Christmas Lights

Today Harry and I finished putting up the lights on the house and then worked inside at decorating the inside of the house. We of course had to use our reserve lights that we had planned to return because we thought we were have plenty. You don't realize how many lights you need to cover a house. So on and off all day we would decorate and by nights end we had our living room/dining room all Christmas out and the outside looks like the Christmas Light fairy came by and work her magic. Christmas is both Harry and I favorite holiday so we go all out. And we still aren't done, this is only the beginning.

A Day Off???

Normally the day after Thanksgiving is a day off, but my current job do not have "holiday" pay and in order for me to get a full check this week I had to work Today and tomorrow to make up for taking off Thursday. There were only two other people who worked today so it was a fairly quiet day.

When I got home I had a surprise waiting for me in the mail. A friend’s documentary called "Pegwarmers". http://www.pegwarmers.tv/ This is a documentary about Geeks, collectors, DnD players, Costumers and anything else geeky. It shows people that we are like everyone else. We aren't all 40-year-old virgins living in their mother’s basements. This put a positive spin on being a geek. I have been dying to see this for about a year and he's been working on it for a long time. He said he was going to send me a preview copy and after months of waiting it finally arrived. Of course I had to put it on right away and watch it. Luckily Harry wanted to see it as well. It was great, you wouldn't believe it was a 'fan' made documentary. They currently have several companies interested in distributing it. I wish them the best of luck.

After watching Pegwarmers I decided to get a start on hanging Christmas light on the house. Harry and I pulled out all the Christmas light and started to check and see if they were still working. We also bought quite a few new strands and my Dad gave us a bunch of his. I figure that would be enough. It was getting dark quickly and I wanted to at least get the lights up on top of the house before it was too dark. After several tries and bad light strands we managed to hang all the lights ups on the rooftop. At least all the lights we had. We ran out which I didn't expect. So that was it for the night.. I plan on finishing tomorrow.

Thanksgiving

Like last year Harry and I went to my cousin Renee's house for Thanksgiving. This year was a bit different as her brother Darren and his family were not coming. Instead they had 10 young (19 -21) mormon Elders (priests) joining us. I don't know much about Mormonism but I guess when you become a Mormon priest you spend your first two years on a "mission" and since they didn't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving Renee invited them to join her family. Anyways it was a fun night, good food and great company.

Half-Day... Yeah Right!!!

Today was a half day here at work.. at least for some folks. Seems like people started to leave around 2 and by 3 almost everyone was gone.. well everyone but me and a few loggers. Instead of getting off early I actually stayed an extra hours and a half past my normal time I get off... so much for a half day.

Shopping Online

As I get older and the crowds get more rude I find myself turning to the internet for Christmas shopping. Not only do you get to avoid the traffic, parking lots and rude people you can shop while working, hanging at home or any free moment you have. The only down side to shopping online is that you pay for shipping, but since online prices are normally lower the shipping isn't so bad. I shop online mostly for DVD's and hard to find Ebay items. I still like shoping in 'real' stores but as I get older I can handle crowds less and less. After two hours of driving and dealing with people I'm ready to go home. So this year I'm trying to do more and more shopping online.

TV Strike

Well today was my first TV viewing casualty as a result of the writer’s strike. The Big Bang Theory is in repeats, no more new episodes. As much as I'm behind the writers it's hard to accept that this years TV season is going to be cut short.

Home Improvements

For our house warming party / bbq several folks gave us money and gift certificates so of course Harry and I had to go shopping. Our first stop was at Target. We got a new door knob for the garage (previous one didn't have a key), we got more Christmas decorations, we got another deep fryer (we love our french fries and our last fryer died), and we bought several Christmas gifts. Our next stop was going to be Michal's craft store. The only one I knew of was the one in North Hollywood, well after driving several miles we found out that it was gone, no longer at that location. So we decided to head to Home Depot. At Home Depot we got a screen door for the back door and a 6 foot ladder so I can hang Christmas lights.

When we got home we decided that we would put up the screen door. Well we figure we watch Trading Spaces and all those home improvment shows.. this was fairly straight forward... well we were wrong. Two hours later and three attempts to get the door on right we gave up and went to putting on the new door knob on the garage door. Again, this seemed like a simple task. I got the old door knob off.. no problem. I figure we could use the same inside guts and just put the new door knob on. We did this and shut the door we me inside garage and Harry on the outside. Of course I got locked in the garage and couldn't get out. Harry and to go around and open the front garage door so I could get out. Come to find out that the inside guts are different from the old knob.. so we have to replace everything and after several attempts we got the door knob on and working. YAY!!!!

Feeling good that we got that done we went back to the screen door. I figured you would measure your door and go and buy one and a few screws and it's up... yeah right. We got the screen door, and you have to cut it down, screw in the door handle, screw in the braces to hold the door on and so much more that I was not expecting.. of course we don't have the right tools so Harry and I use what we have and manage to get the door on and after five or six tries we got the handle on and working. We now have a back door screen door and it looks great. By this time we had spent about four hours putting up a screen door and putting in a new door knob... fun times.