Piles o'Loot

  There are a couple of piles stacking up in a spare bedroom of loot, one for me and one for my wife. There is even a small pile of a few things for the cats. Looking at it all there is quite a bit there. It starts each year with deciding which big present to get each other and then expands from there. Over time we both just buy small things in the run up to Christmas and then relatives start buying us things. In the weeks leading up the piles just get bigger and bigger. Right now it is almost enough to cover a bed if you laid everything out and even stacked as they are it still covers a fair chunk of it. Not a bad haul for someone who used to get maybe a dozen small things from parents and 3 sets of aunts and uncles and 2 sets of grandparents. Nowadays my wife and I get each other far more than we used to get. I suspect there is even more we would like to get each other but they would just be big expensive things that we can get any time of year.

  I think back to those old Christmases I had when I was a child and I can barely remember any of them. I can remember a few nice presents I got but rarely anything about the actual days. The odd memory from my teenage years when we would always go to one relative or another for one of the Christmas or Boxing day meals but other than that not much really. Nothing specific at least. Vague memories of what we would do and eat. Getting in to the time with my wife I can obviously remember more it being more recent and all of those have involved present opening, a big dinner which we both scoff down with surprising speed (it really is that good) and then time together playing with whatever we got that year.

  Less than a week now until we can do that all again. The ripping open presents, the moving cats of piles of wrapping paper they are trying to play with, the cooking and eating, the lazing about enjoying the day, the tea made from dinner leftovers and other stuff and finally one last big flop down stuffed to the gills after enjoying the day.

  Hmm, here's an idea. Why don't we do that every week :) .

A Bit Too Far

  After that snow we had the other day the weather went a bit to far in to the getting cold direction. As in down to -16C which is way colder by a good 12C than it normally gets here. As a consequence our water from the well has frozen in the pipes and we have no water pressure. Not good although we do have almost 2000 gallons of water in the storage tank to use so we are not totally stuck, just buckets are required to fill up the toilets and we have to boil water in a pot to wash dishes.

  Still it shows we can survive here when it gets pretty bad. Driving in to town has been ok if a little dodgy in a couple of places on the road. Some quite severe ice in a few places meant being very careful but we got there and back safely. Heck even the UPS driver made it to our house but a pox on the Fedex driver who hasn't made it our here for 3 delivery attempts in a row now (well two out for deliveries and one day where they have not even tried).

  I think we may actually have water tomorrow. Today we got to just about freezing point and some of the ice and snow it melting a bit. If that can continue the pipes should thaw out (especially now that I've lagged them, there were exposed before) and pressure will come back. If it doesn't then another call to the well people is in order to get them to look at it and sort it out. Fun.

  Anyway, the debate now is what to have for dinner. Eat out and save on washing and stuff or do a frozen premade dinner in the oven so we don't have to make stuff dirty with cooking.

SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Well it is snowing here at the house. The first time it has snowed at the place we live since we moved to the USA and for quite a few years since we lived in England (seriously, I can't remember the last time we had a good snow back there). Outside has a good coating and it is still coming down. It should be like this all day, I just hope it sticks around for a little bit so we can enjoy it this weekend. The temperatures are certainly right for it, below freezing for a few days more, it would just be nice to get a decent depth to it all.

  It does feel kind of magical again, having this white stuff which I suppose is just frozen rain, tumbling out of the sky and covering everything in sight. It reminds me of when I was a child when it seemingly snowed every winter and not just every now and then that it did when I got older. If we can get weather like this through to the end of the month we can have a white Christmas for the first time in what has to be over 2 decades.

  I don't know, maybe I'm excited about this since it has been a long time that we have had snow. Maybe it is just another sign that we are so much better off in this house than the last one. Whatever it is it makes me and my wife happy and that is all that matters.

Almost Christmas

  Well it is almost Christmas again. Given how organised my wife is we have everything is pretty much ready to go. Food has been acquired, presents have been bought, decorations are now up and Christmas cards have been sent. We have even gotten the cold weather now (like really cold, below freezing cold) and might get a day or two of snow although I doubt it will hang around.

  Still it means we can have a great Christmas of food, sweets, loot and good time together. My wife and I have had Christmas on our own together for most of our marriage. Pretty much since we moved to the USA and escaped our families. Only 3 weeks to go now until a day of gluttony :) .

  Life around here has been fairly normal. Archer has completely settled in now, he gets along with us and the other cats with no problems and treats here as his home as he should. He is also easy to tempt on the sofa, just put down a soft fleece blanket and he will jump up and curl up on the blanket. He won't use the cat baskets at all it seems but give him a nice blanket to lay on and he will spend hours there. Also considering his age he plays quite a bit and gives the girls a run for there money when they get rowdy. He is turning in to a pleasure to have around.

  In other stuff my wife is recovering from the burn on her hand nicely now. The dead skin has all peeled off and the new skin is growing and healing. It should be back to normal soon which is nice considering how big of a burn it was. The way some people panic over the slightest injury it really makes me wonder what it would take for my wife to have to go to the emergency room. True I don't bother going to the doctor for anything much either but some people must really go for the stupidest small injury the way they talk about things.

  One final important piece of news, I managed to get my 20th platinum trophy over the weekend. Woo me huh? Sure some people have loads but I never thought I would get this many given that I really don't play games for the huge amounts of time that some other people seem to. Also since I got a deal on Playstation Plus I now have a load of "free" games that I can play in the run up to Christmas. I've tried a couple and they are pretty good if not as great as some games. Not a bad thing considering how cheap I got them for and I managed to get a couple of PS4 games for free with this as well. It will be nice to see what other games come along in the future with this.