arontius | Vacation - Part II, Day 1. :-) (Reply)

.....I was home all day today and the phone did not ring at all. There were no frantic calls to write letters, get paper, find parts, or locate people. It was good. I slept in until about 0530 and then played around on the computer for several hours. Went out for a leisurely outing at Starbucks with my favorite coffee girl, TBT. Then slowly started getting up to speed at trying to get things done.

.....The kitchen is livable again! All the dishes are done. The cat box is clean. The refrigerator mucked out. I even cleaned the floor. I felt accomplished after that. So I started in the Computer Room of Doom! It was a fierce monster, and it isn't completely slain, but it suffered mightily! Three-quarters of the floor is now clear! The Ingasbo bins are now located in the garage. The miscellaneous piles of paper gathered lovingly to await a final fate. The other piles of left over SCA 'stuff' is in a pile next to the stairs awaiting transport to the Storage Unit of Doom! :-)

.....Depending on how things work tomorrow, I'm thinking that TBT and I will stop at Goodwill or St. Vincent's and pick up a Wing Back Chair and stand to put into the newly cleared space. It'll give me some place to read and organize that is not on my overly crowded desk. :-) It will also give Tia a place to nap that is out of the way of the cats who patrol the hallway. :-) Although as I look at all the clear space I keep thinking that maybe clear space might be better. Hmmm, could be a battle tomorrow. :-)

.....Some presents were wrapped. The rest will be wrapped tomorrow. Along with the cleaning of the bathroom and the bedroom. I'll feel a lot better about the week ahead at that point. Although all ten days are filled with stuff to do:

.....A. Christmas Day Festivities.
.....B. Boxing Day at Countess E's (I was not invited to go with 'the girls', so may have to provide my own transportation. Must remember to pack proverbial 'stuff to do'. :-)).
.....C. A run to Pike Place.
.....D. A Play-Date With Madrun.
.....C. A visit with Branwen.
.....F. A visit to Chehalis to see Richard.
.....G. A day of car maintenance.
.....H. New Years gathering.

.....Practically every day is about booked. Sigh! It'll still be fun as it is not the chaos of work! :-)

.....Still with the lessons in humanity with the Coronet. This time it was a lot more personal in nature. But I don't think I would have noticed without it. It was an observation TBT noticed when talking about what gatherings we needed to attend and how we were going to do it all.

.....Before TBT and I started dating, I had a rather large number of friends that I hung out with. Practically every night was a new meeting, gathering, activity. It was fun and exciting. Tiring at times, but I enjoyed it a lot.

.....When TBT started dating and then married, I started hanging out only with her. For one thing she is fun to hang out with. And when you have a live in friend of such a close personal nature, you find that you don't necessarily need as much companionship and excitement to fill your days. Now that is normal and your friendship circle changes accordingly. But when TBT and I started thinking and talking about it, we've both essentially stopped hanging out with quite a few people. To the point that there are some we haven't seen in a long time and others who don't even call us anymore.

.....Now that is kind of sad as most of these people are rather nice as well as fun. It is also sad in the fact that it is largely our own fault. A friendship is something that needs to be maintained. You have to put forth time and energy to nurture it. If you don't the friendship tends to wither and go away. I've been rather lazy in that regard. I suppose I can blame at least part of that on the job. I've been so hyper-focused on it that I've put on blinders to a lot of other things to the side. But that is really an excuse.

.....So I think that one of the things I want to work on for the upcoming year is to reconnect and make an effort with some of those people who've been neglected over time. It will not be easy to devote that extra time. But looking back at who these people are and how they've supported me in the past, I think that it is worth the effort to at least make an attempt.

.....The bad part to this? It means another 'to-do' list in the making. I think my brain is starting to run out of RAM. I knew that rotting all those brain cells with alcohol in my twenties was going to haunt me some day!

.....Aaron / Arontius.