Four Renos and a Funeral

Its been a busy few days at the Stone/Shagwell household.

We got an early start on Thursday with a phone call from my father that his wife had died. She was diagnosed very early this year with a rather pervasive brain tumour. She had been suffering a variety of health problems which forced her retirement from GM. After a couple of years of treatment for related issues I guess they figured out this was the cause.

Anyway, she got a 12-18 month prognosis and didn't even last that long. So the funeral is Sunday.

I can't say I particularly want to go because my father and I aren't that close anymore and I certainly wasn't close with his wife (spouse #3). I think I can count on both hands the number of times I saw her over the course of his time with her. A sense of family obligation is overhwelming my relative ambivalence. (Pun intended).

(Yes, its a complicated relationship with much unpleasant history that may be the subject of a future blog.)

In other news, we have been working away on a few things DW has been demonstrating her considerable taping and plastering skills on the new drywall downstairs. (Reno #1). I took some time yesterday to do some woodworking, specifically, a very simple, yet functional cabinet for many of the add-ons for my drill press. I do love Shop Notes magazine for all those little ideas (Reno #2). Today was spent on things Christmas-y. Its in this sort of thing that DW and I agree to disagree. For me, holiday decorating, etc lost its allure many years ago. DW, while not so fussy about the holiday itself, loves the decorative/crafy aspect; particularly because of the Wondertwins. The pre-wired fiber-optic and lights-included Christmas tree was dragged up from the basement and installed. While one doesn't require a joint degree in Civil and Electrical engineering to assemble this thing, it doesn't necessarily hurt. However, the tree was set up and all the lights work. (Reno #3). Of course, one can't have a tree without all the remaining household decorations being put up. Down came the fall garland from the banister and up went the two piece pine garland. We dug through the various boxes to find numerous snowman-related decorations, along with stockings, wreaths candles......the list is almost endless. We even found a string of lights which come with a little controller that lets you change the blink pattern. This is one seriously long and high tech string of lights. We tested them out while laying the whole string on the floor, trading bulbs with a string we were going to dump off to DW's ex (along with all the other decorations we located and that he'll refuse to put up.) We put up the lights running from around an upper floor doorway, down the banister and around the main post at the bottom. But if anyone can tell me why (after extensive testing and troubleshooting) the strand controlling the blue bulbs refuses to work... *sigh* My contribution to the decorating was the can of spray snow which is now artfully applied to the front windows and the storm door. (Reno #4)

So that's the news and I...am.....outta here! (Thank you, Dennis Miller)