of room to spread out and pose for some photos! The last time we visited Rockefeller Center during Christmas, we were in a Manhattan-wide mass of people, shoulder to shoulder, unable to even breath easily. On this particular night last week it was relatively quiet making our visit quite enjoyable... This photo, below, of the Zamboni on the ice rink at Rockefeller Center is one I would never normally shoot but our five year old hockey nut grandson, Lukey, will probably find this photo the most exciting of the bunch so... here it is... A lot of looking upward... Below is a single photo of the building-sized Christmas light show put on by Saks Fifth Avenue each year

It is a beautiful Christmas Eve... the house is quiet except for soft Christmas music being played on our home theatre... the gifts are placed around the tree... comforting drinks are being served... as Santa makes his way around the globe to visit all the little children of the world, we are relaxing in the warmth of our home decorated for Christmas awaiting the children and our Christmas guests...  We have some gifts from Monticello and a dated letter from President Thomas Jefferson provided to us by timeless Santa... There are so many gifts that they are stacked against the wall, climbing toward the ceiling.... So... where are Lukey and Kenzie???  They are probably wondering when Christmas morning will finally arrive... I'm sure 6am will be here soon enough!   Okay... where is my drink?