Home and Hearth

Last week went quickly due to missing 1.5 days (school closed at noon Wednesday and all day Thursday) of work. There was an ice storm, and any time we see sleet in Texas, we freak out. It was nice getting paid leave, though. That almost never happened when I worked at RadioShack. I think because people seem to live further afield (Weatherford, Cleburne, Stephenville even - west, south, and southwest from Fort Worth: http://maps.yahoo.com/maps_result?addr=&csz=texas&country=us&new=1&name=&qty= ) than they did when I worked at RS, the school tends to close down at the first sign of inclement weather. Which was nice. I cuddled up in bed with Brighid, Weyland, Foggy (male gray tabby) and Partly Cloudy (female gray and white shorthair), and watched t.v., eating Jolly Ranchers and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups alternately. Logan baked bread, made homemade chicken noodle soup, beef stroganoff, and angel hair pasta with homemade sauce. MMM! Winter always seems to involve food. Maybe it harkens back to caveman days when surviving the cold months meant packing on the pounds by any means available - eating the fat and gristle from meat, cracking marrow bones for the valuable calories contained inside, spending the long nights huddled around the fire eating calorie dense nuts gathered by the women. Here's an interesting article discussing theories of the caveman's diet: http://www.westonaprice.org/traditional_diets/caveman_cuisine.html

Back to work on Friday, three hours were devoted to our "Annual Meeting", or rather, our Christmas Party Which We Can't Call a Christmas Party for Reasons of Separation of Church and State and the Medical School is a State Institution. After the party, we goofed off for at least another hour or so. Your tax dollars at work. So this week, I'm rather swamped, taking into account that I'll be off from December 23rd to January 1st. We get winter break off, paid. It's a pretty nice perk, I think.

Well, now today is the 17th, and I'm worn out from shopping, forgot my previous train of thought, and need to go wash dishes and listen to the second hour of A Prairie Home Companion. I'll write more later, and publish this now.

Back to Work

Thanksgiving spent at my sister Grace's house was nice. She has a beautiful new HUGE house outside of Weatherford. Lots of amenities such as a shower and laundry room right when you enter from the garage, a workout room, an ammo/hunting supplies/sports equipment room (a must have when you're the lone woman in a household with three testosterone poisoned guys who like to kill furry woodland creatures, play all sorts of ball, and leave their various acoutrements scattered all over hell and gone), a fireplace in the master bedroom, and a shower with two jets coming at you from different directions. The upstairs is the twins' sanctuary, with identical bedrooms, connecting bathrooms, and a parlor sort of area that holds their pool table and the antlers of several bambi (singular bambus?) they have killed.

During my vacation, I managed to get the kitchen mostly clean. Clean enough that we can cook again. Logan baked light bread last night. It was pretty good. Not as good as Granny used to make, of course, but pretty darn good. Just about nothing beats a supper of hot homemade bread with sweet cream butter, a bowl of beans, and a tall glass of cold milk.

I was pleased that I was able to pay all my bills this month and have a bit of money left over. I've canceled my membership at Hollywood Video so I don't have almost $17 automatically deducted every month, my Sprint contract is up on the 12th, and I'm going to cancel then so I don't have a bill of almost $50 every month (I'll be using Logan's second line which he got free when he had to buy a new phone after dropping his old one in Joe Pool Lake.), and we've vowed not to eat out at all this month. We're going to attempt to economize by using up all the food in the pantry and freezer. It needs to be rotated from time to time anyway, and it will help save money for Christmas if we cut our food expenses. Of course, we'll still have to buy milk, yogurt, cheese, fruit, and some fresh vegetables, but we have plenty of meat and frozen veggies in store to tide us over for quite a while.

We're starting early on spring cleaning. Logan has found a house in between Alvarado and Venus, about 25 miles south of where we now live. It's around 2200 square feet, which is more than double what we currently have, and is situated on 2 acres. Being further from work would add about 15 - 20 minutes to my drive every morning, but having a nice big lot almost out in the country would improve Logan's disposition and give the kids a nice, big yard in which to play. The kids are dead set against moving, but the crime in our neighborhood has increased in the last couple of years. I want the kids to grow up feeling safe. Being in a new school district would be an adjustment for sure, but it would also give Weyland an opportunity to start anew with a teacher he doesn't hate from day one.