I'm having ice cream, darn it.

It's really cold and I worked outside much of the day in the rain, and it's against my own wishes because of my diet, but I am going to have some ice cream. Mom and dad came over and we got a lot more work on the fence done. Now all of the posts are up, cement poured and bars in place on all but one section. Now all I need to do is make and hang the gates, but all the boards and hang them as well. But a lot of work was done today, some of it while it was pouring and/or hailing. Now I'm exhausted so I'm going to have some ice cream and fall asleep in front of the TV, I think.

Reorient

Late December:

So what's next? I'm going to try to get back to the diet, back to the creativity, and maybe some more regular introspective and real posts, not just commentary on the news.

It's time to try again. Things may now be settling down again enough to try to get back on track. We've now been in the house 11 days. Most accoutrements have been ordered, delivered, assembled, hung, installed or registered as the case may be. Many boxes unpacked, and now it's just down to the a lot of junk boxes, one of which may or may not actually contain one of my two missing pairs of jeans. That aside, it's starting to feel like things are going to start to settle down into a routine. The money is quickly dwindling, though our credit cards have no outstanding balances and there's still more in the bank than we've ever had before. Seriously, buy property. It's like printing money.

Tonight I even walked the dog. She enjoyed it and I did, too. It was raining just a tad and I discovered that a jacket I hadn't worn since I last lived in Washington still fit just fine and its built in hood kept my head dry. I still haven't worn long pants except to church since I've moved down here. The weather's been great. Even when it rained, the weather's been great.

My diet today wasn't that great. In order to try to change my eating habits, I've done some rather odd things that may or may not actually by themselves do anything good for me, but rather represent a change in thinking. For one, I've tried to eschew dark colored beverages in favor of lighter ones (Sprite, Lemonade, etc.) In some cases, I know these are exactly as bad as the dark colored ones in terms of sugar and sodium, but they're also easier to water down. I've also tried to use more ice in drinks, smaller glasses and at home pour from a 2 litter instead of my own individual can of something. I've also looked at salads before anything else on menus and for the most part ordered salads, or ordered stuff with fruit instead of fries or onion rings. I haven't had nearly as much Starbucks as I would have expected, so that's in my favor as well. And lastly, we've had little fruit cups in the pantry for Rachel and I've been making sure we have more in there and been eating some myself.

Creativity? That will need to wait a little bit but I've had some ideas rattling around in my brain.

Current events and introspective... coming soon. One of my goals for the new start is to read more. Each week I am going to consult the New York Times Bestseller List for Non-Fiction and if it's a new one, then I'm going to purchase and read it. For my birthday Lori got me a really interesting book called "Blink" which I notice this week is #5. I read it before we moved. It was pretty cool, all about the subconcious mind and how people have been able to hone theirs and how we make decisions without realizing why we made them, and how hard engrained perceptions and things like racism is. One thing I thought it lacked was application... how can I hone my subconscious and get better and making intelligent and correct snap decisions?

Nous Sommes Arrivés

Short note... we made it successfully and safely. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers.

Dubai Two

MSNBC.COM -- This is a great article on Dubai. I think it tells a lot more about what this emerite is up to, as well as explaining it's part in the world and the UAE. It also suggests that UAE might not even care a lot about the US ports, as there's only six of them and they need a lot of money to get up to the efficiency of some of their other port holdings, that UAE was probably far more interested in the port holdings in China and India of P&O (the European company they bought that started this whole uproar.)

So maybe we need to get over ourselves just a little bit. More...

Here Comes the Rain Again...

Today is shaping up to be a great day. I drove by myself today in my own car (usually we carpool in Lori's car, and when we would drive separately, I'd still have to take Lori's car since it has the carseat and my work is closer to Rachel's ex-daycare.). I got to drive fast on some empty roads, too.

And it was pouring down rain. Since it was raining and I was driving by myself, there was no point in even going near the freeways or nearby parallel streets, so I stayed south, venturing into San Marino. San Marino is designed to frustrate drivers so that non-residents won't go into the neighborhood unless they have a reason to. But with my brand new GPS, I had a reason to. I had it direct me to a Starbucks I'd never been to. Parked next to a Bentley, got out and strode to the Starbucks in the pouring rain wearing my trench coat (don't get to wear it much down here) and ordered myself a Venti Marble Mocha Macciato, a new drink I'd never tried before but really like. Back into the car, the classical music up, being a little bummed that on our last trip up I had discovered that Seattle's classical station was gone. I didn't think about it long because it was more fast driving on empty roads and fun confusing the GPS and making not going where it was telling me to, so it'd have to re-route me.

Get to work, get my favorite doughnut from the Friday doughnut box, sit down at my desk and go online to look for music only to discover that I mis-remembered the station in Seattle where the classical music was, and that it was still on the air and that it actually streams on the internet.

So here I sit, on my last day of work, in a very quiet office, with my Starbucks, my doughnut and some Seattle music while it pours outside. Yesterday I paid off all the credit cards and today I'll pay off Lori's car. Later today they're having what sounds like is a big production for my surprise going away party.

Yes, it's going to be a great day. (I saw a little thing the other day I liked... it said 'Live your life as an exclamation, not an explanation.')