Category: Family

Cold Happenings Cont’d – Apparently Derek has a hard time with the cold, and I felt kind of crappy all last week. The Wife and I had a long talk with our budget, and I did end up getting my new coat. Which performed really well on its test run from the house to the mail kiosk. Particularly against the biting wind. I’ve also noticed when I’m feeling cold and not well, my willpower plummets. I didn’t even bother getting on the scale this week.

Cat Injury Happenings – Early last week, The Wife and MIL noticed Freya, our youngest cat, was favoring her eye. A trip to the vet revealed she somehow managed to get a cut on her eye. This resulted in us having to give the cat eye treatments – which she didn’t like one bit. There was much chasing and trapping to give her treatments. It was somewhat ameliorated with offerings of her favorite treats, but Freya still was none too pleased with us.

Board Game Happenings – Mom and The Brother came down over the weekend. Mom, The Wife, and MIL went over to a nearby place for pedicures. While they were doing that, The Brother and I did some work on the NAS and then played a couple of board games. The one that was interesting was Sky Team, at least in terms of concept.

Book Happenings – I decided that it was a good idea for me to keep some physical entertainment media on hand. The Wife needed to pick up some things on Amazon, and needed something to close the same-day gap. Huh, Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy is in the same day store.

Cancellation Happenings – I was expecting that the top entry in this week’s happenings were The Wife’s and my adventures going to see Penn & Teller. Unfortunately, a few days before, my ticket vendor informed me the show had been rescheduled to the end of April. Well, darn, but okay. Then a couple of days later, I’m perusing FB and the top article is that Sabaton is postponing their North American tour due to health issues with one of the band members. The tour I have a ticket for and a hotel stay booked because it’s in the middle of the week. The hotel stay that is non-refundable. The Wife is working on seeing if they will let us rebook for the when Sabaton is coming – assuming the new date doesn’t fall on when we already have things scheduled. Stupid event clusters.

Veggie Tray Happenings – Since Ward Manor is on diet mode, we’ve been picking up a veggie tray for the weekends to snack on instead of chips, dips, chains, whips. Anywhoo, I got it into my head that maybe we should get a refillable veggie tray and just get the stuff we like. Because the veggie trays inevitably have at least one thing that no one wants. The Wife finds one she likes, and we order. Amazon tells us it was delivered, but it was after we went to bed, so we never went out to check. Yeah, no it wasn’t there. Go to the pic. That’s not our door. Well, fuck. Ask about it on FB. Crickets. Finally, I contact Amazon. They helpfully agreed to send out a replacement. Later that day, The Wife runs into the neighbor and finds out he has it. Just picked up the package off his stoop without looking at the label. Understandable. And now we have two.

Grandniece Happenings – The Wife’s niece wanted to go out to celebrate a recent life event, so we agreed to take the grandniece for a sleepover. This started with breakfast at Cracker Barrel for the family before taking the grandniece for her first trip to Hobby Lobby. It was like trying to corral a gas particle. She kept bouncing from shiny object to shiny object. From there, we took her to Five Below, because that is her favorite store. The only issue is the local Five Below is in a shopping complex that is notorious for bad parking. As in, you grab whatever spot you can find and just hope it is in the general vicinity of the stores you want to patronize. At any rate, we got the little tyke back to the Manor, and she went through her normal run of wanting us to build her new toys, do her arts and crafts, and wanting to go upstairs to play and look at all of my toys. There was a bit of pain when she asked to use some of my GI Joe Classified figures to do a “puppet show.” Overall, she had fun and we enjoyed having her.

Tea Happenings – When I go to the office, I generally take a large bottle of sweet tea. It’s a bit of a process to make them all on the weekend, so I went looking for a better process. We are experimenting with one of those ice tea brewers and some loose leaf teas. I wanted to go to loose leaf because while I like the bagged tea just fine, I want to be able to switch blends or try some of the boutique blends we run across. So, we’re experimenting with properly brewing my normal Earl Grey and]]s well as chai tea.

