Sheep Guarding Llama

Today is Monday and today marks the beginning of my second full week of pseudo-vacation time at home.  It feels weird.  Really weird.  I have never been at home (and on full pay) for so long before.  This is very much a novel experience.  I have had weekends, even extended weekends, at home alone before.  Long ago I worked from home but that was different.  Although it is interesting to note that back when I did work from home full time last that it was in this very house.  All of the time in Texas and Connecticut since then has been time in an office.  I have forgotten how nice it is to be home all day long and get to have a completely flexible schedule.  And I have forgotten how nice it is to get to just enjoy your home.  And my days are so much longer now.  I am sleeping more and still having far more time to work on things.  It is great.

I worked in the office all day today.  No need to go anywhere.  The girls came in and hung out in the office for much of the morning.  Today and tomorrow are my last days with them as they are heading out to Houston on Wednesday morning from JFK in Brooklyn.  So we are starting to prepare for two weeks apart.  Originally when this trip was scheduled we assumed that I would be in the office and it would only go over one weekend.  But instead it is turning out that they are going to be gone while I am home alone for two weeks.  That really did not end up being a very ideal situation.

After getting some stuff done during the day we just relaxed in the living room this evening and watched some of “How I Met Your Mother.”

So we got up this morning and made the call to skip the “sofa ride” into the woods and instead take the time to go down to Mt. Morris to have breakfast again at Brian’s USA Diner.  It took us all morning to get everyone up and ready and packed and out of the door.  We were late enough that we were concerned about going anywhere specific for breakfast because we were going to hit the lunch crowd and Brian’s is always so busy, but doing anything else wasn’t really what we wanted, might have been packed too and would not have been so ideally on the way out of town.

We had a nice breakfast and from there we got on the road to drive back to Peekskill.  Originally we were supposed to meet up with Mary before we left town but there just wasn’t time as the plan was to get back to the house in time to meet up with Rob as he was coming back through from Boston.

The drive back down to Peekskill went very well.  Light traffic and no issues the entire way.  Even getting around Orange County was fine.  We had to wait for just a few minutes at Bear Mountain Bridge but nothing else.

Rob ended up needing to cancel today so we ended up having the afternoon to ourselves at home.  We spent the evening relaxing and hanging out as a family.

Today is our one full day back home.  We have to head back down to Peekskill tomorrow around lunch time.  We slept in a bit today.  Dominica and I did not sleep in all that much.  The girls, however, slept a very long time.  Their sleeping schedule is completely disrupted at this point and they are no longer on any normal schedule.  They stay up super late and sleep in super late.  Dominica will probably try to blame this on my being home all of the time.  I have no idea how that makes it my fault.

While we were waiting for the girls to get up we visited and I set up Dominica’s “old” desktop (the one that is identical to my own) and started installing Windows 10 Technology Preview on it.  Art is going to be using that desktop once we get it all set up and working properly.  I figured that if I got started early that we would have a good chance of getting it all taken care of today.  So far, after having gotten Windows 1o onto Dominica’s laptop two nights ago, we are pretty impressed with it.  It is the nicest Windows product to use in several generations.  A clear improvement on Windows 8.1 which is what I use most of the time.

Once the girls were finally awake we loaded into the Acadia and went to Mt. Morris to get lunch at Brian’s USA Diner.  Dad and I both got the fish and chips.  Dominica got breakfast.  The girls split pancakes.

After lunch we drove into Letchworth State Park.  Believe it or not this place that was so central to my childhood, neither of my girls have ever been there.  Unbelievable. They were mostly excited to go to go there because they got to see some pictures of the gorge and the waterfalls while at the diner so they had an idea of what they were going to get to see.

We first stopped at the dam overlook.  Dominica hit the giftshop there to get postcards for friends in Texas and to get some surprises for the girls.  She got Liesl a black bear that can be stuffed into a giant paw (you have to see it to understand.)  And she got Luciana a raccoon.  While she was in there, the girls sat on a giant chair that sits at the overlook and just hung out on it thinking that, for some strange reason, that that was the best thing around to do.  They pretty much ignored the view of the canyon and the dam.  Although, to be fair, there was no river flowing.  It was all dry.

