Leaves me alone

It is that time of year.  When the last of the leaves fall to the ground.  I am always surprised at the amount of leaves that fall in my yard.  This year I have already raked twice.  Fortunately, in this case, my yard is small.  I live in a community that will pick up the leaves if I put them at the curb.  That is nice and annoying at the same time.  Nice because the leaves will soon disappear.  Annoying because 1) I have to rake them and 2) everyone else puts the leaves on the curb so the road is clogged with leaves.

I do not mind leaves on the ground.  Sometimes the sound of the crunching leaves is cool to hear.  Since I can get rid of leaves for free, I might as well.  Knowing our community there is probably some rule against having leaves in the yard.  Some people burn their yard waste or dump it further it woods.  Others make piles for the children to jump in.  I know I have been sheltered, but I am not sure if I have ever jumped in a leaf pile.   Right now that does not sound appealing because I would imagine it would hurt. I saw some story on the news where people make a 17 foot high leaf pile and jumped off a roof onto it.  Not for me.  I do not enjoy raking that much or heights.

When I rake it always seems I miss a spot.  I get the leaves to the place and turn around.  Only to see more leaves in the area I just raked.  I tried to use an electric leaf blower I received as a gift.  It worked pretty well, except for my incompetence.  That is hard work!

Leaves come and go, but there is always work to be done from the ground up.

Joy to the world

Wendy and I are blessed to have easy going children.  They would have to be easy going to put up with a parent like me.  Of course we have our screaming matches and the girls fuss too.

Ava will burst into smiles.  It is pretty funny to see this.  The toothless (well two teeth are popping up from the bottom) grin.  She can go from happy to crying uncontrollably in a few seconds, which leaves us saying what happened?

Joy is for the most part her name.  People comment how cute she is.  She enjoys helping. Fill in blank, too.  Joy loves to go up stairs.  Plus touching DVDs, as much as we tell her not to.  Sometimes Joy seems so independent and non-attentive that I think as soon as she can move out she will.  Then I wonder if she moves out will she call us to come over all the time?  The hard part me is letting Joy do things on her own while not letting her act wild.  I know there is a fine line.

Parenthood is one of those things where you are not sure if you are being rewarded or challenged.

Food for thought

Last week was Thanksgiving.  So it was a time of food and seeing family.  I was off work, which was an added bonus.

We left Wednesday afternoon to head to see Wendy's parents.  They live on the way to see my family for Thanksgiving, so it can take off some of the drive on the Thanksgiving day.  Traffic was not too bad, we faced some congestion.  However, traffic is getting worse all the time anyway.

Thursday morning we went to New Bern to see my family.  The two big celebrations for my family are Thanksgiving and a family reunion.  It was a nice time.  Wendy and I did not get to eat too much.  Thanks to a mobile child.  We joked this year we left the Thanksgiving meal feeling hungry.  I did get a small sample of each dessert, so you do not have to feel too bad.

Then Friday, while others shopped, we sat around the house.  Wendy's family had an array of food that afternoon. 

Saturday we had an appointment to get pictures.  Wendy wanted a picture of Ava and a family photo.  So three hours later and thanks to a coupon we have pictures.  Well at least the CD.  The pictures will arrive later.  Wendy has already been working on Christmas cards.  We had a few of the leftovers for lunch.

It always seems with leftovers that I am tired of eating them.  I think I will not eat that again.  Then when I get hungry for something quick I miss the leftovers.  Sometimes the leftovers are the best part of the meal.

Do you have a favorite food to eat as a leftover?

It is my 15 minutes

This morning I had a question for my provider of phone, television, and internet.  Of course I got the automated message saying hold for the next available representative.  The message asked would I like to take a survey after the phone call and that if I would that I will receive a phone call in 15 minutes.  Or if I would not be near a phone in 15 or wanted to decline, I could.  So I declined the survey.

Well it took almost 15 minutes for me to speak to a live person.  I guess I was better off taking the survey.  Makes me wonder if since I did not agree to take the survey I was put further on the list and shown that I would have to wait 15 minutes anyway.

Con me into reading a comic

I will admit the day did not start off too well.  Not quite sure it ended that well either.  However, here it is.

Saturday, my brother had picked up tickets for the NCComicon.  The show was held at the Durham Convention Center.  I have never been to a Comicon, so I thought why not.  It had been held at the Morrrisville Mall, but I never made it over there.

So Saturday morning, I head out to pick up my brother.  Before I leave Wendy and Ava had been up off and on since 3 am.  I get five miles from my brother's place and I hear phef, phef, phef.  I think what is that? I pull off into a driveway.  It is my rear passenger tire.  Flat!  The sad thing is I had put air in my tires just ther  day before.  So I call my brother to say I have to put on a spare.  Of course being Saturday, the tire place just a mile from his house, which would have been cheaper, was not open.  We find a tire place open.  They were really nice.  So after putting on a new tire and $60 later we are on the way.

We get to the Convention Center and park in the parking deck.  Fortunately, the parking meter was turned off.  We walk toward the building.  They have in an area the Batmobile from the television series, the Mystery Van from Scobby Doo, and the Dolorean from Back to the Future.  One can get a picture taken by the vehicles, for a donation of course.

