Category: Family

Sunday Afternoon Family Gaming

Sunday afternoon, once my Texas offspring recuperated from the long drive and boundless energy of the eighteen month old grandson, Derek suggested we play a game. He had brought several with him from home, a few with short play times (as little as five or ten minutes) and more complex board games that require more setup and explanation. I’d previously played Camel Up and Parade, neither of which I was in the mood for. 5-minute Dungeon I want to try before he heads back to Texas.

Derek suggested we play Pandemic, which I’ve been wanting to try for several years. While the grandson ran Royna ragged, Derek, Rachelle and I played two games of Pandemic. Kudos to my offspring for suffering through the first game and my steep learning curve.

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The Return of the Rest of the Offspring

Yesterday, while Rachelle and I braved shopping at Costco, Lowe’s and Target, my son, daughter-in-law and grandson drove safely but surprisingly quickly up I-35 from North Texas to Northeastern Kansas. They made only one stop, for gasoline at the southernmost KTA (Kansas Turnpike Authority) rest area. This is an amazing fete considering my grandson isn’t yet eighteen months old (that happens on the 9th day of Christmas next year).

Parents sleepy but Grandson wide awake last night

The consequence, however, of a baby who sleeps for about nine hours on a family road trip is predictable (see photo above). By early evening, Derek and Royna were dozing on our new sectional while Senna wanted to explore all the strange new environment of our home. Interestingly, he’s not overly interested in the Christmas tree or the presents tucked underneath. Rather, he found one of the Costco boxes to be endlessly entertaining as well as an impromptu piano lesson from Rachelle which introduced him to a new noise maker he could easily reach.

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Welcome to Winter Solstice Eve Morning

Good morning and welcome to the last half day before Winter. Officially, Winter begins tonight after ten o’clock (Central time)

Winter Solstice 2019 Countdown

Enjoy the shortest day of the year because I’m looking forward to the longest, darkest night of the year – every amateur astronomers dream.

Today, my son, daughter-in-law and grandson are driving here from Texas. They left before dawn and we anticipate their arrival late this afternoon.

With the help of my daughter, who arrived earlier this week, my main floor living area is mostly baby proof. And the new furniture was delivered Thursday afternoon. And Friday, Rachelle setup the Christmas tree and last night over home-made pizza we decorated (or rather she decorated because she’s the artistic one).

Rachelle and I will spend part of the day shopping, taking advantage of her Costco membership to stock up on food she can eat (corn allergy) and for the rest of the family as well. While I have a Christmas goose in the freezer, I need to plan for other meals and sides. Instead of just Terry and I to feed, I’ll have three to four times that many to provide for.

So we are ready for family gathering and making new memories until we once again scatter back to our nests for the new year.

Daughter Downloaded

My daughter landed early and safely very late Tuesday evening but didn’t step off the plane until Wednesday morning (technically a couple of minutes past midnight). Despite arriving at least fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, no gate crew could be found once the plane taxied to Terminal C. I kept my self from dozing off in the cell phone parking lot by leaving the car turned off despite temperatures in the teens. Rachelle finally called me and I navigated the surprisingly congested orange cone maze of construction that is the remaining two terminals at KCI to retrieve her before she froze to death. An uneventful drive home through Platte City and Leavenworth found us back at home by 1:30 a.m. My alarm goes off at 5:18 am.

Unsurprisingly, I ignored my alarm and slept an extra hour. I had convinced myself that Wednesday was the department gift exchange so I absolutely had to drive to work. I realized mid-morning that the gift exchange was Thursday so I could have worked from home. However, it was a mixed blessing, my absentmindedness, as it gave me the opportunity to take a late lunch and shop for my daughter at Trader Joe’s on Ward Parkway, about 10-15 minutes south of where I work. She has a corn allergy and many products at Trader Joe’s are safe for her to eat. And I found that of the two Trader Joe’s stores in the KC metro area, the one on Ward Parkway was larger and much easier to access than the one I visited last Saturday in Overland Park.

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Christmas Surprise

In the midst of my second system upgrade of the week, my son called me to warn me they had changed their minds and were planning to drive up from Texas to visit us in Kansas for Christmas. My brain halted. Upgrade on hold. What?!?!

Our house, which we’ve lived in since February 1999, has never been baby or toddler proofed. In that year, 1999, you may remember, the one where everyone was panicking about Y2K, my children were in third grade and sixth grade (starting middle school in fact). So definitely no need to protect them from getting into drawers full of knives and kitchen utensils, nor from electric outlets and chemicals stored under the kitchen sink.

I’m really trying not to panic, truly I am.

My daughter flies in from Seattle next Wednesday at midnight. She will stay for ten days. That has been planned for weeks now. She was going to have the guest bedroom. Now, unfortunately, she will be relegated to an air bed in the cavernous great room or sleeping with me and/or her dad in the master bedroom. Terry and I tag team sleeping anyway because I am a morning person and he is a night owl. And we have a king size bed that all three of us could sleep in with room to spare.

So my son, daughter-in-law and grandson will have the guest bedroom.

Today I’ll shop for my daughter at Trader Joe’s because she has an alergy to corn. Fun fact (not so fun for her): Corn is in almost all processed and packaged foods and does NOT have to be listed on the ingredients.

