Takes Balls to Decorate a Tree

Uh-oh! A quick eye to the clock foretold of a morning overshadowed with stress. I woke only once through the night and saw that it was 300am (still plenty of snoozing ahead of me). I remember thinking how wonderful that was. However, the next time I glanced at the clock, it was 610am. Normally, this wouldn’t be too much of a problem but today was our department meeting and it was slated to begin at 730am sharp. That meant I should leave the house no later than 705am, which would leave me a grand total of 55 minutes from the feet hitting the floor until departure. Being the creature of habit that I am, that didn’t resonate too well with me. I had to cut the fluff and then some! I still did my sit-ups and push-ups – that’s a given, and I still walked Ykraps. I still needed my coffee. The first cut was my quiet meditation. Next to go was my leisure PC time, although I still sent Mindy a very brief good morning email immediately after packing my lunch and making some eggs. I’ve gotta have my daily calories or else I’d be of no value to anyone including myself. By the time all that was completed, it was 650am. I needed only to shower and dress. To speed things along, I dressed in my stale blue jeans and a zip fleece pull-over. Bam! I was ready to go. Despite the quick prep I was still a rather handsome devil!!! J Out the door at 705am, the traffic was noticeably lighter than at 735am. I was on the freeway within a couple of minutes and on my way. I made a quick call into the office to chat with one of my peers to ensure that we would have as many engineers as possible attending the meeting. He assured me that we would. By 720am I was parking the Trooper and headed into the building – crisis avoided! And while I made it to the meeting with a few minutes to spare, I don’t think I want to repeat that pattern any time soon. I absolutely hate to rush. I am a much more fun individual when I have taken the time to live a little in the morning. The department meeting followed immediately by a staff meeting all but guaranteed a speedy morning. It was run time before I could bat an eye. The weather was much the same as the last four or five. It was in the mid 20’s with a chilly breeze blowing in from the west. Again, it wasn’t too cold to enjoy the run. I was great! My afternoon was pretty uneventful right up until close to time to leave (of course). We were hit with a fairly large vent that kept me at the office until almost 530pm. Because this was a Mindy Wednesday, I called her cell to let her know that I’d be late arriving home. She was practically at my home. I called her back as soon as I left the office and gave her access to my home. I didn’t want my princess to site outside in the cold. I was home by 550pm. Mindy was already making our dinner. It was nice to come home and see her smiling ace “slaving” away. J While she worked on dinner, I took Ykraps for a walk and tended a few other routine chores as well as grabbing an armful of logs for a hearty fire. We sat down to eat around 610pm. We had the leftovers from the night before (pork chops, mashed potatoes, and sauerkraut). It was as good tonight as it was the night prior. After dinner we settled on hot tubbing, so I prepped the tub with chlorine, piped out some tunes, and plugged in my new tube lights. The water felt so damn good! Hot, but good! We hot tubbed for about 20 minutes. Once back inside and in dry clothes, we got right to decorating my Christmas tree. It was all ready for ornaments since I’d already strung the lights Sunday evening. I wasn’t real sure how it would turn out with my new ornaments and new color scheme but it turned out like I had envisioned. It’s good to have a plan. To counter my predisposition for white lights and a single colored ornament, I was bold and purchased pearlized mini multi-colored lights and color coordinated ornaments. I already had some color coordinated accompaniments. The next step was to add a wealth of gold picks to an otherwise multi-colored tree. It looked better than a great set of tits! And to give it a bit of a throw back look, we added tinsel, or as I call them, ice- cycles. I wasn’t sure about how they looked, but what the hell! It definitely adds an old-fashioned flare to an otherwise contemporary looking tree. Through the process, I snapped a few photos to capture the moment. By the time we finished, it was 9pm. Mindy needed to go. I promised myself that I’d break with a recent trend and get some reading in tonight as well as getting to bed before 1130pm. but befor any of that could happen, I spent the next half-hour tweaking the tinseling and cleaning up the decorating mess. Next, I jumped on the computer and updated two days worth of blogging (Sunday & Monday). It went fast because they were already written and waiting for publishing. Finally! I was done. I was happy with all I had accomplished by 1030pm but still hadn’t got any reading in. I was dog tired. But I still sorely wanted to get some reading in. So I did. But instead of picking up my latest new book, I picked up the recent Dispatch article that Mindy brought me concerning Darwin’s, The Origin of Species. I was looking forward to reading it. I’ve often wondered what our lives would be like if his famous book was instead titled. The Origin of Feces. The article basically summarized his position on the hotly debated topic that has split the scientific community as well as the world, and also shared his predisposition to Christianity prior to his journey and writing. What i didn't realize is that he saty on his data for 20+ years before deciding to publish. But the fear of another beating him to the punch, along wit hnot so stellar helath, he finally published his findings and conclusions. Furthermore, the article scratched on the more recent ideal that perhaps there’s no need for so much division and conflict between the concept of intelligent design and natural selection. That ideal is acceptable to me. I have no problem with allowing the two ideals to share the same universe. Anyway, good article! It was 11pm. I was so tired. To bed!