Why is one sock ALWAYS sliding down into ones shoe?

So we finally get back into the pool routine (tho we didn't make it Wednesday as hubby had a client) and yesterday we get an email saying the pool would be closing from Feb 12 - Apr 20 for repairs and remodel.

WAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, we've known since we started going they were going to be doing this, it was just a matter of when. One thing they had been thinking was over the Christmas holidays, then this summer. Now it is in a couple of weeks. They really do need it, there are tiles int he bottom of the pool being held in place by aqua fitness ankle weights, the locker rooms are way too small and only have 1 shower each and the spa is always breaking down.

But why now........whimper.........

Oh well, will have to figure out something. There is talk of them working out an arraignment with another facility with a pool for classes, that would be nice. There is an info meeting on the 4th that hubby can go to to see what is going on. Hopefully something can be arraigned. They will have some low impact land classes hubby could try out in the meantime.

Looking forward to a nice quiet weekend. Got someone interested in taking the hide-a-bed mattress, so with luck that will be gone tomorrow. Got an idea for turning an old coffee table into a padded bench for seating in the living room, so will see about hauling it out of the shed and see what I can do with it. Need to do a bit of moving things around, I have one little book case next to the front door I want to move over to where the couch used to sit, if I double and triple up the books on the shelves I can get a lot onto it. It will do until I come up with a design for a new book case.

OW!!!!!!!!!!!

Hubby called a while ago to tell me Tam's Place over in Pullman will be opening for dinner Tuesday-Saturdays starting Feb 12th.

YAY!!!!!!!!!

We can't always get over there for lunch or breakfast, so opening for dinner is a very good thing!

Weekend was way too short. We went down to Lewiston/Clarkston for some shopping. Hit Effie's for lunch. Split the New Effie burger and fries. Seriously happy tummies afterwards, it had been a while since we've had lunch there.

Hit the Dangerous Store to see if they had an off brand battery for our cordless drill, no luck, tho we stocked up on butane for my stove top burner, so we are good there. Then Costco for kitty food, chicken and cheese. Back to Lewiston and the Cash and Carry for gravy and sauce packets, ended up walking out with a frozen Cyrus O'Leary's eggnog cream pie while we were at it and then the Grocery Outlet for cheeses. Scored on some Camembert and Brie and picked up a nice chunk of Danish Blue. Also picked up a couple packages of frozen hash brown potato patties, they are great for a quick side dish for meals.

Weather was fun on Saturday, it had snowed Friday night and was sort of snowing when we headed to Lewiston, add in fog and driving was fun. I am so glad I wasn't the one driving, fog makes me REALLY nervous.

Sunday was fairly low key, slept in (at least I did), got up and had coffee. Hubby was still trying to get the EC hooked up properly, ended up calling R who came over. So he worked on it for a while and finally left a bit frustrated. They've almost got it right, but not quite.

Breakfast/lunch was a bit late as I didn't get around to starting anything until R left. I broke out the electric griddle and slicked it with bacon grease and then cooked up some hash brown patties, then heated up some thick cut ham slices, eggs and assembled them all with cheese and hollandaise to make Potatoes Benedict. Very yummy.

Dinner last night was some chicken thighs I seasoned with minced garlic, the Penzey's Mural of Flavor and Parmesan cheese. I thawed and heated up the last of the mashed potatoes I put up turkey day week and that made a nice meal. Lunch of leftovers is going to be yummy.

Puttered a bit int he living room, got a lot put away. Managed a couple loads of laundry and dishes. So not a totally unproductive weekend LOL.

FRIDAY!!!!!! The weekend is looming! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For a short week, it has been a long one LOL, but the weather has been nice so that has helped a lot. I am starting to get the gardening itch, but the forecast for this next week isn't promising, they are showing rain/snow and cold temps.

The new EC is working out really well, tho we need to get R (a guy hubby works with on occasion) in to help get everything wired in correctly. The logic on how everything wires into the Harmon Kardon receiver is not at all logical and hubby has it hooked up enough so we can watch stuff, but not quite correctly enough for things to be perfect.

