T minus whatever

  Well the countdown to going away is getting smaller. Tomorrow we will be leaving this house and get to our final destination sometime the day after that after a lovely overnight flight. I'm still a little nervous about it due to the large travel time to get there but looking forward to actually being there and enjoying ourselves. A little over a week of relaxing and just being together is going to be great. We are mostly packed, house is mostly cleaned up and my last day of work is almost over. The final bit of waiting just has to be done, the last minute panic over something right before we go and then we are out of here.

  Dunno, just a matter of getting on with it now I suppose. This final waiting period always drags on the longest it seems. Still I get to go somewhere great with the woman I love to celebrate our long time together.

Stressed out

 Stressing a bit right now. We are so close to going on holiday for our anniversary that I'm panicking over having got everything right. I've already had to make sure the pet sitter comes for one more day since I confused the return date. I don't doubt the holiday will have some think that won't be perfect but the place we are going is very nice. In fact it is two different hotels in the same place, mainly due to availability of rooms since it is a popular place to go despite the cost. It is weird how nervous I am about this. Still I arranged all this since I love my wife and want to go somewhere with her to celebrate it.

  Work is having a last minute panic trying to make sure I have done everything I need to before I go. I have obviously but everyone thinks of something at the last minute and needs you to do it. Kind of frustrating and adding to the stress.

 Oh well, not much left now other than packing later and then heading off.

Literal scardycat

  Since it is a nice day outside we decided to let some of our cats out just to walk around the front garden. We started with Lucy since she was at the window observing the wildlife and seemed keen to get closer to it. However as soon as we got her out there she mewled and looked really panicked. She didn't know what to do with herself and found a corner to hide in.

  All this noise attracted Daisy who was then looking on from the front window so we brought her out too. She was much braver and immediately started investigating the plants and rolling around on the path. With her out there though Lucy became much more relaxed and actually purred and enjoyed herself.

  Of course all this activity brought Fudge to the front window who then meowed for attention since he wanted to come out so we brought him out as well. With a bit of careful herding we managed to keep all 3 of them safe while they explored the small front garden area. Fudge was mainly doing his grass eating as he does (after being dissuaded from eating the plants) and Daisy was rolling around and trotting here and there to look at things. Lucy now fully relaxed decided to roll around in the dust and cobwebs on the path getting herself all mucky.

  It is quite nice though how even though Lucy was pretty scared she soon got used to it with her sister and us being around so that she could enjoy the outside for a little bit and look around unfamiliar surroundings with us and her sister to keep her company. Even Fudge who is generally very skittish when confronted with something he is not used to had a whale of a time bobbing around in the grass chomping on it here and there.

  The simple things that keep cats happy and inquisitive huh?

A long time

  My wife and I have an important date coming up. Our 20th wedding anniversary. That is a long time to be married to the one you love. When we first got married it was only my parents 25th wedding anniversary to put it in to perspective. Only 5 years more than we have now been married. That is so strange to think about, we have been together long enough that we could almost be at the point where our children are getting married if we had children when my parents did.

  To celebrate we are going away, making it this far is worth something worthwhile. I've arranged it all so I hope it is a good way to enjoy being together and look forward to the next 20 years together. Who knows we might even make it to 50 or 60 years marriage if we live that long. That would be seriously cool and great to be with my wife for that long.

  Still it does mean the next week and a bit are a waiting game until we go away. Other than a bit of packing before we go there is not much to do so we are just both waiting until the day of travel arrives. Until then our normal quiet life carries on in this new house. Life is good.

Things that have changed

  Living in this new house and you start to notice the things that have changed (other than the purely physical location) in the day to day stuff. For instance power sockets, something people take for granted until you live in a house built 30 or more years ago that barely has a couple of sockets per room. Even then one of them would be half controlled by the light switch (who the hell uses lamps to light up their house, put lights in the ceiling) so would be useless. This new house though has at least two or more sockets per wall. Consider then the room in the basement which doesn't even have properly covered walls has 8 sockets in a room the size of most small bedrooms. It is so useful being able to plug anything in wherever you are in the house since their will be accessible power close by always.

  Then there is the wildlife that is ever present outside. This morning it was jack rabbits running past and a load of humming birds being around all day so far. Sitting at the desk working looking out occasionally I see all of this now rather than staring at bland cubicle walls or the other dreary cubicles around me. Not to mention it being easy to get anything I want to snack on easily instead of the pretty much nothing available at the office. Just the change in environment makes me very productive I feel. When I get to writing code I knock it out in no time giving me more time to think about other stuff. It is just a better working situation for me and for my wife since it gives her access to me all day.

  Even for me I don't have to go to bed so early either since I can just get up and start work, no spending an hour and a quarter getting ready and driving to the office. It gives me so much more time to spend with my wife and cats and for relaxing in the afternoon/evening. It has made me much less stressed I believe. Sure there are worries every now and then about stuff but nothing major, I just wish I could have done this whole move and work from home thing earlier and was not messed up so much by the house price crash that happened. It stopped this from happening for years.

Play for fun

  I played a fair bit more of Borderlands 2 last night, bringing my other character I started up through the levels. Something about playing it this time is even more fun, I know what and where to go. It is not just that though the way this character works seems to suit me more than the other one I tried. This one I am using now has a helper robot that goes around attacking things, keeping the enemies distracted from attacking you. There is also a skill where each time you kill something or fully empty an ammo clip for a gun you get more damage capability at the loss of some accuracy. Combine that with another skill where 50% of the shots you miss with rebound and hit an enemy and you end up roughly spraying bullets in the general direction of an enemy and doing multiple times normal damage to it and end up just ripping through most enemies. It is quite satisfying. Compare that to the other character who is built around immobilizing and grouping up enemies so you can take them out with large weapons and it isn't quite the same.

  For a game which for all intents and purposes I've played through completely it is amazing how much more fun it is the way I'm playing now. Less frustrating certainly. I think it just reinforces to me that mostly I play games for fun, sure there can be a good story like in The Last Of Us or pretty stuff to look at and watch happen but the action of actually playing has to be fun for it to be worthwhile to me. To be honest I can't wait until this character I have now is an even higher level where I will have even more skills to kill things. Fun and interesting times will be had.

Changing more stuff

  Just ripped out 3 crappy plants from the front garden and replaced them with something more to our taste. These were all nandinas and looked pretty naff so they were taken out. To be honest the few plants that were in the garden were not up to much anyway so the ones we have put in are a definite improvement. These were the first ones that we have taken out though other than removing random weeds and small bedding plants.

  Anyway just another small way we are changing this house and its surroundings to more suit what we like rather than how it was. Oh it is also useful having so much land, all the stuff dug up can be taken to a back corner behind the "workshop" and left in a nice pile to rot away. No need to take stuff to the tip or fill up a garden rubbish bin to be taken away, it can all just be left to form compost like stuff eventually. Sure it may take a while but it will get there.

  Now to decide what to do with the rest of the day and the day off I have tomorrow with Labour day (hah, spelling an American holiday with British spelling). I suspect some more game playing will be in order but other than that there is not much that needs doing right now around here. Heck yesterday I spent 2 hours lazing around in the hammock I got for my birthday enjoying the peace and quiet out back.