Sheep Guarding Llama

I got woken up by a call this morning.  So I got to start my day working at seven.  No fun.  I ended up on the phone for seventy-five minutes first thing in the morning.  At least I was able to make myself some coffee.

Liesl ended up waking up before I was able to make it away for the office.  So I put on a Dora DVD for her and spent a little time sitting with her watching it, as she asked me to do.  She just likes me to sit with her when she does things, which is awesome but it makes it very hard to get things done that need my attention and with the new house a lot of things need my attention.

Normal day at work.  For lunch, Dan and I went to La Cima.  It was a great lunch buffet today.  Cedar plank salmon on the carving station, corn ragout and red wine risotto.  Nice change of pace.  Unfortunately we got caught going to lunch very late and had to race back to get to a conference call so no time to relax at the club for us today.  I hope to make it tomorrow night for pasta night.  Haven’t made it in a while.

I got home at a good time today.  I am starting to learn the tricks of getting around during rush hour without getting caught on the non-moving toll roads.

Dominica felt like going out for dinner tonight so we decided to go out to Pappadeaux’s since Liesl was already awake.  So it was an early dinner for us.  Dominica has never been to Pappadeaux’s before and I have only been at the DFW Airport.  The menu is very extensive and for a fish lover like me it is really good.  I got the Texas Redfish on the Half Shell with lump crab and asparagus.  It was very good and not too unhealthy.

After dinner we went home.  It felt really late but was, in actuality, just after eight when we got home.  An early night.

I put in some time working from the laptop at the bar while we cleaned some in the house.  We spoke to John about the electric tonight.  He is definitely concerned that it is not necessarily safe the way that it is.  We need to get the electric company to come out and verify the service on the outside of the house.  Need to get everything internally checked as well.  It is going to be quite expensive to get all of this fixed.  What a mess.  We need to get started on replacing all of our outlets around the house as a first step while we are waiting for John to have an opportunity to come out and really look into the electric which he cannot do until January.

Liesl got her Christmas Letter from Santa today.  She thought that that was pretty cool.  She loves pictures so it was perfect timing for her.

We went to bed pretty early.  I have to get up at six tomorrow as I have an early meeting at a different campus than I normally drive into so while it is not all that early I do need to get out there extra early to ensure that I am able to find it without a problem.

Oreo is loving his new digs.  Having a ranch (or a one-story home, as they are called in Texas) is very good for him.  He is happier and healthier than he has been and today, for the first time since we lived in Geneseo, he went out and laid in the yard for a long time just relaxing in the sun.  It isn’t even that warm of a day.  He is just happy to be able to be outside.  He loves being outside even though he gets so cold.  He has always liked laying in the grass.

I went into the office this morning.  I timed the drive during late rush hour and it took only eleven to twelve minutes to go from home to office!  Far better than we had originally expected.  Twelve minutes is not bad at all.  Running home for lunch isn’t too much of a problem.  The time to go to and from is only a tiny smidgen longer than it was at the apartment.  I keep forgetting to bring my iPod with me so that I can listen to my books.  I need to remember that.  Better use of my time in the car – especially on days when I do two round trips rather than one.

Today is the first day of the freeze so work was pretty slow.  We always have a lot of people out during this time of year so it is not as slow as it might be if the office was fully staffed but still rather slow.

For lunch I had some work to do that I couldn’t get done last night so I ran home and spent some time with the family and did some work from there.  I picked up Panera on the way home which was pretty convenient.

The afternoon was slow too.  One of the best things about the freeze is that there is no reason to stay late in the office so I am able to leave much, much earlier than usual.  I was home today by around six which was awesome.

I’ve started parking in the driveway now rather than out on the street in front of the house.  It is neat having a two sided house.  Having two completely different approaches to your house makes it very interesting.  You don’t normally have that.

John called us tonight about our electrical issues.  He definitely agreed that the constant brownouts and power surges in the house are a major cause for concern.  He suspects a few things.  One that we do not have enough service.  That we expected so no surprise there.  Second that we have aluminum wiring that is interacting with copper connections.  We had not thought of anything like that.  He is going to do some research on our issues and get back to us in a day or two.