Looking for a low key weekend, not planning on doing a whole lot except for finishing getting the living room in order.

So we had a very nice weekend, got the futon re-purposed into a new entertainment center yesterday. The TV sits a bit higher then before, but not too badly, the components all sit on the shelve right underneath, no stacking. There will be a room under all that for the computer to sit and we can look are some kind of storage bins for things. Plus the 3rd heat vent is now uncovered.

We managed to get the thing built without killing each other, tho I came close LOL. Finally figured that part of it was we hadn't eaten yet and only had a couple cups of coffee at that point. Several times I did have to back off when he wanted to try something, usually something that there was no way would work, but he had to figure it out himself. I did all the measuring as his curse is still very active, tho once it was measured I let him cut, his curse held off at that point.

When all was said and done, it turned out pretty nice, we did it together, he did have some good ideas that saved time and cutting on part of it and it was only 1 inch too long when we got done (that was my fault, I'd forgotten to take into account a couple pieces we were using). The really scary part tho was the darned thing was level when we got done! That NEVER happens, there is ALWAYS something off bubble when we get done.

Sunday we had the formal sit down dinner, very nice and yummy food and great company. I did an appetizer of canned red salmon I seasoned with a bit of lemon juice and Penzey's Mural of Flavor seasoning and served on crackers, both regular and gluten-free. Totally delish. Sorry, no pics, was too busy eating and enjoying the company to grab the camera (not too mention SEVERAL glasses of wine LOL).

Saturday was spent waiting for the person who said they would take the hide-a-bed mattress I put on latahfreeexchange. They never showed. I dropped them an email saying it would be on the front porch with their name wrapped in plastic, but never heard back. I guess if it is still there when I get home it gets re-listed. I hate people who say they will take something and then never come get it.

The weather this weekend wasn't bad. Saturday was drizzly, Sunday was okay and yesterday we turned off the heat and opened up the front door. I was seriously tempted to unsealing and opening some windows, but decided not to. We did get plenty of fresh air thru the front door and I was popping out to the deck frequently. Hard to believe it is the middle of January. I'm liking no snow (at least in my yard, tho I seriously hope there is plenty in the mountains for the snow pack), but it being so warm is a little un-nerving, I'm used to it being cold. Oh well, should reflect nicely on this month's electric bill.

Students are back, school started on Wednesday and we've been busy. I am so looking forward to a 3 day weekend.

The coven is having its annual fancy sit down dinner this weekend, I still have to decide what to take. We decided to scale back a bit from what we did last year as we were full by the 3rd course and we had several courses. Most of the courses are already spoken for, so probably will look at something appetizer-ish that is light. I have some canned red tuna I can probably do something with.

We'll be working on the new entertainment center this weekend, I've got an image of what it will look like after re-purposing the futon.

Very happy being back on Dish, for all the equipment problems we have with the DVRs. I really tried to give Time-Warner a chance, but clunky interfaces and lack of support really didn't help. They didn't even ask hubby why we were canceling service that wasn't even a week old when he took the unit back. But we are back on Dish and when I record Say Yes to the Dress on TLC-HD, it is Say Yes to the Dress, not some stupid show on Bravo. Still wish they would upgrade us to the more reliable DVRs without having to shell out a ton of money.

Still very happy with the cable service, sooooooo much better then what we were getting with Verizon.

It is going to be a LOONNNNGGGGG day. Hubby had a cat scan this morning, so our day started at 4:30 am since he had to drink the berry barium smoothie stuff before hand.

It is very, very dark and cold at 4:30 am.

whimper!

Got up, kicked the heat on (I have it set to go down to 60 overnight), hopped into the shower and then vegged on the couch with a cup of tea. Didn't have the brain cells up and running to attempt the coffee maker, I could at least nuke tea. Hubby started drinking his stuff, he had two containers of it to get thru before the scan.

His appointment was for 8 am, so we got there a bit early to check in and then settled in to wait. Figured we would be there a while since medical appointments always never happen on time.

