Quigs’ Corner

I decided to take this week off from work, as my largest customer is closed for the week, and should greatly reduce requests for my services. It’s been a quiet week around the house, though I did go shopping the day after Christmas, finding my best bargains and buys at Pottery Barn, in spite of the crowds of people bumping and crushing to get that item that they can’t seem to live without. I’ve already commented on shopping at the mall, so I won’t revisit this topic, but note that this time there were extremely focused women that weren’t letting anything stand between them and their new PB toys and decorations.

We did try to knock a few things off our revolving household ‘to do’ list. I call it revolving since it never seems to close, and as things get done, more get added. The item we decided to tackle today was to replace a light timer switch that is broken. Before I go on, I need to mention that anytime we attempt to do anything in the ‘home improvement’ category, it usually takes five times longer to do than it ’should’ and usually takes at least two trips to Home Depot. On this project, we cracked open the face plate, removed the offending switch and found WAY more wires in the box than we anticipated. After lots head scratching and a little cursing (or maybe that was a little head scratching and lots of cursing), I called a friend to help. Despite his best efforts, we still have lots of wires with wire caps or electrtical tape on them, with no faceplate, choosing to go without the lights that these switches control, rather than wonder if there will be other, highly negative consequences. Now, there is a NEW to do to call the electrician in the morning. I think this task takes the record for longest time to complete. Better luck next time….

Celebrating Christmas without family is hard to do. Going to office parties, meeting friends for drinks, it is just not the same as having your family with you. I’ve done it for three years in a row, with them far away. We spend Christmas day on the phone quite a bit, trying to imagine what the look on people’s faces were when they opened your gift, envisioning the manuvering that is neccesary around the pile of paper and ribbon after the gift exchange is done (and avoiding the cat that is hiding under there somewhere and prepared to attack), and wondering if dinner was as good as it sounded. We all do our best to make everyone feel better by phone, but its just not the same.

This year was more of this. But, one of my gifts today was a promise from my family to join us next year in TX to share the holiday with Mr. Q and me! As my mom stated in her comment to my last post, this is a truly PRICELESS gift, and one that I can’t express how much I am looking forward to.

The list of RSVPs seems to be growing as the word gets out that Ma and the rest of the gang from NH are packing their saddle bags and bedrolls to celebrate Christmas the Texan way in 2007. As someone said today about the growing list of family expressing attendance, ‘be careful what you wish for’, but I can’t imagine a better way to spend the holiday than with those that I love.

Thanks all for your love and gifts. I hope your day was as good as mine. And, only 365 days til Christmas!

For many years, when we still had a piano in the house, our family and friends gathered at Christmas and, after enough eggnog, we would start singing carols. A tradition we had was to sing the 12 Days of Christmas. W would play the piano and lead us in singing the song. As you all know, the song can be confusing trying to remember if there were 6 turtle dove or 6 maids-a-milking. Fortunately, W knew all this. To keep the kids interested in the song when they were small (…and even the adults!), we embellished each ‘gift’ with our own brand of fun. Two calling birds got a ‘hello!’, and the 3 French hens a ‘bonjour!’. The second half of the gifts had a more physical twist…maids-a-milking required everyone pair up, one with their fingers hanging downward and the other person pulling on them in a ‘milking’ motion, swans-a-swimming got improvised human arm ‘wings’ and a shake of the booty, and lords-a-leaping, well, I think you can get the idea here. The song would always end in lots of laughter, and my face and sides would hurt throughout the next day from laughing so hard and so long.

The NYTimes just published what these generous gifts would cost today. It seems that they are 3.1% more expensive this year than last; most of the increase from labor costs (those musicians have to eat too!). For a mere $18,920.59 you too can purchase all these gifts for your true love. For your reference, the partridge is the least expensive gift at $15 the swans the most expensive (I think that they were a-swimming…all 7 of them?) at $4200.

PNC Wealth Management has been tracking these costs since 1984 and has seen the cost of the products fall, but services prices have risen, as much as 300% for some services over the 22 years! This is interesting, as art is a victim of life as we know it today…a society of services oriented businesses, and manufactured products’ prices slipping in some markets.

