Year-End Interregnum

I'm still pursuing job leads, with one that looks a bit promising. I don't want to go all blabby and jinx the thing, but it's probably the strongest lead I've had since we moved to Zephyrhills. The problem is that the multiple steps necessary mean I'm stuck hanging around the house waiting for phone calls and/or e-mails. Not that the weather has made me really want to run outside. Since Thursday, we've had nothing but heavy overcast, rain, and temps in the 60's (brrrrrr!).

So while I can't leave the house, I'm cleaning a month's worth of photos off the camera, catching up on our bookkeeping, scraping off the foot of dust on everything, blah, blah, blah.

Speaking of cleaning off the camera:

Inaugural Cruise on Celebrity's Reflection:

Debbie in the Big Chair

Ricky in the Big Chair

Reflection at Night

Celebrity's Big X

Sunset at Sea

Migraine Clock

We have several neighbors who get into Christmas lights:

Penguin!

Fence Decorations

Tree Decorations

Santa and Snoop Dawg.

And photos from Thursday's trip over to Animal Kingdom. Note to self: Never go anywhere near Disneyworld  the week between Christmas and New Years. We're used to the other parks being crowded, but Animal Kingdom is usually much less so. Not Thursday. We had to park further from the gate than we ever have before, and simply attempting to walk down the streets in the park was nearly impossible. But we did get a glimpse of Jabali:

Peek!

Mom

New Kids on the Block

Bald Eagle in the Flights of Wonder Show

Kitty!!

Grumpy Kitty

Hungry Kitty

Sleepy Kitty

No clue what this thing is or why it's standing on its knees.

Well, I should stop messing about here and get on my inside work. The weather is supposed to clear tomorrow, so with a bit of luck, I'll get some outdoor work done as well.

...and We're Back

We're home to stay for a very long while. Debbie is coming into her busy season. With some luck, I'll be busy as well. I have a number of lines out at this time, and Friday I will be out sniffing around some more. In any case, between now and at least mid-April, don't even bother to ask. We can't.

As I mentioned before, this is our first Christmas since 2005 that we've spent with anyone other than the two of us. Compared to the Grand Chaos of Christmases Past, it was a cakewalk, but it was still more than our normal just-us, monkey-bread-for-breakfast-lunch-and-dinner, NCIS-24-hour-marathon, not-even-get-dressed-let-alone-leave-the-house Christmas. My parents are forever telling us we're boring. I prefer "lazy". Pō-tā-tō, pō-tă-tō.

Tomorrow is Debbie's day off because she will be working Saturday, so we may sneak off someplace like Disneyworld. Which means more driving, but nothing like what we've been doing the last few weeks. Maybe the Christmas... er... Holiday decorations will still be up.

And that's pretty much it for the week. I have several hundred photos on my camera that I haven't even looked at. If I find anything even moderately interesting, I'll post it. Otherwise, I may get some Mickey pictures up over the weekend.

Done...

...at least for a few months. I decided that rather than spend the day circling Zephyrhills begging for a job, I would complete my last eight hours of CPE in one go. I managed it, although I think I broke something in my brain. At least I can now read something fun instead of reading tax code, hence Watership Down over in the Currently Reading list. It's been years if not decades since I last read it, and I figured it would be relaxing for my poor noggin. Not much else to report; tomorrow is more money we don't have out the door for doctor visits for me and a trip back to the dentist for Debbie to put one of her temporary caps back on. Then a day to do some chores in the morning and get ready to head out of town again. This will be the last time in a loooooong time we leave our wee little homestead; we're just about tripped out. We'd forgotten how hectic this time of year is after seven quiet Christmases with just the two of us. We had figured it would be just us again as my family normally all head up to Michigan for Christmas with my grandpa. But no one can afford the extra drive back and forth, and Grandpa is to the point that he doesn't recognize hardly anyone and wouldn't know if they were there or not. So they're all here, which is good, but, again, a bit more chaotic that we're used to.

Well, off to read about some wascally wabbits. (Elmer Fudd is in Watership Down, isn't he?)

Work, Work, Work

So we finally landed at home Monday afternoon. At least for a couple weeks, then it's back on the road for another trip. The plan for this week was for me to focus on finding a place to do taxes for the upcoming tax season, but that went out the window. We spent Monday afternoon unpacking, rebooting, laundry, etc. I spent all day Tuesday trying to get my required CPE complete before the end of the year. Should have gotten on this sooner, but with all the moving and stuff that needed to be done on the trailer, I'm now scrambling.

Then Wednesday, we both had our initial appointments with the new dentist. We expected a quick in-and-out; a few x-rays, a "plan of attack", then appointments at some future point to get things rolling.

Heh.

Instead we were there for five and a half hours and got socked with a $5,000+ bill. After that, we sort of just came home and stared off into space trying to figure out where in the %&#@* we were going to dig up five large.

Thursday, I finally had to do some work outside. The oak trees decided to drop all their leaves while we were out of town, then it rained on them. The oak leaves down here aren't like the ones in Michigan. These are very small and flat so they stick to everything and leave permanent stains on whatever they touch. I just couldn't leave them any longer, so I went at the outdoor work with a vengeance, sweeping, raking, trimming, mowing, edging (a weekly activity in Florida), more sweeping, weeding, mulching. Then I figured the day was pretty well shot anyway and while I was sweaty and dirty, I may as well attack the shed. Since moving here, we've been shoving things into the shed any ol' way, figuring we'd deal with it later. Well, "later" was yesterday: pulled out shelving to make more floor space, relocated/rewired outlets, cleaned and made a first pass at organizing all the clutter. There's still a long way to go, but at least the basic outline is starting to take shape.

And that brings us to today, which was another brain-buster trying to cram in CPE. I really should have started this sooner. Meanwhile, because of the dental fiasco, Debbie's work schedule has been completely jacked all week, just adding to the chaos.

And yes. I'm whinging. Deal with it.

Tomorrow and Sunday look to be more of the same other than a break Sunday night to go to the Christmas cantata at my parents' church. Maybe next week will be normaler.

Passing Through

In between coming from and getting ready to go again, there is this:


Sweet. And note this time around that a) Paramount hasn't ordered free advertising off the internet (yet) and b) the video can be embedded; all without the whole world screaming at them first. Good to know that at least one corporation has learned how to muzzle their clueless lawyers.

More when I have time. At least we'll be mostly done after this weekend. I really need to focus on a couple things for the rest of December.