Another warm and sunny day - a real February treat.

Various homeowner tasks were performed: garage cleaning, basement shelf sorting, tree limb tossing, and the finding of misplaced family history papers for the wife. The kids enjoyed the day, splitting it between stomping mud (the melting snow has us totally waterlogged), fishing around in that mud, and trawling the yard, Jawa-style, by dragging a dump truck on a rope and collecting bits of things. No R2 units with bad motivators were stumbled upon, although the dog has left unspeakable gifts.

"All water we find goes in this mudhole, because we love this mudhole."

The Youngest moved to her new two-wheeler today, now that the training wheels are mounted and she couldn't be happier. Although the lack of a basket (with flowers on it) on the handlebars was pointed out to me as an object lesson in my parental failings, I soldier on. She had only one fall into the ditch and plenty of other good fun. It was funny to see her pedaling around in wellies. Did I mention the mud?

The highlight of the day was the hanging of the Helmscene #82 in the basement. The "deer picture" as we call it, hung in my grandparents' and my great-grandparents' homes for years and I was the one lucky enough to score it as my inheritance. I'm sitting under the glow now, its fluorescent buzz soothing my scattered mind.

We had a nice break from winter today, with the temperatures soaring to the 60s by mid-afternoon. w00t!

I made my weekly tithe unto Lowe's for the various projects around the house. The main project for today was building a wine rack for my mini-cellar. We've got no spare rooms for a real cellar, or even the inclination to house cases of wine, but I have been buying a nice bottle here and there. It's that free subscription to Wine Spectator that puts all these ideas in my head. Free isn't really free, ultimately.

Anyway, I built a wine rack for the basement that will hold 21 bottles on three shelves, along with a nice black felt cover to keep it dark and cool. I'm feeling pretty handy now, what with this rack and with the repair yesterday of my boss's Aeron chair. I'll be fixing mine on Monday. That seat bolt there seems to be a weak link in an otherwise spiffy chair.

Tax returns tomorrow and hopefully some more outside time in the sun.

After two days of precipitation, the expected final insult, rain, turned out to be a mild blessing. The rain melted some of the snow, before it all refroze overnight, getting down to 22F. The morning was cold, hard, and crunchy but no problem for me to get to work.

Icy Windshield

Crazy Tree Full of Birds

Arrived at work, where the parking lot was a skating rink:

Parking in the garage, please

Spent the day on useful stuff: *Insert REDACTED corporate events here*

I was rewarded with the gorgeous moon at dusk when I left work and now some twitter twiddling and blog-posting.

Gripping, eh?

Oy, my achin' back. The eldest .r and I spent the afternoon chopping, sawing, stacking, and cursing (me, and under my breath) at a variety of woodstuffs around the place here. We had a lot of limbs, some fairly substantial, come down in the recent ice storm and it was time to harvest them for the woodstove.

We also recently came into a couple of free loads of wood, one oak, the other birch. Both are so fresh though that splitting the logs is almost impossible. Whack, whack, *mutter*, rub back, whack, roll back into the pile. Ah well, they'll be perfect next year.

We're gathered round the fire tonight as a roast cooks for seven hours in the oven. Not for dinner tonight, of course.

Happy weekend.

Hoping for some more inspiration blog-wise. Twitter has been getting most of my updates.

The possibility of languishing in the office on a pre-holiday Friday spurred me to furious work today, skipping, or at least postponing lunch until I departed just after 2pm. Traffic was awful, but I'm home, in the bosom of my family, fed and casting about for entertainment.

Happy Weekend, Now With 50% More Leisure!

My Saturday, by the numbers:

• 3,214: Number of dandelions mowed down (approx)
• 47: The cost ($) to fill up my Subaru with gas today
• 46: Pictures taken today with the D-80
• 21: Seconds that it takes my 5-year old to circle the house
• 17: Seconds that it takes my 8-year old to circle the house
• 12: Start time of the wedding we'll attend tomorrow
• 8/10: Pollen severity for today
• 8:38: Time we bought the wedding gift tonight, online of course
• 7: Teenagers happening by in the road, all loud and silly, as I shoveled rocks on the driveway
• 6: Months of grime washed off the Subaru
• 4: Feet of kielbasa cooked on the grill
• 3: Girls demonstrating horse manuevers, including jumps, canter, and trot
• 2: Shirts retrieved from the cleaners
• 2: Cars washed
• 1: Cars sitting out in the rain now
• 1: White vans that ventured down our 300' driveway by mistake.
• 1: Former co-workers carrying pizza boxes outside cleaners avoided

I was curious when I read the weather forecast for today: "61F, 100% chance of precipitation." Today, it seems that meant it would rain 100% of the day. Things were soaked and dark when we rose, and here in the dark 12 hours later, the rain has redoubled its efforts.

We're watching the newly planted grass warily, hoping it doesn't wash away, but the rain has been mostly steady and lacking in any torrential qualities. Laura cooked on the grill, as was her plan, rain be damned, and tended the tasty chicken under my grandmother's umbrella, the one emblazoned with giraffes. That's the picture I should have gotten.

In the house all day, of course, doing some work-for-work (new team, new boss, increased responsibilities, better buckle down, don't be a slacker, they're gonna know what a fake you really are, angst, sigh...), some laundry, some sorting, some replacing of lightbulbs. All in all, pretty relaxing.

Oh, and I'm trying to see exactly how many pictures one can fit onto a 4GB SD card. We're up to 1,062 (@10MP) so far, and the camera says she can take 4 more. Wow, what an exciting life. Ahem, right.

Finished The Dreaming Void. Meh.

Prepare to be h4x0r3d, it starts tomorrow.