Rick's Journal

I thought my office could use a little Christmas cheer and I needed a place to hang the stockings for me and my two employees, so I built a fireplace.

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Yesterday was just not a good day timewise.  Not only did the alarm not go off, but I woke up two hours later than usual.  I forgot that I needed to stop for gas (or else).  Then I got caught in traffic due to a horrendous accident.  I hope the driver of one of the cars was ok; it was that bad.  I got to work well over two hours later than usual.  I had two very long meetings that chewed through time I didn't have.  I had one guy out.  The day seemed destined to leave me absolutely no time for anything, so I didn't post the really cool stuff from the night before.

Monique and I have a 29 year tradition that stems from our first Christmas "together".  We as a couple celebrated our first Christmas on December 21st because that's the last day we saw each other before Christmas, due to being in college at the time and going home to our respective families.  To continute this tradition (and because Monique loves opening her presents early), we have celebrated our Christmas between her and I on the 21st every single year.

I got her a color Nook this year along with an extra charger, earphones for listening to music on it, a glare screen for outdoor use and a nice case for it.  I decided to have a little fun with it and wrap all the pieces individually and spread them around the house with each gift having a clue to the location of the next gift and a clue to what the big gift was.  She wasn't feeling well that night and was not really into the game and couldn't figure out most of the clues because she wasn't up to her normal sharp standards.  :-(   Fortunately, with a little help, we got through it all and she was absolutely delighted with her presents.

She got me the most marvelous gift, a commissioned artwork by my favorite artist, silverhare .    Monique had sent her a disc full of photos from all periods of my life.  Cindy picked about a dozen of them and created a collage that details my life.  I meant to call her yesterday and gush over it and thank her profusely, and that's where my regret for not posting yesterday comes in. 

I should have put this up yesterday because it was just so fantastic.  I couldn't even call her on the ride home for I have lost her number.  Maybe I never had it and only thought I did.  :-(  Anyway, it was one of the best presents ever and I want to thank these two wonderful women for it.

One more day to work and then off to VA for 4 days / 5 nights.  With any luck I'll find time to see the talented Cinday and thank her personally.  Since I'll have essentially two days without commitments, with any more luck I'll get to see several more of you while I'm down there.  If you're interested comment here or drop me an email or give me a call.

We're back from our multi-day tour of NH for Christmas.  Actually, we got back last night.

Tuesday night Monique and I had a nice quiet night together at the Radisson in Nashua, NH.  We watched "The Women" and then retired early. 

Wednesday we picked up my dad at the nursing home and took him out shopping.  He wanted to pick out Christmas presents himself.  Based on last year, we knew he wouldn't last long so Monique had done most of his shopping already.  He had given her direction on Randy, but that was about it.  He was going to be seeing Amy, Chris and Elijah on Christmas, so we saved those gifts for him to pick up.  Three gifts worth of shopping used up his available energy, as predicted.   He asked us if we could go to Dunkin Donuts and have a coffee, like we did last year.  This was a special treat for him as he's supposed to have thickener in everything he drinks.  He won't drink coffee all year because he hates it that way and my dad is a bigger coffee lover than I am.  If he breaks this rule as a treat once a year and handles it slowly and carefully under supervision and it makes his Christmas cheerier, then so be it.

Christmas Eve, Monique and I spent another quiet night together wrapping my dad's purchases and watching movies at the hotel.  We watched "Burn After Reading" and "My Best Friend's Girl".

Christmas morning we rushed to get my dad at the nursing home and get to Randy's.  In fact, we rushed so much I forgot to pick up things my dad could drink from the nursing home and had to go back after I dropped off Dad and Monique.  As it turns out, we didn't have to rush so much.  The nursing home staff told us the day before that Randy had told them that we would be picking Dad up at 9:00.  This was news to us since exact plans hadn't been made.  Randy had not in fact told them this, but that was their interpretation.  My dad was so excited about the 9:00 time that we pushed for it anyway.

Amy, Chris and Elijah weren't leaving CT until after noon, so there was nice quiet conversation with Randy and Tracy for a few hours.  It was really nice to get to know Tracey.  She's personable, down-to-earth and just fun to be with.  I enjoyed her company a great deal.  They made a wonderful ham dinner which even my dad enjoyed, albeit pureed.  Chris and Amy arrived a little after 3:00 and we opened presents.  Much fun was had by all.

My mom, who for her own reasons refused to join us, added her own blend of holiday stress to the affair.  We originally were not going to see her at all because of timing issues and the previously mentioned refusal.  We managed to work out an arrangement to take her out to dinner Christmas night and then go back to her place to open presents.  She decided to change the plans without telling us and bought some things to eat in at her apartment instead, things I was pretty sure Amy and Chris wouldn't eat.   The actual visit itself though went very smoothly and I thought everything was worked out in a satisfactory fashion.  I found out from Randy the next day that she talked to him and blamed the misunderstanding on me because I didn't call to confirm the plans we had set.  *sigh*

We stayed over again at the hotel Christmas night because it was just too late to drive back to CT.  It was a good thing.  Monique was starting to feel unwell.  We ended up sleeping almost 10 hours.  I guess we were both pretty exhausted.  Friday we did grocery shopping, stocking up on things that cost us a lot less in NH than in CT and then headed home.  Monique slept a lot of the way.  

We opened presents with Amy and Chris and Elijah when they got home.  We also had the presents from distant family that were here waiting for us.   We had decided not to bring excess presents with us to NH and had saved those for our home coming.  We got some really cute pictures of both Elijah and Sasha (who had obviously missed us).  We didn't bother cleaning up and went to bed early again.  We slept almost 11 hours.  Must be getting old.   :-(

Anyway, overall, Christmas was a (mostly) good time spent with family and I very much enjoyed it.  Best of all, two more days before going back to work!  Yay!

I figured I'd share a bit of my holiday cheer at work. Here's the tree on my desk with the garland and stockings, hung by the whiteboard with care.



And the beautiful wreath on the door of my office. I didn't notice it until I was taking the picture, but with the door closed, the wreath frames the tree inside.