Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a great and fairly uneventful Christmas and New Year’s day. Mine was fairly quiet. I decided to take the afternoon of Dec 22nd through Jan 2nd off. The last couple years were so slow at work that instead of being bored to tears at work I would relax at home the week after Christmas. I started going stir crazy around New Year’s Eve. I probably could have gone into work, but I still would not have anything to do.

Here is a quick snapshot of how the last week and a half was for me.

Week of Christmas
I was given a nice Christmas gift from my second job (Surgery Center) – an early day on Christmas Eve, Christmas day and the day after off. On Christmas Eve, since I was already off from NASA I was able to go there early and get my work done from 1:00pm – 3:30pm. I was then free to attend the 5 o’clock Mass with my Aunt, Uncle and the rest of the family. I would have rather gone to my church’s service, but it was at the same time as dinner. It was good to see my cousins - Matt, Cindy, Karen w/boyfriend Jonathan, and David. All of them were only in town for a couple days, they decided to spend most of their time at home with the family instead of with friends. We watched tons of movies – Burn After Read, The Dark Night, Death Race, Juno, Narnia-Prince Caspian and Ironman to name a few. Friday and Saturday I spent in Nashville with my Dad, his fiancé Mel, her kids and parents. We again watched movies and I helped Dad and Mel’s Dad pick out a new computer desk for the bonus room. I forgot to bring the Christmas gifts, so Dad decided that he would bring the kids down next Friday to get out of the house for a little while.

Week of New Years
Starting on Monday, I had my days off and worked only at night. New Year’s Eve: I started off the day with going to church and helped take down the decorations in the social hall. When I got home I noticed the neighbor’s dog on my back deck. Wondering how he got into my closed backyard, I put my stuff down and went to go see where she went. I couldn’t find the dog, then all of a sudden from below I heard banging. I’ve been having trouble with my crawl space door not closing and it wasn’t closed this day. Not really knowing the temperament of the dog, I called the Huntsville Animal Control. Unfortunately for me they don’t go under houses to retrieve animals. So I had to try to remember what house the dog belonged to so I can go and hopefully find someone home to retrieve the dog. Thankfully there was someone home and by the time they got to my house their dog had come out from under my house, jumped my fence and was waiting patiently in the neighbors yard. I opened the gate and just as they were about to click the leash on the dog she ran under the neighbor’s deck. Now that crisis is over, I need to figure out how to make or buy a better crawl space door. Mine is made of 2x4 and plywood and I would like to find a plastic one. That evening the surgery center didn’t close early, but we all helped each other to get everything done by 9:00pm (instead of the usual 10:30pm) so everyone could enjoy the evening. I didn’t have any parties or anything to go to, so I just stopped and got something to eat as a way to ring in the New Year. The New Year’s Eve shows on TV were not as entertaining as I hoped it would have been. Robbie Knievel’s jump over the volcano at the Mirage hotel in Los Vegas was not as amazing as I hoped and Dick Clark probably shouldn’t have made an appearance on his show. I was off from both jobs on New Year’s Day so lounging in my PJs all day was in order. Friday, the surgery center decided they were going to have another half day so that everyone would have plenty of time to prepare for the Univ. of Alabama vs. Utah game in the Sugar Bowl. I had no intentions of watching the game, but I was going to my Aunt Kandy & Uncle John’s house to meet up with my Dad and the kids for dinner and John is huge Alabama football fan. I was forced to be tortured with watching the game and to add insult to injury, Alabama lost the game. Dad and the kids stayed at my house Friday night. Saturday morning we went out for breakfast and decided to go international – as in IHOP. Their caramel pecan coffee cake pancakes are very good and very sugary. Yum! After breakfast, we did a little shopping and they left to go back home around 3:00pm.