Christmas...
now sits in the upstairs hallway. Boxed and bundled and bagged and tagged, awaiting the solemn journey into the attic. It gets harder to give it up each year as I get older. I'm wont to wonder if I will see another one. Not that I'm morbid, well, any more morbid than usual, but since I'm well past the half century mark, it seems to be something I think about more often then I did when I was younger. I don't feel so immortal anymore, which, in it's way, does help me appreciate the day to day things a bit more, although it does concentrate the mind a bit...
It was a beautiful day here in New Jersey, in the low fifties and mostly sunny. I spent a little while sitting at the picnic table out back, enjoying the warmth of the sun, which I helped warm me with a Tequila Sunrise. The coming week promises to be even warmer, so I'm looking forward to taking up my lunchtime walks again. It's a wonderful thing.
As you may or may not know, I'm a bit of a stargazer. I ran across this great free software called Stellarium, which is a 3D representation of the night sky, which you can set to your exact location so you can see what's going on in the heavens right over your head. You can toggle the constellations on and off, see meteor showers, highlight specific planets and stars and get current information about them, lots of fun features. I ran it though my security software and it's clean and it works great on my PC, which is running XP Pro. You can also download for your Mac or Linux systems, if you want. You can find it HERE. It's great fun and a super learning tool, I recommend it for any halflings you might have running around your place with an interest in such things. Enjoy.
Well, I'm going to go get ready for dinner. Bacon cheeseburgers on the grill, with potato salad! Gotta take advantage of the warm weather, you know.
Enjoy your evening, my fellow wanderers. Fare thee well.
wander with me...

Merry Twelfth Night..!
Although the revelry of past years seems to have gone by the wayside, it is still a special night for me. I'll drink my spiced ale and have a small fire, then, although it's in the face of tempting bad luck, tomorrow I'll take down the Christmas decorations. When I was a child, my parents would always leave the tree for last, my mother would tell me they were taking down the tree and putting in it's place the empty corner to celebrate the rest of the year. I hope this coming year does have some causes for celebration, time will tell, eh?
In other news, I spent a good part of the day cleaning up the grounds of Stately Sad Old Goth Manor, you couldn't walk anywhere without tripping over twigs and limbs brought down by the recent windy weather. It was in the forties, with some sun, so it was a pleasant task and the property looks pretty good and it will save some work in the spring. I champ at the bit to be outside working on the grounds this time of year and take every opportunity to do so. The weather tomorrow is going to be fair as well, so maybe I can sneak outside for a while and trim some of the shrubs and start tidying up the back woods a bit. I need to stay on top of it, this year is going to be busy; we're putting in a huge patio area outside the kitchen door, remodeling our parlor and I still have to do some work on the chimneys and rebuild the trough gutters on the front of the house. And, if I can keep from having to use the funds I've been setting aside, I plan on at least getting the shell of my workshop up this year. Oh, and the new evergreens across the front of the property and down the west side, which will give us some much needed privacy from the ever increasing traffic and help keep the dust and noise at bay.
Well, I'm going to go take a shower and relax for a bit. Enjoy your evening. We'll wander together again soon, ok?
Fare thee well, my friends.
wander with me...