Cold Happenings – This past week has been the coldest temperatures in this area for a long time. Enough that the local electric cooperative was sending emails asking everyone to conserve electricity to only essential stuff and bundle up. There were flurries reported in Bradenton to our south. For natives, we were kind of at a loss as to how to properly prepare. The FB page for the neighborhood was kind of like – hey, all you Yankees who came down over the last couple of years, do you remember all that advice we gave you about hurricanes? Now’s the time to repay the favor. I broke out pretty much all my cold weather gear. I also lusted after one of 5.11’s jackets, but I don’t have the spare three hundred to buy. And it won’t come in until well after the current cold spell. I’ll look when they do their next outlet sale on jackets to see if I can pick one up on the cheap.

The real fun was dealing with our backflow preventer outside. We ordered an insulated cover. It was supposed to be here Saturday before all the really bad weather. Then Amazon said it wasn’t going to be here until Tuesday. So, we grabbed an old blanket that was already on its way out, wrapped the pipes and duct taped it down hard – while standing in the frigid temperature with even colder wind. Then the cover showed up on Sunday. Which meant cutting the duct taped blanket free, putting the cover over the pipes, and zip tying the cover – while standing in frigid temperature and nastier wind. I have the jacket I bought for going to Idaho in ’24, and while it’s warm, it’s very short – which doesn’t help against the wind. We rushed hard to get back in, which resulted in me accidentally tossing my cheap Gerber box cutter knife into the trash with the blanket. Eh, I can pick one up for less than twenty bucks, so I wasn’t going to go digging in the trash.

Japanese Happenings – For the last year, I’ve been doing Japanese lessons on Duolingo. Am I conversant? No. Do I understand more when watching subtitled anime? Yes. Am I going to keep doing it? Yes. It’s fun and it helps me understand. I still wish it were easier.

Computer Locking Happenings – I have an Excel workbook that I use for blog-related stuff. Keeping track of the Metal Tuesday songs and anime recommendations for instance. Well, I came into my home office this week and found that my workbook suddenly had four new tabs. And charts. I was glad to see that none of the other worksheets were deleted or edited. Of course, this means one of the clowder (we have a couple of suspects) got up on my desk and walked across the keyboard. Which I never thought about before because the desk used to be raised to standing level and inaccessible. Now, I just need to start locking the computer when I’m done. Stupid cats.

Battery Station Happenings – We now have all three OStations up and running. Plus another bay. Plus sorted out battery caddies for all my rechargeables and “one-shots”. Then, The Wife helpfully added some labels.

Weight Happenings – I still haven’t fully recovered from the damage I did over the holidays. On the plus side – or minus side – I was down a couple of pounds. So, I’m holding at 272, which means 22 lbs until I hit my next tollgate.

Conversation Happenings 1 –

The Wife: Are you coming downstairs for lunch?

Me: Yeah, why?

The Wife: You might want to bring a jacket.

This is what happens when we have a cold day and the doors get thrown open while Derek is upstairs in his office with the space heater running.

Conversation Happenings 2 –

The two dominant males in the clowder have been circling each other for the last couple of weeks. It’s seems like every other day we’re hearing their war cries before the fur starts flying. From one of their latest bouts:

Me: You two assholes are why we’re having to buy canned air by the case.

Canned air is about the only thing that will break them up when they’re in their war cry phase. When the fur starts flying? It sometimes helps.

Unusual Lighting Happenings – We recently added UV light to the HVAC to help keep the handler cleaner. The side effect is that coming out in the morning the vent has an eerie glow. It’s like the aliens are living in the handler closet.

Storage Shifting Happenings – Over the long weekend, The Wife and I, along with BIL and SIL, unloaded the old storage unit and moved it all over to the new storage. Good thing too, because the old storage place is too close to the really good ice cream place. Anywhoo, the shifting of stuff between the storage units resulted in finding things we forgot we had put in storage, and the need to re-organize and repack stuff. We also pulled a bunch of stuff out of the garage and donated it. There’s still a bunch of shifting that still needs to be completed. And purging.

Purging / Decompressing Happenings – We are in the process of shifting our storage unit (or more to the point, the contents therein) as well as doing a purge. This weekend was the first step in acquiring a new unit in a closer location as well as doing some shelf assembly in said unit. The new unit is closer, bigger, less expensive, and run by a local firm. The only bad news is that the units are not as well-lit as the old unit. Which, gave me a reason to pick up another Streamlight lantern. Which, since Amazon had them on sale, meant I could pick up two.

