First Day of Winter

Well… it’s winter again. Again. Literally winter, as opposed to the last three plus months which was figuratively winter. Literal winter runs from December to March. Here in New England, figurative winter runs from September 1st through sometime in late June. The upside of the first day of winter is that from now on the days start getting longer. The downside is that it’s going to get colder and more awful with each passing day, and it’s going to take so long for the days to get longer enough that it matters that it won’t make any real difference for months.

I hate winter.

December 21st puts us in the home stretch for xmas. I am still waiting for the amazonians to deliver a couple of things so the wrapping is still not complete. I have to go out and pick up a few things today as well. That includes some food supplies for xmas eve, xmas dinner, and our slightly delayed annual xmas eve party which happens on the Sunday after xmas this year. I also need to bring my work-holiday gift to my sister’s today so we can have it with xmas dinner.

I need to play guitar but there probably won’t be time for it. I need to go out and take pictures of stuff but the weather likely won’t let me. Ugh.

Lots to do, but I can’t do anything until I clean the tiny amount of snow we got yesterday off of the cars and the driveway. Ugh.

I hate winter. Remember that time a few years ago when we went to Florida in January and the weather was warm? Can we maybe do that again?

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Cellar Dweller

My step son, Harry, is home! He was here when I got home from work last night and it was wonderful having him around. Having kids here makes me happy.

Him being home today means that I am working from the office desk in the cellar instead of the desk in his room. I am a cellar dweller again while he’s home. Today is Friday and I am working from home. Next week I will be in the office on Monday and then I am off for xmas eve, xmas day, and I took a vacation day for the day after xmas. So one day working in the cellar is all I need. I can handle it. Not that there’s any difficulty working in the cellar, I just like being upstairs more. That’s all.

I do have one thing planned for my lunch break down here in the cellar where no one can see me…

I setup a gift wrapping station. Let’s see how much of the remaining pile of presents I can get through while I eat my chicken patty and fries. Bring on the work day so I can get to it. Two working days left before Santa comes. Still much to do in that little amount of time. Let’s do this thing!

Holiday Traffic

Word on the street (pun intended) is that traffic is really crappy tonight. I still have almost two hours to go before I finish work and go out to brave the roads, but I am not looking forward to it.

What I am looking forward to is seeing my step son tonight. He’ll probably be getting to the house while I’m stuck in traffic. All the more reason to be happy about the commute situation (yes, that was meant to be very sarcastic).

I really want to go home now. One hour and 47 minutes to go.

While we wait, here are two pictures I took while putting gas into the car this morning… because that’s related to the overall topic, right?