Dec 23 - more digging out

Apart from fishing, where I caught nothing, and digging into a snow bank, I don't think that I did anything.

Well, I take that back.

-- We did finish up the Chistmas tree -- Sandy always adds the final touches. She hung some more balls, rearranged some that I hung, put on the tinsel, then I put away the ladders.

-- I did take two walks down to the Matthews' to check that their heat was on, early morning with Abby and late afternoon with Sandy and Abby. Jim leaves a thermometer on a chair by the doorway. I didn't really need to check it twice but it's a good walk. Abby loves racing around on the lake.

-- I did put the CAT5 connector & wallplate on the CAT5 cable hanging out of the kitchen wall by the table (I did that so that Mya couldn't chew the cable any more than she has). I still have a major project in front of me to put these connectors, along with coax and telephone, in every room. The cables are dangling out of the walls in two or three locations in every room. With wireless, this is probably entirely unnecessary but the cables are there now and the only other option is simply to repair the drywall and seal them inside the walls ... hmmm.

-- I did some more cleanup in the basement, breaking down all the cardboard boxes that I've emptied, doing some more cleanup in my workroom.

-- Sandy did some cooking-related chores, prepping for Christmas dinner, planned for the 30th, perhaps now on the 31st since Stef's travels will be delayed. They have something wrong with their car that will not be fixed until Monday the 29th.

-- Digging into the snow bank was a major chore. At the end of the driveway by the satellite dishes, our snow-plowing guy had built up a snowbank 5 feet high and 10-15 feet deep, pushing snow into that area from the rest of the driveway. Correction -- it's highly packed, melted then frozen again, needed to be chipped at with a spade. I needed to cut a trench through it so that I could walk to access the satellite dishes which accumulate snow and then stop working. I also wanted to provide a trench for spring runnoff -- I'll put stakes in the driveway further back so that this area doesn't get plugged again by Al.

-- ok, I confess, I did watch a couple of Stargate Atlantis episodes. I'm about half-way through season 3 with one more to go that I've purchased.

-- I probably did some other things but forget at this point.

We haven't wrapped presents yet ... that will be a last-minute activity as usual. We got some more snow yesterday, a few inches, which must be blown away this morning so that a) I can get into town this afternoon for Mass (Christmas Eve at 2pm), and b) so that this evening's snowfall, predicted to be 15cm, won't pile up on top of yesterday's snowfall ... you get the idea.

It's getting light out now so I'll get the fishing rigs into the water again before starting up the snow blower. Of course, before I do any of that I'll get dressed, since I'm sitting here in my housecoat !

It's just under freezing right now and the snow predicted for later today will be heavy and sticky. Perhaps it's snow-man time !