January 2016 – Page 4 – Just regular folks.

Saturday.

Jeremy took me on a 1-mile bike ride to town center today. Both Jeremy and Vince bike commute and I could too, but somehow I don’t. Jeremy would love for me to bike commute to school (3 miles), but I’m resisting. I think I’m resisting for two reasons. 1) I’m resisting because Jeremy is excited about it and somehow his excitement makes me less excited to do it and 2) I’m resisting because I’m a little scared of being hit by a car. (I’m not resisting for the main reason why women don’t bike commute: helmet hair. I don’t care about my hair.) When I needed to commute to the metro from the house, I did bike to the Metro because 1) I could save the $5 parking fee and 2) it was just about the same time as driving because the bike racks are located right at the entrance to the metro and the parking spots were so far away. I think if I bike commuted to school and got a job at Shady Grove hospital and bike commuted (and if Uber / self driving cars / Star Trek transporting picks up), maybe we could drop to one car.

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I ate kale today. Raw kale is pretty unappetizing. When you eat it, you KNOW you are eating healthy.

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Right after I ate the kale and was feeling pretty good about myself. I went to Bagel City and shared a chocolate eclair with Jeremy. Kale + eclair in the stomach together = yin + yang = light + dark = Ariel + Ursula.

Happy New Year to All

Happy New Year to All.

New Year’s Day.

We spent New Year’s Day cleaning and doing small tasks. The Christmas tree came down. I enjoy putting everything neatly away and scattering all the pine needles throughout the house. I even got new storage boxes for everything this year because Edda accidentally fell on the old boxes and broke a bunch of them.

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Jeremy spent the morning thinking and reading about things he likes to think and read about. He likes to think and read about transportation. He spent the last week engrossed in a book about asphalt. Every once in a while, I’ll work on an asphalt patent, so I kind of know the words: aggregate, tarmac, bitumen. But to me, they are just words I search for in old patents. To Jeremy, it’s a transportation revolution and revelation.

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Edda’s working on a mean case of chapped skin because her face is always wet and rubbed. I must remember to slather her with Aquaphor tonight. It’s best to do it when she’s fully asleep so it can infuse her skin for hours. But I always forget and then she ends up with a chapped face all day.

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Jeremy spent hours trying to repair our fridge. A condenser drainage pan has corroded through and through, so instead of directing water into a funnel and out of the fridge, it spills and floods our bottom drawer. He’s going to try and replace it – we ordered a part for $18. We’ll see if it works on Tuesday when it gets here.

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I washed and repaired Edda’s wheelchair. It’s ready to go for the new year.

Basement Work

Before working on the basement, I found that it was too messy, not organized enough, to work on. It was due to the last year’s addition of an egress window for the Master bedroom. Before window installation, it needed to saw off a section of concrete wall to make room for the window. The concrete saw dust was everywhere, on the ceiling, tables, walls, boxes, etc. To clean up the ceiling, I did washed it several time before, using water spray.

However, this time, I decided to do a thorough job by washing and rearranging everything to make it neater and, above all, a workable place. I spent almost three days + (day and night). And above three pictures show the results of my work.

It is nice, clean and well-organized, I think. Two baths, one for the Master bedroom and one for the common area can be seen clearly in picture two. Master bedroom one is on the left of the posts. And the other is on its right at the place with wood piles.

I probably can not do a lot of this year because after our South America cruise, I need to report to work. May be next Winter. But who knows?

New Year’s Eve.

Vince is hosting a NYE party at our house with a couple of friends, but first we took all the boys to dinner at my parents’ house. Vince requested hot pot. My mom prepared lobster tails.

The boys had a fun time exploring my dad’s garage loft. And they had fun going through Donald’s old collection of Transformer toys circa 1980.

Ruby enjoyed getting table scraps.

We will go to bed early. Good night! Happy New Year!