He got called in pretty quickly and was in and out by 8:45, which was very surprising. While I was waiting I popped into the cafe there to see about a bagel and coffee. No bagels on Mondays, so it was coffee.

GAAACCKKK!!!!!!!!!

They have Starbucks coffee and it is even fouler then usual (if that is possible) and even two packets of creamer and two packets of sugar couldn't make it palatable. So we hit Sister's Brew and I got my bagel and cream cheese and a chocolate latte. I REALLY needed that latte. Hubby got a mocha and when he dropped me off at work, handed me the mocha saying I was going to need it. I certain did, tho I don't think there is enough caffeine in the world at the moment that will keep me going for the day.

So, really loving our internet connection, have had no problems with it so far. Speeds are great and I watched two episodes of season two of Dexter on Saturday and had no dropouts at all. So very nice.

Cable on the other hand....... spent a very frustrating weekend dealing with it. There is no manual for how to program anything, they do have a FAQ online which doesn't help much, esp if you are running Firefox on Linux. Their &^%^$# site is pretty much Exploder only. Not helpful at all. Kinda of stumbled my way thru things and got some stuff up and running.

Plus the interface sucks big time. As much problems as we've had with DISH equipment, at least the interface is friendly and it came with a manual. Dish also told you how much record time you had left on the DVR, T-M only tells you what percentage you've used. Doesn't help a whole lot.

NOT to mention, we think we got a crap cable/DVR box. I have no idea why, but for some reason companies seem to think we should get the equipment that craps out as soon as we get it. Hubby got a hold of T-M this morning and they were going to re-set it and we'll see how it goes. But I kept trying to record Say Yes to the Dress on TLC HD this weekend and it kept recording Real Housewives of Orange County on Bravo!!!!!!! Said Say Yes to the Dress on TLC HD on the info, it was Bravo that was on playback. We set up a test of another show on TLC HD and it again recorded Bravo. So something is royally fucked.

So we will see. The other thing we dislike is there is no 30 second jump forward button on playback. That is something we seriously rely on for skipping thru commercials and we are already missing it. Plus there is no closed captioning on some of the On Demand shows we were checking out (1st episode of Demons from BBC America), not to mention, when they had a brief commercial break during Demons, the volume on the commercial was deafening. So VERY not good.

The video quality on the On Demand was also not good. We watched episode 2 of Demons I'd recorded on the regular BBC America channel and it was so much better, got close captioning AND the volume levels going into the commercials was good.

Not sure how much longer Time-Warner cable is going to last, hubby was ready to go back to Dish on Saturday. We do have a 30 day money back if we do decide to dump T-M, so we'll give it a few days to see if things fix themselves and we can learn to live with it. The only real advantage of T-M over Dish program-wise is T-M has Northwest Cable News and Smithsonian HD, both of which we've lived without this long and won't really miss if we go back. We'll see.

On the redecorating front, the futon is now dismantled and we are considering taking it further apart and turning it into a new entertainment center. The sofa bed is where the futon used to be and I've got some old pillows stuffed under the cushions to build it up. I've got more pillows I can use and then cover the whole thing with an old bedspread to hopefully make it look better. Hadn't planned on that, as mentioned in the last post, but the weather is such we can't put the sofa outside until it freecycled and thinking about the logistics of taking it apart if it did get freecycled decided to go this route. We'll freecycle the mattress we had on the futon. The actual futon mattress is on our bed as a topper and we'd saved the mattress from the old sofa bed and folded it on to the futon.

I must say, even with the futon still in the living room, albeit in pieces, we have a lot more room. Still have to put some stuff away. Need to see about shelves and then once we get the futon to EC done, get a couple of chairs so we have seating for guests.

Looking forward to the weekend :D

So, we now have Time-Warner cable and internet. So far, so good. Internet is WAY faster then when on Verizon, so happy there.

VERY unhappy with Windoz 7 which keeps screwing up the new modem (grrrrr!). Hubby is working on it. He is rapidly going from "Windows 7 doesn't suck!" to "Windows 7 SUCKS!!!!!!". He's been hanging out on some boards where other folk have been having the same problems he's been having and hopefully someone will come up with solutions.

