The Other Side
2008-12-22, 8:45 p.m.

Day 1583

The other side of what, you might ask. Well, a few things.

First � the other side of �The Rooms� project. The third coat of paint is on the walls. Most of the trim (except for base trim) has 2 coats of paint. The windows on the front side of the house have actually been cleaned � scraped free of paint and Windexed! The floor is in � except for the closet. In spite of the lack of base moldings, the furniture is in. Late yesterday afternoon we even made a run to Pete�s Tree Farm (in the flippin wind & snow!) and got ourselves a tree. Even that is up & decorated. It covers the fireplace for now, because that is not quite finished.

But it looks like a room. I even have a couple pictures that are in need of a bit of formatting before I an post them here. The pumpkiness has subsided quite a bit with the addition of furniture.

I also got about 1/3 of my garage back. Not enough to park in quite yet, but there�s hope.

We are on the other side of the solstice. About time too, because Winter certainly made it�s appearance. The deck/porch building crew got most of their stuff cleaned up which is a good thing. Any wood they might have left is now under a couple feet of snow.

I dragged the snow blower up from the shed last week too. Good thing. All that snow & cold that folks out wet have been complaining about has made it�s way to the north east. We got nearly a foot Friday, a few more inches Saturday, another 4 � 6 on Sunday accompanied with gobs of wind, and it was still snowing this morning (Monday) with temps dipping down into the low teens. Welcome to winter I guess. On the bright side? The days will soon start to become noticeably longer. By entire minutes at a time!!

How about the other side of our �intervention�? Not a lot of change. Cindy is still sneaking in her drinks, but is being very cautious. She�s also not drinking as much, but it�s only a matter of time. Liquor bottles are being moved around, a bottle of ginger ale that was hanging out in the garage for a few days is gone, Cindy is drinking orange juice at 2 in the afternoon?!?, then can�t help but chirp like a magpie aaaallllll afternoon. It was starting to drive the kids nuts, and they had the option to leave � of which they took full advantage.

Last but not least � I�m on the other side of 50. Many thanks for all the birthday wishes. I didn�t bowl a 300 game, but I did beat my average for the first time in 3 weeks, so it wasn�t all bad. And maybe it was cramming to get the last of the painting done Saturday morning (after the gym, of course), then banging out 230 square feet of flooring, but good lord, I hurt Sunday. All day long it seemed like it took extra effort to just get moving. Heaven forbid I actually had to DO something. Hope this lets up now that the big push to get these rooms presentable is done. I need a break. This getting old stuff is for the birds. I recommend everyone avoid it if at all possible.

Gotta run � got put over a barrel by an on-line order. Seems an order for some camo�s we wanted to get for Zach got canceled. We only found out because Cindy FINALLY looked to see if she had a tracking number for the order. Instead of an email with a tracking number, she found an email with a cancellation notice. Went to two different places tonight to try and find something but all the reasonably priced stuff is either long gone or an extreme size. Going to try another place tomorrow, but it ain�t looking good. Too bad Bass Pro Shops is so far away. And no, we have no Cabela�s nearby either. Oh well. Gift certificates work too.

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