Birthday Happenings – Last weekend we celebrated MIL’s birthday and five-year cancer-free anniversary. The Wife really wanted to go all-out, so she arranged a surprise party at our favorite restaurant. Lesson one of surprise parties – the person who needs to be coordinating with other attendees should not be the one driving to the party. There was a lot of talking in code on the ride over, and a five-dollar fill up at a gas station to burn time. Was it worth it? Hell yeah. MIL was surprised and a great time was had by all.

Weight Happenings – Yeah, I did myself no favors over the holidays. Ain’t good, but I’m back on track. Current: 276; Tollgate: 250; Goal: 200

Petty Amusement Happenings – Sometimes, the simplest and most inane things amuse me. Such as figuring out how to get my laptop to rotate colors on the keyboard and alien sigil on the lid. It serves no function other than personal amusement.

Writing Happenings – I finished the first “finished” draft of my isekai story and sent it off to my alpha reader. At some point, it will show up on the blog. Honestly, I’m treating this one as pulpy serial fiction. I’m sketching out the second story, but I really need to finish up the fourth installment of the Irregulars. That one is almost done, but I suck at endings.

Battery Charging Station Happenings – Saturday, I received my kickstarter from Olight for their Ostation Pro. It also included some of their AA and AAA batteries, a headlamp, and some patches. The last item(s) resulted in the Grandniece discovering Derek’s Patch Board. I have way more charging capacity than I need, but sufficient to what I want. Plus, the plan is for when the next storm is approaching, I can cycle all the batteries through. I have noticed that the batteries Olight sent me prefer to be charged in their Pro charger.

The Wise Man Saga – Let’s go back to July of 2021. Before MIL moved in, the downstairs bedroom was planned as the guest room and we wanted a sleeper sofa in there. We found a nifty one that instead of pulling up the bed, you kind of rolled it out. MIL slept on it for a couple of years after moving in before deciding she would like some more room in her bedroom. (Rolled out, the sleeper did dominate the room). The sleeper sofa then moved to BIL’s and SIL’s house. About a week before Christmas, SIL showed up with a little figurine that looked like it was out of a nativity. She was wondering if it was ours. We don’t have any nativities at Ward Manor. At that point, the family started running down every possibility of where this little figurine could have come from to no avail. It is the mysteriously appearing Wise Man.

Tech Support Happenings – The Sunday before Christmas, The Wife and I went over to her BFF’s place so I could help set up BFF’s new computer. The whole thing went together fairly well with minimal issues. It was kind of fun introducing the BFF to the wonder of velcro straps instead of zip ties for cable management.

Christmas Eve Happenings – The day of Christmas Eve was The Wife and I making some excursions. For some reason, I got a wild hair up my butt for some mead. I don’t really drink, maybe a glass or two a year. But I felt the desire for honey wine. So, we went to liquor store to find no mead. Can’t really complain, as demand spikes up around this time of year, and I can’t see it being a high-volume item for a liquor store. Surprisingly, I found some on Doordash and picked up two varieties. There are days I love living in the future.

After dinner, we opened our advent calendars. The Wife and MIL found one of those “men’s advent calendar” that had a bunch of little survival tools. Some of them will end up in my sling bag or work bag. Most of it will end up in the hurricane kit.

Christmas Happenings – Christmas started with our normal pancakes and relaxing. Then it was doing some prep for our overnight guests, whom we had to go pick up before dinner. The Wife’s Niece and the Grandniece agreed to stay over Christmas night so we could get an early start to our Day-After Christmas adventure. The main course for dinner was a very good lasagna made by SIL. There was a lot of food, a lot of chatting, a lot of the Grandniece opening presents and playing with her new toys. And a lot of left-overs.

The Wife Is Best Wife Happenings – Earlier this week, one of my coworkers sent me a text asking if an address in Parrish was near me. My response was Yes, if I was at home, but I’m at the office right now. Seems there were a pair of bikes being offered for free at the location, but since the coworker lives in Tampa, she was hoping I was at home and could just swing by to make sure the bikes were still there. Since The Wife is off this week, I asked if she would be willing to swing by and check on them. The Wife graciously agreed and then brought the bikes home so the coworker can pick them up from Ward Manor. She is the best wife.

