Boxy snow.

I'm waiting on the moving company to come today and pick up all our boxes and packing material. I can't wait to have all the space back in the garage!

It's lightly snowing now - large, beautifully crystalline flakes that are so, so fluffy - but I think I'm going to head out there anyway. There's less than a 1/4" of new accumulation on the driveway and sidewalks, but I'm going to try to move the huge mounds of snow along the side of the house to... somewhere else? (I'm not sure where, but it just feels ominous where they are at right now. I mean, it's packed up as tall as me, and we've only just begun the winter season. If it's not moved, where will we put the new snow?)

It's 5° right now, but the wind is blowing less than 5mph at the moment. I don't think we've had winds that low since we arrived in North Dakota. Add in that we should stay in the above 0° today, and it's all the better to take advantage of it!

Edited to add: Whee! Philip just came home for the day (already, and it's not even 10am!), so now we're going out together. We should be able to knock out a lot of this! :-)

Funny expletives are issuing forth from the living room.

*chuckles*

Whatever Philip is doing in his game on the XBox 360, he's really getting frustrated. He keeps exclaiming out loud, and it's kinda funny here in the office. I know he's playing online with a few of his NE peeps, so it sounds like they're getting their tails kicked!

Speaking of XBox, our unit began with the "red ring of death" last week sometime. Now, this is the second unit to do this, but I love Microsoft's way of fixing it: they send us a brand-new one! The first unit lasted a year, and then they sent us a new one. This second one lasted a little over two years, and we're sending it back tomorrow. They'll be sending us another new one, and I am grateful that Microsoft recognizes this "ring" as a glitch (not user-manipulated), and that they take care of it.

In the meantime, however, Philip had wanted to get a second XBox 360 for the boys to use in the basement playroom. He went ahead and bought a new XBox 360 Elite, and then the new replacement one will go downstairs when it arrives. I'm just happy I won't have to keep hearing the ditzy theme music for "The Bee Movie" game - heehee!

As for me, I'm playing with my new toy: Windows 7. I've got the software to upgrade our Vista now, but I've not yet installed it. I'm trying to decide whether to do an "Upgrade" or a "Custom Install." Do I want the newness of a 'fresh start' and the hassle of moving all my files and junk over to our external drives in the process (which is bound to make things even faster, as all the bogged down/unused registry files will be gone)... or do I want to just 'upgrade,' leaving all my files and stuff intact? I really can't decide, so for now, I research a bit more and look longingly at the green box.

For now, I'm off to enter some more Coke codes. :-)

Baby's drinking Coke at the Hobby Lobby.

There's only one day left of the boys' holiday vacation, and I know they're sad for it to be over. However, they're very excited to go back to school and begin riding the bus for the first time! All of their snowgear arrived on the 22nd, but their last day before the break was the very next day. That didn't give me enough time to 1) unpack the items (the movers didn't leave that night until 6:30pm), and 2) go to the school to let them know to add them to the bus schedule (which meant I would've gone in on Tuesday morning, and they would've had only the ride home that day... which seemed kinda silly). So, I'll take them to school again on Monday, and while I'm there, I'll head into the office to fill out the bus paperwork. They'll begin riding the bus on Tuesday...

... and I'll begin the jammied, goodbye-kisses-at-the-door! Wheee! (Yeah, I may be even more excited than THEY are! *wink*)

We need to find a larger size 'plate holder' for one of my Coca-Cola® trays in the dining room. We've hung the other ones on the wall, but the largest size we could find was adjustable from 11"-18". My tray is about 20" in length, so no dice. I had the idea of extending the stretchy brackets with zip-ties, but that didn't fully work either. (Philip tried for a good while, too.) We'll find or figure something out, I'm sure.

Speaking of Coca-Cola, we took two of my large puzzles to Hobby Lobby today to be framed. I put these puzzles together about 15 years ago, back in my freshman year of high school. In fact, Philip helped me to make one of them while we were dating. I've carried them from home to home for years, and they've never been on display. I am über-excited to get them back in a couple weeks and put them up in my dining room. Depending on how much I love them (and I'm sure I will!), then I'll take my largest puzzle in to be framed as well. It's about the size of Jack, so it'll be a pretty penny, I know. Still, Hobby Lobby was having a 50% off sale on custom framing, so I figured it was a great time to get them done.

Poor Baby kitty is so frightened of the main level of the house. The living room and the large office both have high ceiling fans, and she is just scared to death of them. Honestly, to see her expression, you'd think there was a giant monster with 200 teeth coming after her. It's been three weeks now, and she's just not warming up to them. The kitties have had their food, water, and litterbox down in the basement, but today, we moved the food up to the office. She has stood in the hallway and mewed at us in the most pitiful voice, and we keep inviting her to join us in one of these rooms. Philip and I have both brought her in here several times to show her the location of the food, calmly petting her and trying to reassure her. The last time Philip did so, she ate about four little kibbles. She'll get there, I know she will, but it's pretty pitiful to see right now.

Kiki, on the other hand, is perfectly happy anywhere now. She was cautious near the fans for the first week or so, but now she's very content. She's currently sleeping on my Coca-Cola bin near the windows while I'm here in the office.

I found a neat, wrought-iron plaque on clearance at Hobby Lobby yesterday with a cut-out design on it, as well as the text, "HOPE." I really waffled on buying it though, as I could see a small scratch in the finish. Philip and I tried to rub it out in the store, and it was almost gone... but I could still see where it was. Even though I thought we might be able to do a better job of it with a cleaner or a special pad at home, I walked away from it. I figured it just wasn't meant to be. I will be keeping an eye out for the perfect "HOPE" decoration this year, as I wanna celebrate and commemorate my word!

I've received a ton more Christmas cards, but I've been remiss this last week in thanking so many of you. Thank you to donnajean2277, hermioneluna, m1x3d3m0t10n5, and scarletharlot52. A special thank-you also goes out to tabbyfoo!

I'm not sure what the day holds tomorrow after church. Maybe I can get all my guys to sit around the table on our new chairs in our gorgeous dining room and play the new game I picked up - Milles Bornes! I loved that card game when I was growing up, and I hope they like it, too. :-)

Happy New Year. :-)

Let me be the millionth person to wish you happiness as we sashay into this new decade!

I was VERY excited for the New Year's Eve blue moon last night, but alas... the clouds were much too thick, and we couldn't really make it out. You could see where it was, to be sure, but there was definitely no photographing the bugger. Shucks.

I spent NYE with my family. If you'd asked me before I left Nebraska, I would have told you I'd loved to have a big party with oodles and oodles of friends (and I'd have flown Heather and her family in for the occasion). But I have a small frame that hangs in my bedroom, and it reads: "I have learned that being with those I love is enough."

And it is so true.

We spent the evening eating together, and then we saw our "reward movie" for unpacking the house - Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. We came home and spent the last half-hour or so waiting on that big ol' ball to drop, and then we headed to bed. We kissed, and Jack noticed that everyone was kissing on TV. "Why are y'all kissing?"

"Because it's what you do on New Year's Eve. It's fun!" Philip said.

And now it's 2010. Or 'Twenty-Ten.' Or just '10. Whatever you want to call it, it's the beginning of a brand-new year, a brand-new decade, and a chance at a clean slate. For us, it's still the beginning of a brand-new life in a brand-new place...

My friend 1grl_revolution likes to adopt a word for the year, and I think it's a neat-o idea. I'm taking a cue from my angel-friend Isaac and his family, and I'm going to keep "HOPE" as my word this year.

But I'm happy to share HOPE, too. *wink*