So, if you didn’t get a chance to get your true love’s gifts yet, you can always order them on-line for a mere $125,767; mostly S&H (not sure if that is next-day delivery).

Oh yeah, for the record, no birds, trees, lords, maids, dancers, or drummers for me. The gold rings? Well, I’m always up for a little bling!

I wish everyone a blessed and Merry Christmas. Love out to y’all!

Yesterday was the winter solstice; the shortest day (in daylight hours) of the year in the northern hemisphere. This day is both dreaded and celebrated by my Mom, who anxiously awaits the few extra minutes of sunlight each day. I must be my mother’s daughter, because I too look forward to the day that I can start seeing a difference in the length of each day. The ironic thing is, that though the days start getting longer now, to me they actually seem shorter at first and I don’t seem to notice the difference until about the end of January.

To see if I was imagining this phenomenon, I consulted the official Naval Observatory website (http://aa.usno.navy.mil) to view sunrise and sunset times. The data according to the Navy shows that the sun rises later each day than yesterday until January 16th when it rises at 7:30am, a full four minutes later than yesterday! On January 17th though, it rises at 7:29am, starting its early wake up toward spring and summer. The sun does indeed start to set later starting today, technically making today approximately 60 seconds longer than on solstice. Overall though, the daylight difference really is negligible until sometime in January. In fact, January 31st has 37 more minutes of daylight than yesterday, which I think is quite notable.

As the Beatles song says, ‘Here comes the Sun’. So, just wait it out…it’s on it’s way, if you can’t wait, there are plenty of tanning salons that might be willing to help with your sunlight deprevation!

It’s Wednesday again, time for Website Wednesday. I apologize for not posting more in this last week. You all know what the holidays are like, and they are no different here at the Double L Ranch.

This week I share with you the website ‘Urban Dictionary’ (www.urbandictionary.com). I stumbled upon this reading another blog and found it quite amusing. Here, you’ll find definitions for lots of pop culture words.

For example, did you know you can have an ‘elationship’? Apparently you can if you only know this person from the internet and communicate with them on-line.

And did you know you can suffer from ‘Google Drift’? It seems that you do if you wander aimlessly between subjects on the web looking for something and find something else entirely different (not that ANY of us has ever done THAT!).

I have to say though, my favorite so far is ‘Stall Call’. This is the act of talking with someone on the phone (cell or otherwise) while using the lavatory. Who knew that it actually had a name!?

Check it out and learn the latest lingo!

After my shift ‘Wrapping for Retrievers’ on Saturday (which was fun and had lots of donations), I stepped out into the mall. BIG mistake. Saturday afternoon before Christmas is not a good time to shop. I was dodging slow-poke wanderers, children with no guidance and teens that somehow managed to snap gum, pull at their hair and talk on the cell phone all at once but were unable to walk at the same time or see that there are other people around them (and this is our future folks!) I can’t even tell you how frustrating it was to be at the mall. I had a purpose (complete with a list!) and worked to accomplish it as quickly and efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, others don’t seem to share my affinity for efficiency. SUV sized strollers blocked walkways and aisles. Stores were understaffed. Shoppers walked in packs through the mall like they had no where to go. Maybe they didn’t…perhaps they were trapped in the reality of a week til Christmas and they gotta get a gift. The thing is that I got a few small, last minute gifts there. I did nearly all my shopping on-line this year and it was done by Dec 5th. I really didn’t need to be there, but I guess it’s kinda like school shopping the first few years after you graduate…you just feel like you need to be there cuz you might miss out.

I hope that all your shopping is done, and if not, be warned of the insanity at the mall.

Gift wrapping that is, not that ‘rapping’ stuff that some call ‘music’.

I’ve volunteered to help raise money for the DFW Lab Rescue, the organization that we got Stella from. I’ll be at Barnes and Noble at Stonebriar both tomorrow and next Saturday morning wrapping purchases and gently reminding people that donations are welcome and will be used for a good cause.

