Started working at the office on a regular basis in January, and just realized I'd not written a blog post in a while. Things have been going so smoothly and calmly for such a good spread of time here, and project after project, at work and at home, means less time playing at the computer. I've spent most free time on the internet in political debates or reading the news... but most of my writing is currently being done at the computer, and is not being put online until I'm done. The family website is getting a major redo, some of which has already been done.

KC got an almost perfect report card... all A's and one B. He's determined to make high honors, and I think he'll actually do it at some point this year. Nikki did excellent on her report card as well, A's and B's for the most part, only gym seems to be a problem, which she said she did participate in but still got a low grade in.

Winter, though, the little guy is just clowning around in school lately. We put into place a new schedule for him, and also had a very short 'long talk' with him. Real bottom line talk, which he expected and even owned up to just goofing off in school before we even talked with him about it. He's been so good and respectful here at home, we told him all we want from him is to take his home behavior to the classroom, instead of treating the class as an audience to his one-man-comedy-show, which is disrespectful to the teacher, his classmates and his own education. Hopefully the little goofball will chill out with the silly and get a bit more serious. We pretty much can see, by the teacher's notes, that he's just got to tone it down a bit and be more aware of the expectations and rewards of learning with other students at his school. Might take a while for him to catch onto it, but eventually we're positive he'll succeed. When a teacher tells you your son is 'smart, clever and comical', you know he's got the potential to rise above and meet the demands. He's always been quite a handful, extremely hyper (gee... I dunno where he gets that from, hahaha.) But he's usually a well behaved little guy, and his grades have usually been great. Just a small bump in the road, he'll get by it.

A huge winter storm is heading our way for this weekend. Expect many pictures to be on my next blog post if this storm pans out to be as strong as they suspect it is going to be. With so many winter storms this year resulting in more rain than snow for our area, it's been a very easy shovel-season. This time, though, it's not looking likely that we'll get much of that mix... it's very cold out, and the storm coming is going to be heavy with wet. Wet + cold = snow, and lots of it.

And winds... keeping up with the fence in our backyard has been a hassle the past few years. We've put roughly 2k into reinforcing it, but each windstorm weakens whatever areas we've not strengthened or had redone. Sometimes I contemplate taking out the fence and just putting up a bunch of trees and bushes, but we enjoy the privacy (and so do the neighbors.) Plus, most of our neighbors have dogs. The fence keeps the poop out.

Finished up Billboard Sky and PTSD/hooker and the vet. Got another story to write for Nikki, thinking of only giving it to her to read as it's being written and putting it online when it's done.

Kenny's been playing Everquest lately, and he said it's one of the most addictive online games he's ever played. He's not much of an addict, though, as most days this week our other addiction, Scrabble, has gotten the most play. Mostly offline games, with my dad. We had the week off from work, so alternated days this week between Scrabble game marathons and eating lunch at DJ's and Captain Parker's, and on the other days doing home projects.

Kenny's newest "I want" items are: a bigger house and a Lexus. I'm working hard on talking him out of both. With me back at work on a steady basis, and financial aspects of our life going very well, I knew it wouldn't be long before big-priced ideas started getting tossed around. This house is great, and our vehicles have at least another 4 or 5 years in them. Hopefully the new guitar he got will keep him merry and the other ideas at bay.

Today Kenny is going to relax for the day (he's not feeling good, and KC also is sick with a flu of some sort, slight fever, home from school) and I'm going to do some basic housework. We're going to also get outside to get the snow shovels into the house, and to put yard items into safe areas so they don't get blown down the street or into other yards. Will charge up the cameras to take pictures, and make sure we have a good amount of rocksalt. Got on the weather channel, watching the snow amount totals rise each hour is interesting... this one could be the storm that actually gets it feeling like winter time here. We've been so lucky with above average temps, almost like early spring all season, really. Not much snow at all. A decent amount of snow would be kind of welcomed at this point, as the sleds and snowman kits haven't been used yet.

Off to start the morning cleanup ... :)