I keep many journals and had an entry for the date of this daylog.

Well here I am watching The Simpsons. My brother lent me a DVD so I can get caught up on some of the shows he tells me about. His son, my nephew, enjoys them too. They act out some of their favorite scenes and then laugh like hell. My brother hasn't missed a show in 15 years.

My sister-in-law came down from Erie yesterday to visit and exchange gifts. We cleaned the house before she came. I did the bathroom and vacuumed the upstairs hallway. I made our bed and put the new quilt on it. My mother gave it to us for Christmas. She stitched it all by hand. It took her hours, days, weeks. The base color is forest green. Ironically, we painted three walls of our bedroom forest green. Imagine that. I took the check that she gave us to the bank and deposited the whole thing into our checking account. I'm off from work for the rest of the year. I have to use up all of my vacation days before the year is over or I lose them. My sister-in-law had dinner with us and we talked for half the afternoon nibbling on cookies and drinking tea. My wife and I both come from large families. You can't possibly visit them all in one day. But the smaller the group, the more intimate the conversation. When more than four or five of us get together we can cover a lot of topics but the meaningfulness tends to be shallow.

She left her scarf and her boots behind. She didn't realize she forgot them until she was halfway home. She wasn't sure where she left her scarf. She noticed it was missing when she stopped at Burger King to pee. It was probably from all that tea she drank. We found her scarf this morning. I think the cat had it. We can drop it off at her sister's house tomorrow morning or Monday. We do a lot of traveling during the holidays.

We took Lizzy to the vet this morning. She cried the whole way there and back. She cried in the office too. She is napping in a corner of the dining room next to a wall by the chimney. Cats like warm places. It was very traumatic for her. She is quite upset. She'll give us the cold shoulder for a day or two and then start warming up. We give her a lot of slack and a lot of love. We think she was abused before she was abandoned before we got her. She is terrified of riding in a car. We couldn't get near her the first week we brought her home. We've had her for over a year now and she's just part of the family. She's included on the Christmas cards too.

I just finished lunch and I see the sun is starting to come out like it did yesterday. I cleaned what little snow we got overnight from the walkways and the deck so the low humidity and sunshine will allow them to dry out. I can hear my neighbor clearing the snow from his walk. He sweeps until there is absolutely nothing left. He's been retired since we've lived here for over ten years. He doesn't go anywhere or do anything except take care of that house.

I was looking through Monitoring Times this morning and decided to order a book. It is called Shortwave Receivers: Past and Present. I've wanted this book for ages. I'll pay for it out of my Christmas bonus. There are reviews and specifications on over 500 radios from 1942 to 1997. The woman I ordered it from over the telephone said it may take a week for them to ship it because they are still backed up from the holidays. I can wait. I'm just glad they still have it in stock. Now when I find an old radio on eBay I can look it up if it's in my new book. I'm spending money to find ways of spending more money.

I took my son and a couple of his friends down to the college campus to ride their skateboards. The Megadeth CD got stuck in the CD player of the Nissan. I disconnected the battery a couple of times but no results. It's worked before. We can still play cassette tapes. Nothing but clear blue sky to the west. The temperature is forcast to hit 40 degress. I should probably go for a run but its nice to have some time to do absolutely nothing.