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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 2 December 2000 (Week 49)

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To respond or comment on something I have written email me. I would love to hear from you.  If you have problems reaching me at the first address, I can also be reached at fritchman@triad.rr.com.

Christmas 2000 at the Thompson house!

Visit WebCitings featuring reviews of some of my favorite sites.

You can view the Netwidows Recipe web site for recipes from myself and the other Netwidows and the Daynotes Gang.

Saturday, 2 December 2000

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Happy Birthday to Me! 46 years old today. Bob gave me a case for my new cell phone and car charger.

I spent three hours yesterday morning cleaning and organizing the basement. It now looks clean and tidy for the winter. It really does look better when it gets a good cleaning and things are put away.

Here are pictures some of the houses in my snow village I mentioned I put up last week. I will take one of the whole thing when I get the tree done but this shows each house in pretty good detail. Some have been retired. The second one from the right is a library and was of course my first one.

Today is will start decorating my Christmas tree. Bob and I are to go out for dinner tonight for my birthday and I am to go out tomorrow night with my family. But, the weather people seem to think we are going to get snow and I mean real snow this time. They are calling for 2-4" tonight with 6"more tomorrow. So, we will see. Sometimes when they call for it we don't get it and sometimes we do. If so, the birthday dinners may be off.

I posted a new review on my favorites page. I seem to be one this water journey's kick. This one is The Leaky Iron Boat by Hart Massey. Another leaking barge story much like others I have read recently. This one involves Hart, his wife Melodie, and their Dalmatian Joss. They are from Canada but are traveling the waterways of Holland, Belgium, and France. Hart has a wonderful sense of humor and recounts of their daily problems with the boat and the waterways are quite amusing. He also interjects some very interesting points of history along the way about the places they visit. 

Sunday, 3 December 2000

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No snow. Again. Every time the weather forecasters predict a big blizzard we don't get it. It is cold and windy but not snow. It snowed east of us, which is weird since that is on the coast and they got some in the mountains. We had a few flurries this morning but that is about all.

I got most of the ornaments on the tree yesterday. After I clean house this morning, I hope to finish today. Unless things change much by this afternoon it looks like I will be going out to dinner with my family after all. 

We had a nice Chinese dinner last night at the restaurant right down the street from us. We brought back take out for Lenore and Bob can have the remaining for dinner tonight. 

Marcia mentioned on her page she likes to watch Christmas movies while she decorates. I like to listen to Christmas music. I have a wide variety from the traditional singers of the 60's and 70's that I grew up with to Celtic harp and hammer dulcimer.

Monday, 4 December 2000

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Another birthday dinner. Last night was birthday with my sister and parents. Birthday's in our house have always been special. Having a birthday in December as an adult means I get several of new Christmas decorations every year. Last year my birthday cake was made as the head of a border collie. This year my cake looks like a golf course. We had a very nice dinner at the Village Tavern followed by the cake and present festivities at my sister's house.

The tree and decorating is almost finished. I will need to add the things I got for my birthday and do some finishing touches to the tree. I will do that this afternoon when I get back from the gym.

I also need to help Bob build my new computer this afternoon. My system is also the server for the network. We are building me a new system and my old one will remain the server. 

Busy week ahead. I have some shopping to finish up and other odds and ends Christmas related to take care of. 

Yesterday I gave Lenore two early Christmas presents, new CD's of music. She likes the Carpenters and Anne Murray, so I found her a couple of their Christmas albums. I loaded those and a couple of mine I knew she would like into her stereo and she played those yesterday while I was working on the tree. 

Hope Monday goes well for everyone.

Tuesday, 5 December 2000

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I still have not finished the Christmas decorating. I just had too many other things that needed done yesterday. After I returned home from the gym I had checks to write and some stuff to do on the computer. After lunch I took my shower and then began working on my old/new computer.

