Well I have taken the week of... well actually I guess I was "given" the week off since AMA continues to suck, and decided that one week wasn't worth it. But I am very relaxed now, did a little work on the house, and prepared for Mom and Don's visit right after Christmas.

I have started hanging some of the doors back that I have primed and painted a fresh coat of white. I have also been replacing some of the sockets and light switches and their face plates to give off a fresh look as well. But as usual when dealing with a 40 year old house that job turned out to be more then I bargained for... Seems that 40 years ago they didn't run a ground wire with the hot and neutral wires so that the three pronged outlets that I bought would be violating code if I installed them (which I did a couple of places any way). Running the ground wire might be a task for another day, since if you do try to run the wire through the same conduit as the old wires they will get shredded since they also used some type of tar and string concoction to wrap their wires back then, which doesn't hold up very well after 40 years and a fresh wire being rubbed against them.

I am very excited about Mom and Don coming to see our first house, and about opening our presents, sherry and I are very fortunate and have a rather large pile gathering for ourselves. Sarah and Heidi's presents arrived today and I had to force Sherry to wait til Christmas to open them.