Living room is a mess right now. The cable guy had to punch a hold thru the north side wall to run the cable in. We'd forgotten where the cable was in the living room (we'd dumped it years back) and I have a vague recollection it came up from under the carpet along the south wall somewhere. Hubby thinks he cut it off flush to get it out of the way. So our sofa bed is now halfway out into the living room until we finish putting the wall plate back on and cleaning up the carpet under it.

We are looking at getting rid of the sofa bed, it sits right over the one heating vent in the floor and takes up a LOT of room on that one wall. I'm thinking putting in some book/DVD shelves and getting a couple of nice chairs for people to sit on that won't take up so much room. We have the futon for a guest bed. I was thinking keeping the sofa and getting rid of the futon, but the futon is better on our backs then the sofa. So we'll see.

If we do ditch the sofa, we'll have to take it apart to get it out. We had to take it apart to get it in because it is so heavy and VERY awkward to get thru our front door. Whoever designed this place never took into account people would want to move in big pieces of furniture. Our front door opens right into the front closet, so we have a nasty angle to get around to get large objects thru the door.

Of course now that I am thinking of getting rid of the couch, I am getting the urge to re-do the whole living room or at least paint. But that will have to wait until summer so I can move stuff outside to do so. I wouldn't mind getting rid of the carpet, either replace it with new or lay down flooring and get a nice large area rug. Tho new carpeting would probably be best bet for keeping the place warm. Need to paint the ceiling too.

Ah well, projects for later, I still have to finish painting the outside.

Back to work and the normal routine. 7 am was WAYYYYYYYY to early this morning, even tho I'd gone to bed at 9 pm last night.

So the tree came down on the 1st. I'd planned on leaving it up a bit longer, but our gaming plans fell thru on Friday and the tinsel was interfering with the signal on the wireless keyboard and the media computer. Took it down slowly, so I could enjoy the lights for as long as possible. Still need to put the decoration bins back in the closet.

Had planned on doing some baking this weekend, banana bread in specific, but I was too blah to do much of anything. Did get a lot of movie and old TV series watching in on Netflix. Watched some "All creatures great and small" and an episode of "Campion" which hubby had never seen. Watched Terry Jones' "Medieval Lives", which was very interesting and quite entertaining. Very educational too LOL. We've got a serious line up of movies and shows on both streaming and DVD.

Currently without broadcast TV. We ditched the Dish last week, hence the reliance on Netflix, tho we had quite a bit on the DVR. We'll be getting Time-Warner cable with DSL on Thursday (maybe, at least the DSL). We'd finally gotten fed up with the piss poor quality of the Dish DVR receiver which kept hard locking on us. Reviews of it online are universally bad, seems Dish would prefer to give you a crappy one and then try and get you to get the $400 next model up. Sorry, won't go for it. So we'll see how Time-Warner goes, at least we can get Northwest Cable News and local weather on the Weather channel. We can always drop the cable portion if need be.

With T-M DSL we will be getting 10 mgs of thru put, which is $10 more for the maybe, if we are lucky, 3 mgs from Verizon. Which has been crapping out on us every few days and they say they fix it, just in time for the thru put to crap out again.

Fingers crossed the pool is open tonight, I haven't been in 3 weeks and really feeling it. The knees have not been happy and it will be nice to get back in the water (not too mention into the spa LOL).

Picked up some chicken breasts and leg quarters for 98 cents a lb at Safeway yesterday. Haven't repackaged any of it yet, so dinner tonight is mostly figured out. Not quite sure which pieces I will cook, but will look at rice as a side. Been so blah in regards to cooking this last week I need to try and get back into the mood. I did make up some burgers last night and froze a number of patties for easy dinners or lunches. We'd scored some really decent sliced roast beast for 98 cents a lb at Winco right after Christmas, so I have that all repackaged and int he freezer for sandwiches and such. So I do have a bit organized food-wise.