Merry Christmas to all

I started writing a regular Christmas card five minutes before the Newtown shooting, then couldn't even think of writing for a few days. When I did get in the mood again and get around to writing, I wrote a Christmas poem, then deleted that by mistake when trying an unfamiliar newsletter format. So then I got irritated  and wrote the whole thing off, at least temporarily, because of a press to do a dozen other things. So, no letter and no card, but I still wish you all well.

All is well here, and we are both still healthy. How long that status will remain, who knows? A couple days ago the teller at the bank confessed she had come down with something just as she was counting out my money.  An hour later, a clerk at one store coughed into his hand (and my change) as he handed back my money. I immediately went looking for sanitizing hand lotion and a place to wash my hands. Arrrgh!!! Oh, well. We are still healthy, nonetheless. Work on the house continues slowly in my own fashion. I am tiling around the Jacuzzi in the master bath later today and putting up a new shower door  tomorrow. After that, mostly little things remain, door casing, molding and such. Actually the molding could take a solid week of work, but I'll probably break it up into one room at a time. Next  month (?) I'll tackle the final room re-do, a downstairs bathroom, but this will be simple. Landscaping outdoors can wait until Spring. In any event, I am moved into the new Master Bedroom, which is carpeted and has furniture. I've been searching Craigslist regularly for three weeks looking for elements of my PAX closet system from Ikea. I have almost everything I need now. I may have to cut down a couple things, but no matter. I look forward to it, actually.  I have to fight my inherited tendencies towards disorganization and chaos every hour of every day, but we all have issues.

In lieu of work today I am dragging my slide projector out and will show jack and Judy some slides of my trip and old family slides if I can get my act together. I couldn't find the VHS copy of old family 8mm movies when I looked yesterday. That would be fun, too. Jack is now better able to appreciate old family stuff. I am thrilled that he's started reading my old copies of Reminisce magazine in the last two weeks. It is not a sophisticated magazine, but it has great value in bringing the past to life through all its reader written stories and submitted photos. If he takes an interest in my American Heritage magazines I will be a happy man. I have all the issues going back to 1954. 

Judy is with two of her three kids this morning, but she'll be back for a midday dinner. All's well with Us. We snuggled and talked for an hour in bed yesterday before getting up, which is a gift by itself. We don't always have the time, or I get up at 5 and she sleeps. You'll find us by the fire most evenings, as it's been cool or cold and rainy a lot lately. We may book a Fall cruise through her Princess discounts. Have to take Jack out of school for that, but I think he can take some work with him. We'll see.

Jack is happy not to be in school. He said he wanted to stay up all night one night, so the first day of this vacation I let him try. I took a pillow and blanket and slept on the couch while he played various games on the computer. At 2:45 he decided he had enough. Of course he wants to do that again, but I told him it wasn't going to happen for a long time.  I will have him start on some extra school stuff tomorrow just to improve some skills and give him something to do an hour or two a day. He found an art/drawing program pre-installed on his computer and was working on that yesterdayt. Hooray! (The attached picture was taken last week before tree decorating). One gift I am giving him is a comics creation program for the computer. We'll see how that works.

I should get on with things here.

Enjoy your day and the last few days of 2012.