Blue Monday

After getting to bed at 1 AM I figured getting up at 7-ish would be difficult...not so. Mr Coffee did not fail to wake me and I got up rather refreshed. After a couple of cups of slightly too weak joe and a light breakfast of granola, fruit, and yogurt, I was ready to help mom with some weather stripping and some fall planting.

I started the weather stripping project after mom gathered all the items I needed. What she wanted to do is not something I would do on my own house, but the bible says to honor your parents, so I did just that. I stapled the vinyl weatherstripping along the edge of her door and checked the seal. It was not 100%, but much better that it was. Next on the list were plants.

Mom has a lot of plants on her front porch and most all of them needed to be trimmed up and brought in. She had something she called a "snake plant" and it was in a huge 5-7 gallon pot. The soil was saturated (it had been raining a few days before I arrived) and the root ball was huge. I bet the thing weighed 100+ lbs. I was not going to try to pick it up, so we tore it down into several smaller plants and then took the main plant inside. The ones she cut off the main she gave to a neighbor.

After that was done we had lunch (for me it was leftovers...not bad really), split a Green Tea and chatted a bit. I read for a while until it was time for my mom to go to the school and pick up "Sparky", my nephew. I gave him that nickname when he stuck a pair of nickel plated scissors in an electric outlet. It did not hurt him, but it scared him. My back was to him when he did it and all I saw was the flash on the wall. The first thing I thought of was my digital camera. Sparky had a bad habit of getting into my things and I think he is the one to damage the display on my old PDA.

We walked to the school (about .5 to .75 of a mile) and waited for him to be released. Once he came out the door, we walked back home. I was warm (I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and it was in the mid 70's) so I went into my room to read. I finished book two of the left behind prequel and started book three.

After dinner (spaghetti, with a Tex-Mex-ish style sauce) I began to show my other nephew, AJ some martial arts punches. He did not catch on at all and he also did not take it very seriously. I wanted him to since he is a little kid and gets picked on a lot. I moved to kicks and he did do better, but he got bored and began to scream. I really dislike when he does that.

I watched a little TV with mom, read some more, then went to bed. It seemed very weird not to call Heath, Bobby, or Linda, but I was determined to spend time with mom for a couple of days.

I also talked to my wife for about 30 minutes. Thank you Cingular.