When I set up my gmail account, I received six (count ’em, six) gmail invites for your emailing pleasure. So, if anyone wants one, e-mail me and you can have one. First come, first served.
pig sty
The upstairs part of our house (where our office is and our library will be) is a total pig sty. This is mostly due to the fact that it has been a work in progress for a few years and will be for a few more years to come.
It finally got so bad that Brian commented on it. My response was that if it was bothering him so much, maybe he should quit complaining about it and go clean the room. Much to my surprise, he did just that on Saturday. And, that motivated me to mop the floors up there (which I did after work today).
While the office looks about 10 times better than it did before it was cleaned, it still looks like a pig sty. Hence, my lack of motivation to clean it in the first place.
I consider this whole situation to be a trade-off. His cat‘s litter box is also upstairs. I got sick of nagging him to clean it. So, after eight years of having a cat in the house, I’m now cleaning the litter box for the first time. Eating my own words, I guess.
christmas shopping: done
Today, I met my goal of completing my Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving. I had to go to Boscov’s in order to complete it. *gasp* I think I ordered just about everything else through the internet. If only I could get my groceries through the internet, I wouldn’t ever have to leave the house.
There are a few items on backorder, but they are scheduled to arrive before Christmas. Of course, the items I ordered from Brian’s Rickety Ol’ Furniture Shoppe haven’t arrived yet, but I expect them by December 24. I don’t know how that place stays in business…
We normally reserve a weekend around 10 days before Christmas to get our tree, decorate the house, and wrap all of the gifts. I’d do it earlier, but gifts are a lot easier to store when they’re not wrapped. In the meantime, I need to address all of my Christmas cards (which are hand-made this year, by the way) and Brian needs to take a picture of Jacob so that I can send one out with the cards. Oh yeah, there’s also the baking. I don’t make a ton of cookies, because we don’t really get that much company over the holidays. I actually make more dog treats, if you can believe it. I give most of them away to people who love their dogs as much as I do. It’s a lot of fun and Jake likes to help with the baking.
150 bottles of wine on the wall
150 bottles of wine. Take one down, pass it around, 149 bottles of wine on the wall…
We bottled two batches of wine last evening. One was a Primativo Syrah and the other a Pinot Blanc. We got a little over two cases each. Both were pretty tasty so I’m sure they’ll be even better once they’ve had the opportunity to bottle age for a few months. These were the remaining two kits from my 2004 Limited Edition collection. Tomorrow, when I put them on the wine racks, that’ll bring my total up to 150 bottles of wine! If I plan on keeping up with Brian, I guess I’d better get drinking.
Last week, Brian ordered my 2005 Limited Edition kits. So, the wine cycle will begin again in January. All five kits for next year look pretty good.
I also have a hankering for some strawberry wine, so if I can squeeze a batch of that in this summer, I’ll be happy. It’s been a few years since I’ve made it, so I guess I’m due. We’ll see.
today’s lesson
Mea culpa. I had erroneously been referring to the ‘national debt’ as the ‘national deficit’ (previous posts have since been fixed). It turns out that the national debt is the total amount of money that the government owes, whereas the ‘national deficit’ (or budget deficit) is the amount the government overspends in a single year. If you add up the national deficit numbers from every year, you get the national debt.
If the government doesn’t overspend, it’s called a budget surplus. Clinton was the only president in recent history to have a budget surplus. Bush took care of that “problem”.
Our elected officials, in their infinite wisdom, have increased the national debt limit to $8.18 trillion. If this doesn’t screw up the economy, I don’t know what will. Alan Greenspan concurs.
National debt: $7,449,106,021,485.29
Your share: $25,264.80
You can send your contribution here:
ATTN DEPT G
BUREAU OF THE PUBLIC DEBT
P O BOX 2188
PARKERSBURG, WV 26106-2188