Zoo Happenings – The Grandniece has been asking to sleep over for a while. So, we agreed on them sleeping over Christmas night, and we would take Niece and Grandniece to ZooTampa the next day. The Wife and I wanted to go back since our excursion last summer was cut short and I missed the Florida section. When we got there, we opted for ZooTampa’s “pay-for-a-day-get-the-whole-year” special for all four of us. Heck, even if we go just once more, it’s kind of paid for itself. The neat thing is when we were driving in, the was a big panel truck with the ZooTampa logo on the back. Turns out it was a manatee being delivered to ZooTampa for rescue/rehab. This time we brought our collapsible wagon, on the idea that the Grandniece would be riding in it. She did a little, but it was nice being able to drop all of our stuff in the wagon and cart it around. It did mean there were times we had to swap off so everyone could go see the animals. It also meant that I really didn’t need to swap out my sling bag for the backpack. But lessons learned. Needless to say, by the time we dropped Niece and Grandniece back at their place and made it home, we were exhausted.

Weight Happenings – Not happening. I overindulged pretty badly over Christmas week. I’ll get back on the scale after New Years. I always hate the first week getting back on program because I have to retrain my stomach that it doesn’t need to be full all the time. Although it was well after Christmas that I realized I never had my usual chocolate orange this year.

Old Florida Christmas Happenings – Saturday we went to the Old Florida Christmas at Manatee Historic Village. There were some good vendors, but we got there early enough that it felt a little bit empty. We hit a few stalls and walked around. While The Wife and MIL were looking at somethings, I went over to the blacksmith shop. Unfortunately, the forge was having “technical difficulties,” but the curator was making the best of it. Normally we have a chain here in front to protect you from hot metal. However, since the fire isn’t working, feel free to come in and look around. Unlike other museums that say not to touch anything, feel free to touch what you want. You just might get a bit dirty.

Advent Happenings – As previously stated, instead of stocking stuffers this year, The Wife, MIL, and me decided to do advent calendars. We bought three refillable ones a few weeks back and started finding stuff to put into them. This was trickier than anticipated – particularly when we laid down the “no food” rule. For some larger items, we just ended up putting pictures in. Plus, there was the fun of coordinating with your partner to make sure all the boxes were filled. The plan is for the three of us to “open” our calendars on Christmas Eve or Morning. Still working all of this out, since it’s the first year.

End Table Happenings – I’ve been unhappy with my side table by the downstairs couch for a bit now. It’s too small for all the stuff I need to put on it. The Wife and MIL had similar complaints with theirs. Now, the good news was that The Wife’s would work well for me, and mine would work well for MIL. We just needed to get one for The Wife. Looking on Amazon and Wayfair resulted in some that would fulfill one requirement or so, but nothing that was just right. What we ended up doing was picking up a couple ones that were wide enough, but not long enough with the idea of setting them back to back. Plus, it would have more drawer space for all of her bits and bobs. This necessitated a trip to Hobby Lobby for drawer bins, or at least, that was the excuse we used.

Tree Happenings – While I was putting together furniture, The Wife was setting up her other tree. Her first tree is up in her office since we decompressed it. As she was setting it up, there were technical issues with the installed lighting. Needless to say, we now have a new tree in the main room. Unfortunately for both trees, Freya, our youngest cat, has entered into her “I want to mess with all of the ornaments” phase.

Weight Happenings – After two weeks of poor eating, I finally got back on the scale. I undid some of my progress, but not to the extent I feared. Current: 270.8 Tollgate: 250 Final: 200

So, this week’s happenings is going to be around the trip The Wife and I took up to Charlotte NC. Her boss works out of that office, so they are trying to bring her up a few times a year to meet in person and such. This time there was some big meeting of large groups of people surrounding The Wife’s work team. I tagged along because I can. I also brought my work rig so I could work from the hotel room, but I still needed to put in for leave because of the current administration’s hatred for telework.

Sunday – Travel day. The last time we went up to Charlotte, it took us ten hours to get there. This time it took us twelve. And the GPS had us doing some wild detours to avoid the mess which is holiday traffic on I-95. There were some moments where I wasn’t sure if the GPS decided to switch destinations to some place else. Anywhoo, we left Parrish around 6a and got into the hotel around 5:30p. I swear, at least a third of that was just getting out of Florida. People forget how big my home state is on a lengthwise basis.

