Calm

This was a good weekend. Yesterday we worked a lot on the house. The holidays really messed it up. It's not back to normal - not even close - but it felt like a productive weekend. The dining room is still dumping grounds for all things holiday collected from the around the house, but the tree is down (and packed away in its box and its box a few feet away from storage). The furniture is back to mostly normal in the living room. The kitchen is in really good shape. And Rachel and I even spent time in front of the fire last night reading books. Last night was not good as far as sleep went, so we stayed in bed and went to the 11 am service. And we had pledged not to go out to eat today until everyone started saying we should go out to eat. So we had a nice meal at The Commons. (There's some definite improvement there. I'm almost ready to let people start calling it a "mall" again.) Then this afternoon it was a mix of calm, quiet and some work, but also more reading. And even now as I ride the exercise bike I haven't bothered to turn the TV on and after I post this, turn away from the computer and back to my book. We used iTunes Genius a lot today to get calm music that all flowed toghether. I'm surprised at how well that works, overall. Earlier this week I was wondering who would be friend #350 on Facebook and somehow I've now got 364. I find that strange, but I'm certainly not going to unfriend anyone for a hamburger. What a dumb promotion by a dumb fast food restaurant. Anyhow, back to my book which I'm really enjoying. (I think Alicia, Kevin and Allison would enjoy. Possibly Lori.) Oh, Ben may have said his first word, and if so, it's not a word that many babies utter first and one that would bring any dad to tears.