I am using old Kirby, I think, that was one of Bob's systems because it has a PC Power and Cooling case. Bob had already removed the side panels. I vacuumed the worst of the dust and grime off before I began the dismantling process. I removed the top and front bezel of the case and took out the various drives. Next came the fan, ugh!. It was a mess. I used 409, a toothbrush, and a rag to get it clean. More vacuuming of the exterior parts of the power supply and all the cables and connector wires. I removed the motherboard and did some more cleaning. The fan on the power supply was also pretty gummed up. I unscrewed it from the case and pushed it forward so I could remove the wire screen. By using a toothbrush and rag I was able to get it fairly clean. Then, more vacuuming to get all the dirt and dust. The sides, front, and top was cleaned with 409 and I now have a clean, ready to install, case. 

By the time I finished that project it was too close to dinner time to start anything else. I had one small portion of the book to do some compare work on with a reference source, so I worked on that. After dinner it was back in the office to read my new e-zine's that I received and do some other misc. stuff.

I quite about 8:00 and went out to the den to read my book. I did finish reading my book last night. It was very good. While I would never take a boat trip, it is fun to read about others doing so. 

This morning I am off to do some shopping and other errands. Than back home to work this afternoon. I am not sure when Bob will be ready to have me reassemble my new computer. Unfortunately, I have to have some help putting stuff in. My hands and fingers are not as dexterous as they once were and things requiring minute placement or brute force with just the fingers I cannot do. But, I will do the majority of the rebuilding myself.

We are going to the library late in the afternoon and out to dinner at the little restaurant across the street from the library. So, I have a full day planned again.

Wednesday, 6 December 2000

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I am off this morning to help my dad with an outdoor project. It is cold but the sun is shinning. Back home this afternoon to work on my computer. I am going out to dinner tonight with some friends from the library. Every year at Christmas time we go out to a nice restaurant and have dinner. 

I have my Christmas pictures up. I liked Marcia's idea of making a separate page for descriptions and adding to as the season progresses. Let me know if you have any questions about ornaments, etc you see in the pictures or if you find any errors.

Guess that will about wrap it up for today.

Thursday, 7 December 2000

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Dad and I did get roughly over a hundred bulbs in the ground yesterday. I did the digging of the holes and about 2:00 finally got too tired to continue. After checking mail and other stuff took a shower and helped Bob get dinner for his mom while he heated his in the microwave. 

I left around 5:30 to pick up Betsy. We got to the restaurant around 5:50 and Nancy came in about five minutes later. We had a wonderful dinner and finished our meal around 8:30. They were not real busy so we sat and talked until almost 9:00 before we decided we better head for home. 

For the price and the atmosphere, this is one of the nicest places in town to having a pleasant, leisurly dinner. For the modest price of $15 to $20 depending on the entree, you get appetizer, soup, salad, and main entree with bread. We all had the fish specials; I had grouper with garlic and butter sauce, Betsy had the tuna, and Nancy the salmon.  The vegetable was stir fried zucchini and yellow squash and the starch rice. And of course we had to get dessert. Nancy had their famous blueberry bread pudding and Betsy and I had the chocolate mouse tort. They also serve steaks and several veal dishes which I have had before.

Needless to say I will be eating light today and the gym will be the first stop this morning before going to the store. I think we are going to build my computer this afternoon and I need to clean up my office at some point.  

Friday, 8 December 2000

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Friday is BARK, BARK, BARK, day at our house. The recycling truck, garbage truck, mail truck, etc all make their visits on Friday. If we are lucky we will also get one or more visits from leaf truck, the brush truck, FedEx, UPS, and Hannah comes to give Lenore her bath. And they do not all bark at the same time.

For a fun Christmas site be sure to visit Keri's Yule Advent Calendar page each day where you can read a story or the history of a Yule tradition. Just pretend you can taste the chocolate. 

I am trying to avert yet another sinus infection. I knew on Wednesday it was going to rear its ugly head. I called in a refill for the prescription that keeps my sinuses from blocking up and the FDA had pulled it because of the PNP ingredient. The doctor was out yesterday so I have to wait until this afternoon to go pick up a new one. Fortunately it is not to the infected stage and is just keeping me awake at night with the coughing and dry stuffiness. 

So, today I plan on just doing some work on the computer and taking it easy. We could not build my new computer yesterday because we did not have a processor to go with the mother board. That is on hold until Bob procures one from Intel.

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