Tomorrow I won’t be able to shop because we are under a winter weather advisory for 2-4 inches of snow from Sunday at 9 am until Monday at 6 pm. So I’ll have absolutely no excuse not to clean and baby proof my home.

Check back on Monday and I’ll post my progress.

Not the Thanksgiving I Hoped For

A week ago I was dreaming of today, waking up in Texas, snuggling with my nearly 18 month old grandson. I woke up to something completely different and totally unexpected. Brace yourselves, this is going to be a very long post . . .

Instead of a warm home filled with happy family and the wonderful smell of baking goodness, I find myself sniffling and shivering in a cold, mostly dark, mostly empty house.

A view of my ceiling where what little heat I have in this ‘great room’ is languishing.

It all started this past Monday the 25th. I fell asleep in my recliner in my cavernous and often chilly ‘great room’ which has a nearly twenty-foot ceiling. I woke up because I was shivering, yet I could hear the furnace fan blowing. I got up and stood on the vent directly over the furnace (located underneath the entryway by the steps leading to the upstairs bedrooms). The air coming out of the vent was cold. I woke up Terry on the way downstairs to the basement, where we tried various troubleshooting techniques with the furnace but ultimately gave up. I left a voice-mail with our heating repairman and went back to sleep wrapped in a throw. I called again a few minutes after eight o’clock and they assured me someone would be over to check the furnace that morning. I made arrangements to work from home.

The repairman arrived sometime between nine and ten in the morning. I escorted them to the basement and woke Terry up to monitor them. I had many meetings and conference calls schedule, so I retreated back to the great room, which doubles as my office until I motivate myself to clean out the second guest room. After an hour or so, the repairmen left, not having found a cause but oddly the furnace began working again on its own. I returned to my conference calls, despite a scratchy throat and an increasingly congested sinus cavity. By four o’clock I could barely keep from coughing and shivering so I took some Mucinex and went up to the guest bedroom for a nap.

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The Curse of the unChristmas Spirit Lifted

Christmas trees over the entry way of the building I spend more than half my life in.

I was a bit shocked last week when I returned to work from a normal weekend to see traditional Christmas decorations in the elevator lobby, including Christmas trees and presents. The relief was palpable. If you read my last post, you’ll understand what nine years of PC purgatory looked like. The vote is still out on the winner of the worst decoration (I’m leaving the poll open until after Thanksgiving).

Have a very Merry Christmas 2019!

I’ve been sick the last couple of day, and so has my furnace. It’s having surgery right now in my basement. All of this meant we had to cancel our annual trip to visit my son, daughter-in-law and grandson for Thanksgiving. I don’t want them to get sick with whatever I’ve got and I can’t leave my house unattended with an unreliable furnace. I guess I’ll get caught up on my early winter reading.

I wish all of you a very happy and safe Thanksgiving. Spend quality time with your family and friends. I’ll have to substitute a video call with my far-flung offspring.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nine Years of unHoliday Spirit

unHoliday Decorations 2018 (click image to see all nine years worth of unHoliday Spirit)

I started this blog in October 2010, over nine years ago. I had blogged for a couple of years, writing book reviews mostly, on MySpace, but didn’t care for their interface. Once I found GoodReads (Summer 2008), I started writing reviews there and then when I re-discovered my love for astronomy, I needed a place to post photos and write about my new adventures. Less than two months into my new blog, after returning to work from Thanksgiving, I walked into my building and saw the most hideous holiday decorations of my life. I took a photo with my cell phone (remember, it was nearly ten years ago, so the quality sucks) and post the first of my longest running blog series on ‘unHoliday’ decorations.

To see all the lobby decorations for the past nine years, click on the photo above to be taken to my Flickr album.

For even more fun, help me decide which of the Nine should be awarded the title of “Worst unHoliday Decoration” by participating in this completely unscientific poll: https://forms.gle/mmUEnKRSvswL8MUf6

Jon Moss, November 2019

For the past nine years I had to console myself with the Country Club Plaza Lights, the Mayor’s Christmas Tree at Crown Center, the Kansas City Life Insurance Building and an annual trip to the inside of Union Station.

There is hope for my building as the Curse of the unChristmas Spirit appears to have been lifted and will be revealed in a forthcoming post.

All Hallow’s Eve

Balrogs, Dragons and Ravens, oh my!

While visiting my daughter last weekend, (see previous post), we spent part of Saturday visiting the Museum of Flight, and the rest of the day carving pumpkins, something I hadn’t done in decades. The last time I did this as a kid, was in the mid to late 70s when my grandmother spent a couple of weeks with my brother and I in October while my mom and dad were away on a trip. We did the more traditional carving of a face – eyes, nose and a mouth with jagged teeth.

Rachelle adding the finishing touches to her dragon carving Sunday morning.

Skip ahead a decade and a half in the mid 90s after I’d spawned two children of my own, both of whom were vastly more artistic than I ever dreamed of being. My daughter especially has always been good at 3D art. Thus her dragon is center stage in the photo above. My Balrog isn’t too shabby but not nearly as frightening as I’d hoped. Nic’s Raven is his nod to Poe, nevermore!

The kittens are not phased by the Balrog-to-be.

Happy Hallowe’en everyone!