We finally got them to leave the chair and we drove on.  We went to the Tea Table area where they spent maybe twenty minutes playing on a tiny playground there.  They were itching to be out of the car and do something.  They associate parks with playgrounds so were expecting playground time.  Each time that we got out of the car we took some pictures with Flat Stanley whom we brought with us.

Next we went to Inspiration Point and walked around a little.  They have done a bit of work there this past year fixing the stonework up around the little pond.  This is the first that the girls got to see the waterfalls.

Our last stop was the upper falls area.  We parked by the Upper Falls Snack Bar and we got a coffee for Dominica and ice cream for the girls and I.  We finished the ice cream and then walked over to the Middle Falls to show it to the girls.  There was a wedding going on right there while we were looking at the falls.  Then Liesl, dad and Dominica went to look at the falls more and I took a rather impatient Luciana to the large playground there and let her work off some energy.  Liesl came over later and used the swings there a lot.  It started raining while dad, Dominica and I sat on a bench swing.

From the falls we drove out the Castile exit and back to dad’s house.  Sharon and Leo were already at the house waiting for us.  The plan had been to do a sofa ride through the woods but it was getting cold and there was a light rain and there wasn’t enough time for Dominica and I to go as well because we had to get up to Rochester to meet Tricia.  So we had to skip the sofa ride tonight.

We left at four twenty five and drove up to the South Wedge to meet Tricia and Kathy at 140 Alex, near where I used to hang out when I still lived in Rochester.  The place was empty when we first arrived but after a few hours was really busy.  We had a really good time hanging out there.  We stayed until just after eleven.

We got home and dad was pretty exhausted from watching the girls all night.  They were finally in bed but they were wide awake still.  It took a bit to get them to calm down and really go to sleep.

Originally we had thought about leaving to go up to dad’s house first thing this morning.  But I was asked to do a question and answer session at one this afternoon on Reddit for Symantec and that would have made driving up this morning extremely difficult.  So we opted to drive up late instead.

It was nice that we had a leisurely morning, especially as the girls did not wake up until late so it would have been a terrible struggle trying to get them out of the house before one anyway.  There was time to get the car packed and everyone ready to go without needing to hurry.  I was able to spend the morning getting work done.  Then from one until two thirty I was on the Reddit Q&A.  So I was fully posted out on ML and SW before we loaded into the car and headed out.

We stopped downtown and got Subway for lunch.  That always makes Liesl super happy.  Luciana was not sure if she wanted Subway but once Liesl had some, she wanted it too.  Both girls like the plain Italian bread with double American cheese and mayo.  Liesl additionally likes lettuce on hers and is very unhappy if she has to have one without it for eating in the car.  But Luciana does not want the lettuce.  Dominica got a salad.  I got the tuna salad sub loaded with veggies.

The drive up to dad’s went very well.  The girls had a good time looking at all of the leaves changes along the route.  They especially enjoyed going through Sullivan County on the western side of the Catskills.

We hung out at dad’s until fairly late and got the girls into bed then went down, just Dominica and I, to the Wadsworth Grill for a little bit to hang out with Art and Danielle.  I was surprised that by eleven thirty the place was completely dead.  Art said that this is how it always is.  Saturday night is more lively.  But on a Friday night, still pretty early, just five or six people is normal.  Very surprising.  I guess everyone else just… goes to bed or something.  It isn’t like there is anywhere else to go in the area.

Finally after a month of being behind I am working on getting caught up on SGL.  This is going to take a lot of time to get caught up.  So here we go.

I got to sleep in a little this morning not getting up until about eight.  I did a little work before everyone woke up.  Dominica was up around nine, Liesl at ten and Luciana at eleven.

I spent most of the day sitting up in the bedroom working on posting both on Spiceworks and on MangoLassi.  I got a lot of posting done.  Very productive, in some ways.

I had a lot of phone calls to do today, but I got a lot done.

I finally got done working around eight and came down and we watched “How I Met Your Mother” some more.  The girls decided not to hang out with me much but went down to the basement and spent the entire evening playing with a doll house.  They are so good at playing together.

We worked on Dominica’s new laptop all day today.  We loaded up Windows 10 on it today.  That presented a few challenges.  And we worked to get a desktop ready to take north with us tomorrow.

Tomorrow we are driving up to dad’s house for the weekend.

We stayed up until after midnight working on the house computers.