Holiday

We had a pretty uneventful holiday. My parents were down over the weekend before Christmas. We had expected to see my sister as well, but the snow and ice kept her away. We'll have to catch up some time in January.

We spent Christmas day at home and there seems to have been enough gifts to keep everyone satisfied, even Ellie. She is a perceptive one though. She noticed that Mom and Dad bought most of her "toy" gifts. Santa tended to bring her more practical gifts, and she thought that was a bit out of character for Santa. Very sharp. I'll have to watch that next year.

Yesterday I spent much of the day running errands. On Christmas, we cracked the tank on the back of one of our toilets. Luckily the amount of water that went everywhere was moderate. That toilet never flushed well, so Ellie and I shopped around town for a replacement (rather than a repair). I put it in myself last night, and it seems to be working great with no leaks, so I am feeling very manly right now.

The left brake on Linda's wheelchair has been broken for over a week. She has to really take care when using it so it doesn't scoot out from behind her. I've had one on order, but it is taking just forever to arrive. Hopefully I'll get a phone call today saying it is in Kirksville. I don't care if they install it or if I do it, since there's just a couple of bolts to connect. Linda is more than ready for it to work again.

It is good to have juice

The electricity has been off a lot today. The power folks were really nice when I called to report it, but it took a long time to get it going. Ellie, of course, was about to burst from excitement.

Linda can't walk in the dark, so I had planned ahead for days like today. We have quite a few candles, a variety of flashlights, and an led lantern that is supposed to be able to run for a week on a set of batteries. It seemed like a lot, but we could use more light. Maybe Santa will restock us even better in a couple of weeks.

The power company did get the power on for about 40 minutes at supper time, just enough time to cook something hot which we ate in the dark. They were great about calling back to see if our power was back on, and they were a bit disappointed to learn that the power had only been fixed a short time before it broke again.

It seems to be more permanently fixed now.

I need better plans for things to occupy Ellie when the lights are out. I wasn't as creative as I could have been. I realized later that her Leap Pad would have been great, since she knows many sight words from school now and she's better at it than ever. I'm also thinking a stash of "clean" coloring books ought to be hidden away somewhere. As it was, she did a pretty good job being occupied.