A quick announcement

Details to follow...

Yeah! I mean "Maybe!"

You shouldn't really shout at your spouse/significant other... but if you do, make it something random like "San Dimas High School football rules!!!!'

Yeah, holiday! And other stuff too.

So, my wife is off tomorrow and Turkey Day... woohoo! We're going to have a scaled down version this year, a turkey breast and some stuffing, crack open a can of corn and some fresh made cranberry dressing. Nothing too fancy, but it is just the two of us and I'm not in a turducken frame of mind for a change.

The house is coming along. We have ONE BOX LEFT! It is clothing and stuff that needs to be sorted and hung up or tossed out. I need to repair one old picture frame, and then it is all waiting to buy the organizing shelves and such to get it the way we want it. I'm going to need a desk, my wife wants a little desk and filing cabinet for an upstairs office. I've put in a request with Santa for some shelving in the kitchen, and a microwave stand for our free-standing ice maker.

In other news, the cats are getting used to the new addition to the family, and vice versa. The dog still hasn't gotten used to the younger cats, and still bows down to Randall the alpha male of the house. And Lily, our youngest?

... looks like I'm going to need a new chair.

Friday Quick Hit: Sith Edition

I just went outside and played Star Wars with the next door neighbor kids. They have the little kid version lightsabers, like I had when I was their age. I have the realistic light and sound "adult" edition Darth Vader lightsaber. Me and my wife are really popular with the under-10 set now.

New Kitty, Longer Version

Here's the longer story behind our new kid:

So, we've lived here like 6-7 weeks. At about week 3 or so, we were sitting out on the front porch in the evening, when we noticed a scrawny white cat on the roof overhanging the porch of the house across the street.   My wife busied herself with freaking out on how the cat got up there, if it belonged to the house or if it was a stray, whatever and so forth. A couple of days later the cat was either still up there or back up there, and there were a pair of cops hanging out on my street. I figured that would be the person to ask about what's up with the cat and who to call if it was stuck up there for good. You know, since I really don't want to get mixed up with the weird shit across the street. Cat finds her way off of the roof, not my problem. 

Cut to the weekend, where the cops spend the whole fucking day at that same house, and at one point one of the guys living there was hanging out in handcuffs. Just a big ugly fucking mess. A week or so later than that, there's a whole bunch of cops and inspector-types milling around the house. Next day there's a big ugly orange sticker on the window that says "NO TRESPASSING" on it. Day after that Handcuffs Guy is out there scraping the sticker off. A couple of days after that, the cops are back and so is the sticker. The last few days I've seen Handcuff Guy once, and the chick living there leave the place with bags and sacks of clothing, and then zero activity around the house. 

Well, zero activity except for the same goddamned white cat hanging around the porch all day and night. Finally last night my wife and I were back out on the porch and saw her, and on a whim I decided to walk over and see how she was. Poor little thing comes right up to me and starts nuzzling my leg. I don't think anyone has been feeding her, because she's just stick-thin. So I scoop her up, and run back to the house... well, most of the way and then I trip and fall in the yard and lose my gun somewhere. Did I mention I always carry my gun outside? Anyways, my wife runs over, grabs the cat, and SHE falls down after her foot hits the curb where its covered by leaves. 

We find my gun, set up a temp litter box and feeding area in my office, and... here's LILY!!

She's eaten about 47 pounds of cat food in the last 24 hours. She clawed my hand so bad that I'm pretty sure I'm getting a couple of scars from it. Other than that, she's mostly a sweetheart but still easily spooked by the other pets or when you touch her unexpectedly. Randall was like that when we got him, and he grew out of it and now he is the big lovey boy in the house. I'm guessing Lily will be fine too, once the newness wears off. 

So yeah... I'm a soft-hearted goof who takes in strays. So sue me. 

I guess I have another daughter?

Yeah?

This is Lily... long story. I literally picked her up off the street.

Beer!