We are obviously quite anxious to get electrical situation rectified, if you will excuse the pun, as it is making us both worried about safety as well as making us effectively unable to do anything in large portions of the house because we are not comfortable setting up the necessary computers or whatever due to the constant brown out.  Not to mention all of the bad wall outlets that are all dangerously loose.  Every single outlet in the house needs to be replaced.  No small job.

Dominica cooked dinner tonight.  Liesl and I spent a very, very long time in the kitchen playing with her big yellow balloon.  She loves to toss it to me and then I hit it back at her.  She only wants to play in the kitchen, though.  That is a bit of a problem because I can’t keep working in any way since my computer gets set up on the bar.  We put in a lot of time playing with the balloon and some ice – which she has only recently discovered since we only just got an ice maker hooked up yesterday with our “new” fridge that Bennie installed.  We’ve never kept ice in the house as long as we have had Liesl so this is a novelty to her.

Liesl is definitely entering “the terrible twos” and we are starting to deal with some serious temper tantrum issues.  It is extra tough because they almost always spring from her demanding that I spend more time with her than I can.  She wants me to play all evening just with her or to sit somewhere with her, “daddy, sit!”  It is very endearing and I love that she wants to spend so much time with me but even just trying to get a glass of water or check my email can send her over the edge.  It makes it extremely hard to spend quality time with her as almost anytime that we do get time together it almost always ends in her throwing a tantrum and getting disciplined.  We’ve had to start sending her to her room so that she can work it out on her own.

I spent the evening working.  No real free time for me.  One Liesl was in trouble and spending a bit of time alone in her room we did some additional cleaning and mostly got the house back into shape.  Most everything is picked up, thrown away, cleaned, etc.  The dishes are done as well.

I moved the rocking chair from the living room into our bedroom.  Now we have more seating in our bedroom, which is huge and was just empty, unused space before and there is space in the living room for Liesl’s easel to move into that corner.  Now she can colour on her easel (it has a white board, chalk board and paper feed) in bright, natural light with more space.

Dominica and Liesl went to bed early tonight.  I stayed up until almost two working.  Too much to do.  No rest for me.

The Grices got up super early this morning and were on the road long before we got up.  The Millers all slept in until almost ten.  Boy did we need it.  We are really worn out.  Getting into this house has really taken a toll on us.

We did some cleanup today but not too much.  The house is still somewhat messy from the party but not too bad.  Mostly wrapping paper and paper plates.

Dominica watched The Money Pit to make herself feel better about our house situation.  I half watched it as I went around the house trying to clean and get stuff red up.

Our big project today is watching Battlestar Galactica from bed.  It isn’t like we have anywhere else from where to watch.  The only television that we have set up in the house is the Samsung in our bedroom.  It works pretty well there but boy do we wish that we had a couch or loveseat to put at the foot of our bed.  Sitting in the bed to watch television is very reminiscent of our days in Newark at Eleven80 when we had our television mounted above the closet in our bedroom and would sit on the bed to watch it.  It makes for a nice, clean living room but it makes actually watching television a bit awkward.  Liesl likes it, though, because she can snuggle in my lap while we watch.  Working from my laptop is a chore, though.

We made it through several episodes before turning in on the early side.  I got a lot of work done from my laptop today.  But I am still anxious to get my office set up.  Electrical issues need to be addressed before we can really do that, though.

Today is the big birthday party.  Tons to be done before the party actually starts.  The house is still in a condition where it looks like we are still attempting to move in.

Bennie worked all morning on getting the cabinets resized in the kitchen so that the refrigerator, which thus far has been sitting in the center of the kitchen, could fit into its place.  While he was working on that, the girls went out shopping for much of the morning.

Bennie getting the fridge put into place (and the water hooked up to it as well) really makes a difference in the house.  We knew that it would but after living with it for a week we kind of got used to having it in the middle of the kitchen and really forgot how large the kitchen actually was.  Now seeing a fridge in place for the first time the house looks so much better and the kitchen is usable for the first time.  That alone makes us feel much, much better about the house.

The house is slowly coming together.  I had tons of work to do today and tried to mix working from the laptop sitting on the bar with running around the house to get things ready for the party.  I can’t wait until I have an office set up so that I can work from a chair rather than having to do absolutely everything while standing at the bar.  It is really taking a toll on my feet and back.  The house sits on a concrete slab so the floor feels fine at first but fatigues you a lot pretty quickly.

