Monthly Archives: December 2009

Christmas Holidays are here!

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Yesterday was my last day of work until January 4th! WOO HOOO

What has been going on?

-upgraded to Windows 7 today on my desktop computer at home. It went fairly smoothly. I went from 32 bit to 64 bit since my computer was capable of it. I’ve moved most of my files back and now I’m reinstalling software. 1 beef so far – it automatically installs drivers for every device, which is awesome, but I can’t get the mouse to recognize the left thumb button and I am used to using it ALL the time.

-I’m listening to old time holiday songs on Sirius. Looks like there are 5 Christmas stations this year, so I can jump back and forth between Bing Crosby’s Christmas channel, contemporary carols (yuck), holiday classics on the 40′s channel (currently listening to Buddy Clark’s Winter Wonderland), pop carols, or carols from country stars.

-I zipped to town this morning to beat the grocery store rush. It worked! I hate grocery shopping, but it was more tolerable with hardly anyone in the store.

-Christmas shopping is all done! Gifts are mailed. Okay one didn’t go out until this morning so it will be way way way late, but…. aww well I’m not perfect

-the snow is quickly being replaced by mud. It’s been raining for a couple days now. Jeff had to plow Monday morning and I’m so grateful that he did (and I LOVE THAT PLOW) because the driveway would have been all rock hard ice with all the rain. Around my car it is very icy.

-Jeff didn’t take extra days off this Christmas so he still has another day to go tomorrow. My employer forces us to take 5 days of vacation at Christmas.

-I am going to miss everyone like crazy at Christmas. I love our family Christmases so much, but travel at this time of year is awful. (see ‘We ate Leonard’ – http://lisaschuyler.com/index.php/2007/12/we_ate_leonard for a refresher) Hopefully we’ll live closer some year so we can have family Christmases again.

-I’m going to have to reboot in a sec to install more software, so ta ta for now.

The Plow

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The plow wasn’t here in time for the first snow fall, that fell after the ice formed, so our driveway wasn’t so good for a couple days.

But it arrived on Wednesday and we spent Wednesday night outside in the cold assembling the bracket for the plow and then attaching the plow to the quad.

I only had to run back inside to the basement once for a tool that I never heard of (torque wrench). Our battery powered lantern worked so Jeff could see what he was doing.

Here are the first moments of Jeff trying it out.

ATV Plow

ATV Plow

ATV Plow

ATV Plow

ATV Plow

ATV Plow

ATV Plow

ATV Plow

I am beyond ecstatic about this plow. After these photos we got about 10-15 cm of snow. On top of ice, that would usually put the driveway out of my range for weeks. But we woke up early and Jeff plowed it down to ice and gravel. Then we got a warm spell up to +7 that almost melted the entire driveway. YES!!!

Today’s Life Lesson

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Lesson 1. When wandering outside in your slippers to throw ashes across the snowy, icy driveway, first check the direction of the prevailing wind.

Lesson 2. When you throw a bucket of hot ashes and are startled when the fine ashes all blow back on you, release your second hand from inside the ash bucket handle. Because it’s hot.

Saturday, those pretty yellow birds, shopping, snow storm

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It’s Saturday morning and a big flock of those pretty yellow and black big birds just flew it – evening grosbeaks I think they were called. Jeff counted 20 of them! I just ran out to fill the feeder, but they flew away :( I hope they come back!!

We’re off to the farmer’s market to do some Christmas shopping. We have a snow fall warning forecast for tonight. Maybe 15 cm. We don’t have a plow yet for our new ATV! It isn’t expected to arrive until at least Monday. Uh oh! Hopefully the snow will melt on it’s own!

Here is our new toy:

Me on the ATV