And, I really believe that the DFWLR is a good cause. They do good things for these beautiful dogs that a left in a backyard alone after someone has moved (!?), found wandering the streets or left in a shelter counting down the days. They foster the dogs in a home environment, provide medical care, and just care about the dogs with alot of love. Mr Q and I love labs, and are on the search for one. Though they have many beautiful ones, we haven’t felt that ‘thing’ yet, as one of the volunteers says, but I’m sure we’ll find it.

If you are in the area, stop by to say hi, or give a donation. If you can’t come by check out the DFWLR site at: www.dfwlabrescue.org

Yes, I know it’s Thursday.

So, I was trying to think of something good to write about and do for yesterday’s blog, and thought the idea of sharing some of the websites I find would be fun. I came up with the idea of Website Wednesday. I know I’m late to the first edition deadline, and I didn’t post yesterday because………well, because. (Even though I had this great idea!).

Now, don’t get the notion that I sit around surfing the web all day, ‘cuz that is last thing I have time for. I do however, stumble upon or am directed to, websites that are worth sharing, which I plan to do on Wednesdays.

This week, in the spirit of the retail holiday season, I’m sharing a couple of sites that might be useful when looking for that perfect gift for you or someone else. I’ve benefited from the postings a few times myself. Check them daily if you’re a shopper, because they change frequently and often are only available for a short amount of time, as you will see by the format.

www.dealcatcher.com

www.slickdeals.net

Both of these sites have devoted followers that post and comment on the ‘deals’ that are available out there frequently at well-known retailers. The lingo is a little hard at first (for example, YMMV=Your Mileage May Vary, TIA=Thanks in Advance and B&M=Brick & Mortar (aka a real store!)), but you’ll catch on. The forums have good comments, a few off the wall ones, but overall both are managed pretty well.

Happy shopping!!!

I’m convinced that no time away from the office goes unpunished, and this week (all two days of it) has been no exception. While it’s nice to get away and have a change of scenery, it seems that I’m then sentenced to endless hours in my desk chair trying to catch up.

This week, I am helping out a colleague who’s dad passed away suddenly. Though this adds to my workload, I’m happy to help him out during this difficult time. Overall, I think this kind of event makes one stop and think about what’s important and even in subtle ways, changes the way we approach things. We learn the hard way that life as we know it is fragile and can be taken away at any moment. As a result, I usually make promises to stop procastinating, live more for the moment and make plans to do things I’ve always wanted to do. This usually lasts a few weeks, and then I’m back in rut of the same ol’, same ol’. I think I need to be more diligent in achieving those goals, and realize that life is just too short. Y’all should too.

Sorry for the length of time since my last post, I’ve been away doing the work thing. Travel can be fun, or it can be painful. This last week’s painful story: I started my week in Detroit rush hour traffic in a snow storm AND it was 22 degrees. It only took me three hours to drive the 40 miles from DTW to my hotel. The good thing is that most everyone was considerate and drove well below the speed limit (not that they had a choice) and I actually saw very few accidents (aka wrecks for you Texans out there).

I want to share that I was reminded of my mom during my ride when we were young…it would be cold outside, but she’d be driving with the window open, not all the way (ok, sometimes she did that) but just enough to get fresh air while the entire time it would blow on us. Of course, we’d whine about how cold we were and she’d close it a bit, but never all the way. She loves the fresh air and still always has a window open somewhere in the house, no matter the weather. During my ride on Monday, I had to keep the defroster on ‘blazing’ in order to keep the snow/rain from freezing on the windshield. So, to counter this, I first popped open the sunroof a bit to cool things off (yes, I got a semi-fancy rental this time!). It was soon evident that this was not going to be enough. I struggled to get my LL Bean 10 degree below zero parka off (not very fancy lookin’, but definately functional!). Even this worked for a bit. Then, as the temp in the car continued to rise, the driver’s window got opened a bit. Oh my, I’ve turned into Ma!!! I guess it’s really true what they say…you turn into your parents!!!

It continued to snow some during the rest of my stay, just enough snow to be annoying, and make a converted Texan long for the Lone Star State. It’s nearly 70 degrees here today, with a repeat tomorrow. I know this won’t last forever, but I will sure enjoy the lack of snow.