We managed to get the house into ship shape just before the first guests, Andy and Miranda, arrived from Austin.  By the time that they arrived the house was really starting to look like we actually live here.  There are no boxes stacked anywhere and the kitchen is all put away.  Furniture is out and usable.  It’s amazing.  I’m looking forward to actually living in the house now!  The garage, of course, is a complete disaster.

The party went well.  Liesl had a great time being the center of attention.  We had a really good turn out.  The house was packed.  Lots of kids taking advantage of the back yard as well.  I think most of them have spent more time out there than I have at this point.

Speaking of the back yard, we have now been in the house for almost two weeks and the contractor that was supposed to be here on day one to remove the playground hasn’t even shown up yet!  It’s like pulling teeth to get things done around here.

Everyone commented on how healthy Oreo is looking these days and on how crazy our electrical issues are in the house.  No one has ever seen a house in such bad electrical shape.  That doesn’t keep us from feeling nervous.

For her birthday, Liesl had Dora decorated cupcakes.

It took Liesl a minute to realize that it was her birthday that was being celebrated.  She had a lot of fun eating her cupcake and opening her presents, though.   She got tons of really cool stuff.  She is a very spoiled child.  🙂

One thing that Liesl received is bristle blocks!  I couldn’t believe it when I saw them.  I had bristle blocks when I was Liesl’s age and I played with them a lot.  Seeing them really brought back some memories.

One thing that occurred to me is that Liesl is one of the first kids who will grow up playing with the same toys, to any significant degree, as her parents.  I realize that this was true historically, that toys remained relatively unchanged generation to generation.  But in the last few hundred years this has not been the case and I am not aware of any toy, at least any of any significance, of mine that my parents would also have had.

Liesl, however, already plays with bristle block, megablocks and Care Bears and is familiar with things like My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake.  She will be getting Legos soon.  She might even end up playing with Transformers.  This is a major change in childhood behaviour, I think.  Many of my childhood toys would fit right in with Liesl’s today.

The party did not go too late, but boy were we exhausted when it was all over.  We did some cleaning, we meaning mostly Francesca.  I went to bed around nine thirty as I was so tired.  After not too long Dominica went to bed as well.

I started watching, via Netflix, the original 1978 series of Battlestar Galactica, which, other than the pilot movie which I have on DVD, I have not seen since it was on reruns around 1979-1980.  I suspect that I saw it when it was released (I’m assuming that it was) to promote the second run of the show in 1980 with the altered cast that did not last long at all.  Boy does watching this bring back memories.  It is amazing how close this show is to Buck Rogers which was also made by the same producer.  Very similar shows.

In the office this morning.  I got in a little late but it is going to be a long day as today is the last day of the normal year with the SEC industry freeze going into affect Sunday at midnight so lots of work being rushed to be completed this evening.

The morning was fine.  I went to Mi Cocina for lunch.  Had a good meeting, very productive.

After lunch it was back to the office for a long afternoon of deployments.  A very long afternoon.  But that is par for the course and as expected.  Not stressful at all, just busy.  And busy with the hopes of the month long freeze!  Yay!

After work, Dominica ordered food in from the Coconut Thai Grill.  I swung over to the old apartment and picked up Jen.  She and I ran to CVS to pick up some pharmaceuticals then we drove up to Carrollton and had dinner there.  Jen didn’t stay for too long.  Pretty much just for dinner.

Dominica and I got about an hour or two of cleaning done before the Grice clan arrived en masse from Houston.  They are spending the weekend for Liesl’s second birthday party which we are having tomorrow.

Bennie got the hot water tank working correctly tonight.  Turns out that you have to cut the power to it, remove two panels and adjust the water temperature with a screwdriver.  What a pain.  Nothing like the ones that I am used to.  It would never have occurred to me to cut the power and take panels off of the thing.  That seems a bit crazy.

While working on the hot water heater we discovered that the previous owners, or possibly the ones before them, had tapped into the hot water heater’s power to use to power the half-assed garage conversion that they had done.  So that is a major issue that needs to be resolved.  That is our next big item – getting the power fixed in the house.  Everything is out of whack and we need very major electrical repair to keep the house in order.  It is, I fear, in a dangerous state right now.