HDMI Oh My!

The house stood quiet even after 8am. I quietly slipped out of bed and then downstairs to begin coffee and exercising. It was another lovely morning with oodles of sunshine and nothing but blue skies overhead. I felt really good as I pushed through my calisthenics and headed out the door with Ykraps. We took a more leisurely walk then we normally do. Why not? It was Sunday morning. The house remained quiet upon our return. I enjoyed a cup of coffee in silence before delivering Mindy’s. She wanted to be up early as her and the kids were heading off to church at 10:15am. While upstairs with Mindy, Bella & Kaileigh came in our room. Bella mentioned that Olivia was awake. She knew this because she went in and checked on her. Mindy wasn’t pleased that she’d gone in. We both suspected that she actually woke her. Not a peep, however. I decided it best to peek in on her before heading back downstairs. Not only was she awake, but she was standing peering over the top edge of the bed with her face all smiles. I went ahead and lifted her out. We stopped by the room to see Mindy before heading downstairs. Soon everyone was up. I got everyone juice, chocolate milk, fruit, & donuts. And since it was so lovely, we headed out into the yard and back to the tree swing. All the kids swung, even Olivia. She was in a very cheery mood. That makes me happy. She enjoys being around the other kids. Mindy eventually joined us downstairs. We briefly discussed the morning’s logistics, which included when I would run and who was going to church. I offered to stay home with Olivia, but also hoped to run before they left. Mindy agreed. Come 9:30am she asked that I give her enough time to shower before leaving on my run. I left for my run at 9:40am. I kept my run to three miles in part to avoid holding Mindy up at home. I felt good. I could’ve gone four. By the time I got back everyone was dressed and ready for church. Even Olivia was dressed in her church clothes. Olivia seemed to want to go, so Mindy went ahead and took her. That left me a couple hours of alone time. Cool! I immediately knew what I would do with the time. First, I would start the sprinkler pump, and then work on the surround sound/TV project. There were still a few wires to relocate and fish. I had the lawn sprinkler going in short order and was back on the TV project. I decided to relocate the left surround speaker first. That required fishing the speaker wire down a wall cavity and into the basement and then tie wrapping it along with a wire bundle already in place. Lastly, I had to fish it back up at the other end of the family room along with its sister speaker. That went better than expected, but still took a good 45 minutes. Next, I fished the Plasma bundle up the wall cavity from the TV/stereo cabinet. That included the TV’s power cord, the HDMI cable, component video, composite video, CATV, and an RCA audio cable. That was some bundle! The last thing I did was remove an extra inch of slack at the center channel speaker that Mindy & I fished Saturday evening. Perfect! Mindy & the kids got back from church just as I was finishing up. We had a good couple of hours before we were set to depart for Jacob’s ball game. Mindy made the kids lunch and let them play with the neighbors. Olivia hung out with us until daughter Ashley came to fetch her around 130pm. For perhaps the first time ever, Olivia didn’t run/lunge for her momma as soon as she came in the house. We viewed that as a wonderful sign. She had fun with her Pappaw & MiMi. We left for Jacob’s ballgame at 2:15pm since we needed to be there 30 minutes early. Jacob didn’t really want to go since he wouldn’t be able to play, but we insisted. Plus, it was our snack day. The weather was ideal for baseball – sunny and 80. There were threatening skies just to our north but it never got close to us. The game ended around 4:25pm. We were soon on our way to Jodie & Larry’s for Joe’s 21st B-Day party. We took GD Kaileigh along with us. We’d drop her at home afterwards. The party was just family save for one of Joe’s good friends, Chris. Mindy and I were most pleased that Chris would be there. As a gag gift, we framed a picture of Chris sporting his chest-wide “Mom” tattoo. We stayed at the party until 6:30pm. It was a long day and we still needed to drop off Kaileigh and take care of some things at home. Mindy called Shelly, who asked that we drop Kaileigh off at Joey’s Mom’s in Hilliard. That worked for us. It’s not too far from our house. We arrived home just after 7pm. The kids dashed out the door to play with Emily & Evan who were fresh back from the Florida beaches. Mindy & I walked Ykraps. Meanwhile, the temperature had dropped off significantly. It was only in the 60’s. We stopped and chatted with fireman Mike (Emily & Evan’s dad). He said it rained everyday on the beach. Ewh! Seemed a little miffed. But I can’t say I blame him, although, daily afternoon rain is almost guaranteed in Florida during the summer. We’re expecting better fortune when we go down next month. Mindy called the kids inside around 8:30pm to ready them for bed. They were soon tucked in and asleep. Mindy & I spent some quiet time sitting in the living room talking about us. It was a good talk.