Feburary is a cold and boring

Well I take that back, we had a nice break from bone chilling cold last week. Sunny days, opened the windows and aired out the house. I can't wait for a constant supply of warmer days.

Hmmm, Goof says I have mastered the art of meat loaf. He's happy with it, and wouldn't change a thing about it. Hey not bad for almost 14 years of marriage. I can finally make white man comfort food. He said the same thing about the beef stew last night too.

The night of the rotisserie chicken, I peeked out the front windows and saw the new neighbors out playing. So Goof helped me drag Stinky out with me and we delivered some peanut butter cookies. The new neighbors had bought the house before Christmas, but since it had been a rental, and the prior renters were very crowded and hillbilly trash, they had really damaged the interior. It also happened to be a foreclosure home, so they got a good price for it. The adults were very nice and they showed me the inside of their home. Obviously it deserves recognition as the interior is beautiful. I'm jealous because the house was built not too long ago, so the stuff I don't like about my house aren't in theirs. They have bigger bathrooms, and closets than I have.

Stinky likes the new girl. She's the same age, and grade as he. They hung out a bit since meeting each other. She's a cutie, and I think Stinky is smitten. She's finishing up the school year at the other middle school, so next term she'll go to our school. I offered to carpool her next year also. Stinky is looking forward to that.

Friday night I decided I wanted a beef tenderloin for dinner. It was a lovely piece of meat and I cooked it right, but there was too much of a pepper crust for the family to enjoy. Next time, I'll go for an herb crusted roast instead.

I also pushed the golf cart to the limit Friday. I'm not sure what is wrong with the cart, but it died. I had to call one of the local shops to tow it back to their shop and have some maintenance done on it. Perhaps it's just batteries, or it could be our charger too. I don't know. Goof wasn't too happy about it, but what could we do? I will find out what's wrong with it on Tuesday. They haven't started the service yet.

Stinky met the new girls staying at Enabler's house. We aren't sure the relation to her, or why Fred and Barney left. They seem nice, and don't care for Fred and Barney. We also found out that Barney tried to set our shed on fire. We weren't sure what he was doing over there, by the video feed, but we got confirmation what he wanted to do because of the girls. That boy has issues, and I'm glad he's gone.

Now it looks like Dramaqueen only has one friend to play with, and bolster his courage. He's left Stinky alone, and I'm glad of it. Goof is still laughing. He loves looking out the window and seeing the Christmas decorations up at Babymama's house. You can't call them winter decorations when Santa Claus is waving at everyone on the front door. The snowman leaning on the front step might pass, but the stocking hanging on the inside of the sidelight needs to be put away too. I keep trying to think of possible excuses she might leave them up so late. Epiphany if she's a devout Catholic, which would mean she would take the stuff down on the 7th. Nope, still up and she's not devout, remember 4 kids, 2 men, 12 years, unmarried. For Mardi Gras? Well she's not New Orleans society, and the decorations are not purple green and gold. So well nope not that either. Goof thinks the decorations will be up until March 1st. It certainly looks like it. Now if she keeps it up until Easter, I will be giggling for a long time, as that confirms my opinion that she's so lazy she's calling it winter decorations.

Last week was my battle with cable. Our HD dvr had been turning itself off on us for about 2 weeks. So I called and asked them to come out and check it possibly exchanging it for another. Well the technician did that, and installed another digital converter for the living room tv. A couple of things happened. The HD tv started to hum and buzz. We couldn't figure out what was wrong with it. And in our search for answers we turned off the digital converter in the living room and that one stopped working too. After several service calls, and technicians trying to figure out what was wrong, we got a new HD dvr swap, new cable wiring installed, and component wires. Finally no buzzing or humming, and the digital box in the living room is working fine. My goodness what a hassle.

Stinky is on Winter break for this week. Seriously, what is up with that? I'm still getting use to this. A break barely one month after Christmas break, then Easter break will come in another month! Then school for another month then they are out.

So far so good

Well Stinky has been learning the hard way that middle school teachers are not as lax. He's still enjoying school, and looks forward to each day. We had to take his backpack back and exchange it for a larger one. It just doesn't hold everything he's got. So the fancy skate name one is gone, and it's just a plain Jansport, which is what I wanted to get him in the first place. Oh well. We have had no interaction with Fred. We hope that the school has put the fear of God in him. Stinky saw Eldest yesterday and said hello to him, but Eldest didn't respond. Whatever. We are unliked on our block. Then again, I don't care. Baby mama and Kiosk man will move on. They talk about the McMansion, hard to do with your wages, they will end up moving somewhere else, with illusions of grandeur and not achieving much. Big Red seems to think that Fred's mother is out of jail. Perhaps, but we haven't seen her yet so we will keep our eyes open.

I'm starting to go to pot. Well I'm starting to get the frog look. What I mean by that, is the belly is beginning to pooch out with skinny legs. I guess, it's time to exercise. Today, I took the dogs for a walk, and it wasn't bad, it was a short walk only 2 miles. We will work up to more, but this heat is crazy. It's been 3 weeks of over 95*F days. I want to walk after dinner, but it's still too hot for the dogs. This morning it was 75*F so that wasn't too bad. The dogs enjoy a more structured exercise regime than just me wandering around the backyard with them. Mingy is just a dream to walk, if I trusted his skittish ass, I would let him walk off lead, but it's just not reasonable. The good thing, is that he doesn't freak out with the golf carts. A couple of days ago, we took a walk and didn't realize that a cart was behind us. Marley didn't even care. Those electric carts are great. The gas ones, make too much noise and odor.

It's just not our month

So we left for California and Grandma's funeral. It was pretty difficult for me and Stinky. Basically there was a lot of drama that we missed. Lucky for me as a grandchild. Mom was worn down from it all. She's been a rock for the family. We saw the family and some members we haven't seen in years. Youngest aunt looked really bad. I mean really bad. Her liver was failing. She looked like a cast member of the Simpsons. So the flight to and from wasn't bad. It was when we got home, more bad news came.

Youngest aunt was hospitalized the next day. She was really bad. Her kidneys failed the following day and she passed away late Sat night. It was a bad weekend for us. I'm not sure how the family will be in the future. My aunt was only 47. Her breast cancer was in remission, but then the cancer decided to attack her liver. She left 3 girls and a husband that has been with her longer than without.

Last week was a hard week for Stinky too. Fred was picking on him in school,and Eldest had decided he didn't have principles and wanted to play with Fred again. Poor Stinky was so hurt. It didn't help that Stinky has let his school work slide. He was put on restriction and has to learn to get back into the routine. The lazy easy habits he was getting over on me didn't get him very far.