Jan 1 - offline

We ended the first day of the year offline ... horrors ! How do people live that way ??!!

Yes, Xplornet had gone down.  At first we thought that it was a router issue but I saw that there were only a couple of lights lit on the modem -- Lan and Power.  Checking via the ip address, there was a problem.  Rebooting didn't do anything.  Calling the 800 number mentioned that if you had such-and-such modem, you probably had a problem, off-line or slow.  Right.  I'll bet that there was no-one who was slow.  They were offline.  Hughes, really, not Xplornet.  Whatever.

I watched TV for a bit (this was after dinner) and then turned in at roughly the usual time.  I'd forgotten the silence switch and during the night heard an email come in.  I have no idea how long we were offline; doesn't really matter.

The kids got out on the sleds yesterday -- the little kids and the big kid -- Jeffrey.  They, and Cassie, had a blast.  Inside, Sara worked with them on decorating gingerbread men and some other crafty things.  They had a busy day.  Occasionally Matthew would come to me and have me turn on Disney Jr for a short while.  He's really taken with broadcast TV -- they don't have that at home -- and me, it seems.  He gets enough of "girls" at home :).

There's been an amazing improvement in Matty's speech. In the summer he was mostly silent other than crying-type sounds.  Now he's constantly talking and will try to say anything that you ask him to ... most of the time he's hard to understand, because he's got this physical problem with consonants, but it's coming along, working with the speech therapist.  I expect that there will be another leap forward when we see them in Florida in the Spring.

I did some work room tidy up and also had another go at fishing.  At the end of the day, without any flags flying, I pulled up the rigs and found that I'd lost both minnows.  Sneaky Fish got me again !  I also went into Britt, second day in a row, for the obligatory New Years Day Mass.  It was thinly attended, about 15 people. 

I found that the X5 was hard starting, or actually hard running.  The heater had come unplugged and while it started right up, it was rough, typical diesel in the cold.  I fixed the heater when I returned, hopefully it will be ok. I'll have to check it before the deep freeze arrives.

Today is supposed to be warmer, much warmer but still below freezing.  Tomorrow's forecast is the same, last time I checked, and then the temps plunge again.  

I'm itching to get at the tree ... Christmas is over ... obviously tomorrow at the latest.  It only takes a couple of hours to dismantle and pack everything up.  I remove ornaments and then branches from the bottom up, leaving a standing trunk.  Without the branches in the way, it's easy to get at the top of the tree.

Jeffrey's plan is to leave early tomorrow. 

Onward !