We go inside and because my brother had pre-ordered tickets we walk right in.  We also got a goodie bag with two comics, a shirt, and little Heroclix figure.  I had never played Heroclix, but it was free.  Basically the Comicon was artists seeing their prints and vendors saying comics and toys.  It was a little different than I expected, but it was still neat to say that I have been.  I saw a few costumes, but not as many as I thought I would.  I think on Sunday they were having a costume parade.  It was interesting to see the people making purchases.

For lunch we thought we would see what was around.  We thought about walking, but decided to drive around.  As we were leaving the parking deck, I noticed there was now a guy standing at the gate.  Now they decided to charge incoming vehicles.  I think great, my brother says maybe we can find free parking.  So we head off and not knowing Durham drive around a bit.  We do not see much.  We had placed an Afghani place, I think the sign said, on the way to the Convention Center.  My brother said let's try there.  It was pretty good.  I do not have much experience with foreign food.  I was worried I would not like it, but I was able to eat it.  It was almost like Indian food, of course I have limited experience eating Indian food.

After our meal, we leave the car in the restaurant's parking lot and walk back to the Convention Center.  It was about a fifteen minute walk.  Since we have the wristband we walk right in.  Which is good because the line to get in was long.

We attend a few of the panels.  One was about showing film genres.  It was pretty interesting.  The guy was talking about 35 mm films and finding prints from the studios and how everything was going digital.  The other panel was a discussion with a comic book artist.  I had heard of some of his work, the titles, but not really read any of it.  It was interesting because the people on the panel would mention something and the audience would nod heads and ooh and ahh.  While I had no idea what they were talking about.

I get back that afternoon to the house because Wendy and I have to drop off Joy and Ava at the church.  They were having free childcare for two hours.  So rush to that.  Then we went to Walmart and had donuts and coffee/hot chocolate at Dunkin Donuts.  It is the little things.

So I guess the day was not that bad, hectic, of course, but not bad.

Dress for success

Wendy and I last night we to the mall to look for dresses for the girls.  Wendy was the one looking, I was pushing the stroller.  You do not want my fashion advice.  We went to several stores in the mall, but Wendy did not find what she wanted.  She wanted two dresses that were the same or at least close in color for a family Christmas picture.  Plus everything was expensive. 

Our last stop was a used children clothing store.  Wendy found two dresses and almost got them.  When she got to the counter, it looked like one was stained badly in the light.  Probably snot, Wendy told me.  So she did not buy the dresses.

Wendy ended up ordering two dresses from online.  With a special sale it is about the same price as the cheaper of the dresses.  Unfortunately, not as cheap as the used dresses.  However, they should be clear of bodily fluids.

Meet me halfway

The beginning of this week I was in Greensboro for work.  It was our annual meeting.  It is not that bad of a time.  It can be a lot of work.  Part of my job is to help load a rented truck with all the materials and furniture that will be taken to the meeting.  Then I have to help load it back and bring it back to the building.  The good news is that my room and meals are provided.

This year was pretty quiet.  I do not think there were any big controversies.  Attendance was a little lower than last year.  It was a couple of late nights.  Of course anything later than 7 or 8 is late for me.  The first night did not get out until 9:30 pm and the second, final night I had to work until midnight.  We had to be out of the hall by midnight.  The longest part of loading the truck was placement of the furniture.

I think the best part about the room was the shower.  Plenty of hot water and the pressure was pretty good.

I could tell my supervisor was reading to get home because we met for breakfast at 6:30 am and were back at the building by 9 am.

One of the elect

This past Tuesday was election day.  Some were happy, others were not.  According to the results it does  seem that the country is split.  I do not think the country will divide into two countries.  However, who knows?  The point that interests me is that before the election we had a democrat as president, republicans controlled the House, and democrats controlled the Senate.  Two billion dollars later and millions of pestered  voters what do we have?  A democrats as president, republicans in control of the House, and the Senate controlled by democrats.

I was pretty much wrong about the election.  I thought based on the numbers months ago that the election would have a pretty low turnout.  A lot of people were wrong about things as well.  Many thought we would have a new president.  A few by a landslide.  I wonder what happened.  That shows speculation is not reality, as much as we would hope.

Is President Obama going to do anything?  I think he will lay low the first two years.  He might try and pass something near the end of his term.  Because he knows that it will be it.  What did he do his first term?  His party was in control the first two years and he did not really do anything.  His last two years, the House and the Senate were so divided nothing was accomplished.  Some will say President Obama did some good things while others say he did harm.

It does seem that our country is interested in letting the government do more.  Spend more of our money or well borrow more from others is probably the truth.  Now granted, I enjoy free stuff about as much as anyone, but there is personal responsibility.  I think we as Americans have lost some of that.  However, I do not know much, but only what I am told.

Sometimes we have to pray for the best and live through the worst.

Luna-tic

I woke up this morning and went into the kitchen.  I had not yet turned on any lights.  Our backdoor is one those clear glass doors.  Looking out the door shows our very small deck.  I looked out this morning and thought I saw snow.  I was not looking forward to snow.  I look at my phone to see if there any weather updates. 

I say to Wendy who is trying to go to sleep, "It has snowed!"  She says it is probably frost.

It was not even that.  The moon cast the light and I thought it was snow.  I guess it is better to have natural light than pitch black.  Even if it does cause illusions.

I am glad it was not snow.  I am not ready for that weather yet.