Picked me up a Samuel Adams Winter Classics variety pack. Two each of the following:

• Boston Lager
• Winter Lager
• Holiday Porter
• Black & Brew
• Chocolate Bock
• Old Fezziwig Ale

I'm all about the variety packs. I likes new and different flavors, and it is pretty cool that I can try a bunch all in one package. The only downside to the homebrew deal I'm considering is that you are sort of committed to 50+ beers all of one sort. I guess I'll just have to buy a few dozen buckets and brew us out of house and home!

Perfectly reasonable plan, right? 

UGH

I keep all the cables. It is totally a good idea in principle: I will never run out of USB phone charging cables, and they work to charge my camera and my pocket camcorder as well as data transfer. I've got a couple of extra of everything in case something goes bad, which isn't a bad idea if a guitar cable goes bad and you're semi-broke.

The only problem is that when you have so much, sometimes it becomes impossible to find the specific thing you're looking for. And if you can't find it, you might as well not have it. So it becomes sort of a struggle, and what I need to do is buy some cable ties and large ziplock bags and organize by category instead of having baskets of bird nests. It is a work in progress.

One of the things that got lost in the move was the receiver for my wireless keyboard and mouse. I found receivers for a couple of sets I don't own anymore, which is worse than useless. So I bought another mouse/keyboard combo that works, and then didn't work right when I had thrown away the packaging. Back to the store to buy a wired keyboard and mouse so that I could work on the computer and fix the issue. Cool, fine, whatever. Decided to just keep the wired stuff for emergencies... remember, I keep everything.

Went looking today for the charger for my electric razor. Thing cost like $130, although I only paid $12 thanks to coupons and gift cards. Dug through the baskets for awhile, considered and then rejected the idea of throwing stuff away, and FINALLY found the charging cable for the razor. Also found the receiver for the old mouse and keyboard.

Not going to throw them away, just in case. Hoarders unite!!!!

Friday Quick Hit

I think Randall my oldest cat is psychic, and has been using my dreams to try to manipulate me into letting him go outside. Not going to happen, because no child of mine is going out and getting hit by a car or lost in the big bad city. Not going to happen, period.

It doesn't mean I don't feel bad for the guy...

One month in the new house/new town/new life

TL;DR: not bad, some things sort of suck now, but won't forever.

Longer version: Things are not too bad, the house could use some work, but I think we can make a go of it. My wife is VERY happy with her job, and I'm looking at being back in school next fall so that will be cool. In the meantime, I'm getting some exercise and losing weight. My mood and outlook are much improved, according to my wife. According to me I'm generally sleeping better and maybe not flying off the handle as much.

Money is the big issue right now. We're still paying moving expenses a month later. We accidentally ran up a $500 phone bill, plus the connection fees for utilities in the new house were more than we counted on. We're used to having a pretty big cushion, but my wife's higher insurance is going to eat most of that up, so until we get our budget adjusted we're going to be sort of on the edge of broke all the time.

In a year it isn't going to matter. We'll be out of our cell phone contracts, which will mean we'll save $100 a month. My wife's new insurance will save us another $75-100 a month on co-pays and meds. Not having to run the heat/air 24-7 will help too. We're going to buy a chest freezer and start shopping at one of those warehouse stores. And I guess I should brew my own beer to save money? I have a nasty unfinished basement to use as my evil lair/brewery...

At the same time, we need to pour some money into the house to make it more than just a roof over our heads.  There's no room in the kitchen for food, no room in the closet for our clothing, and the laundry room is in my office. My office is connected to the living room by French doors, so that's not going to work. There's no ice maker in the fridge, there's no desk in my office, there's no space for anything in the bathrooms. All this means money. Not big money, but nickle-and-dime stuff. Except the desk. That's $500. :)

And even though I don't have a desk, I do have a cleared space with my stuff mostly set up in it. It is a weird thing, how my internal life is often reflected in the external state of my living space. When I'm doing badly, things tend to be a mess. When I'm feeling good, my office stays organized and the dishes get done. What's even weirder is how the external can impose itself on the internal. Without an organized home, I tend to be all over the place. Not blogging much, not interested in doing much, sort of drives me to nap more. My wife and I are going to "finish" setting up the house this week, even if all that means is that we remove everything that's laying around waiting for a home and cram it in the storage room upstairs until we feel like dealing with it.

We're both doing pretty well, and the house should reflect that.