We also decided to hit the Buccee’s in Georgia. Neither of us had been to one – and it’s been featured on both of our feeds. So, she plugged it into the GPS on her phone – which tells us to take an exit four miles south and take the backroads to get to Buccee’s. Given Waze’s penchant for wild detours to save three minutes, we decided to just take the exit on the sign. Um yeah, we figured out why Waze wanted us to go around. The exit was a fucking mess. I think it took us ten minutes to go the mile from the exit to the parking lot. As for inside? Okay. It was neat seeing it, but it was a bit on the wild and chaotic side. Like Walmart during the wild and woolly times. Not really a fan of that particular atmosphere. Still, the sliced brisket sandwiches were really good, as was the peanut butter cup thing I had for dessert.

Monday – We woke up to 36 degree weather. That is fucking cold. I set up my work rig while The Wife got dressed up for work. Or more to the point, more dressed up than her normal work-from-home attire of leggings and t-shirt. Since it was so cold, I drove her over to the office before returning to work in the hotel room. Which, since I’m technically on leave, I didn’t do much of. I did play some Civ and start on my Lego Optimus Prime. Dinner was from a burger place that did fried deviled eggs. Those were okay. The buttermilk fried bacon was similarly mid. The burgers were pretty decent.

Tuesday – The morning temperature was up to 39, but the heavens were raining down sleet. Which didn’t make it fun when taking The Wife to her office. I pretty much spent the day more bouncing between work and play. Mostly because, unlike Monday, I had meetings that I had to be on. No real work on Optimus because I didn’t want to get involved while trying to bounce around my meetings. We ordered dinner from an Italian place near to the hotel.

Wednesday – We came out to take The Wife to her office to find the Wardmobile coated in ice. Not something we have to deal with much at home. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I dealt with ice since moving from Tampa. Anywhoo, after delivering The Wife, I went back to the room to do much of what I had been doing – a little bit of work, a little bit of Civ, a little bit of Lego. Unfortunately, I also did a bunch of grazing on stuff in the room we brought. I also binged anime series that will show up in a later recommendations post. While The Wife went off to a dinner with her coworkers, I ordered in from a local barbecue place.

Thursday – The day was taken up with bouncing between a little bit of work, a little bit of Civ, and a lot of packing and getting ready for the transit back home. Also trying to clean up the room as we didn’t want to leave a mess for the housekeeping staff. For dinner, The Wife and I joined her longtime boss and friend at Rooster’s which was close to the hotel and then walked down the “walkable area”.

Friday – By Thursday night, The Wife and I were ready to get home. I looked at the weather forecast for Friday in Charlotte. Cold and rainy. So, I thought why don’t we leave extra early to miss the rain and get home sooner? We talked it over and decided to wake up at 1:00am and try to get out of the hotel by 2:00am to miss the rain. Well, we succeeded in getting out of the hotel by 2:00am, but we did not succeed in missing the rain. At least it wasn’t freezing rain, wintry mix, or sleet. Just rain. Which continued the width of South Carolina. We only escaped when we went south on I-95 and put the hammer down. As expected, the trip took us about 10 hours to get home. Then came the fun of dragging all of the stuff into the house and unpacking. Then The Wife and I crashed. On to our bed. With our cats.

Lessons Learned for the Next Trip to Charlotte – I had a garment bag / suitcase that, unfortunately, just fell apart. However, it was very useful in transporting a lot of The Wife’s office clothing. So, we’ll need to replace it. We also need to get The Wife a better “office” backpack – preferably one that can dual as a rolling bag. Personally, I’d like for her to have one that I can get “kitted out” with some of the small necessities so we’re not scrambling. Finally, it’s very hard to stay on diet in a hotel room. We probably need to do some more meal planning with some simple dinners so we don’t Doordash all the time. I also need to bring exactly what I need for breakfast/lunches so I don’t have “spare” to graze on while working. Which reminds me, I need to bring a spare cushion for the chair in the room. It’s just hard plastic. On the plus side, the travel rig worked pretty well.

Weight Happenings – Yeah, between Thanksgiving week and being on vacation/out of town the next, I didn’t even bother getting on the scale to see how much of my work I’ve undone. The Wife and I are back on diets and exercise. Maybe next week I’ll screw up my courage to get back on the scale.