Steve's Ramblings

This Christmas season has been very relaxing so far. I have been away from my desk since the afternoon of the 21st with just four hours to work until the new year. There are many details that I will share in a later post, for now, just a couple of recent ones.

This afternoon, Sue’s nephew Matt and his family visited with just Kaite and I. It was a good chance to break the ice after a few years of not being together. After that, they went over to see Sue’s mom to visit and introduce her to the girls that she had never met. Since the eldest is now 10, it had been long enough. After a short, but meaningful visit, they left to meet us for dinner.

When we got home, we delivered invitations to our immediate neighbors for a BYOB get together tomorrow evening. We’re supplying appetizers (TBD) and they will awkwardly mingle. We’ve become the social organizers of our end of the street! It should be fun and will help our neighborhood get along just a bit more.

Today might be Cyber Monday but it was still a normal work day for most of us. I bought very few things today, although my wife bought some dresses and other unmentionable garments for her upcoming cruise. In January, she and our daughter are heading to the Caribbean courtesy of Sue’s mom and our daughter’s graduation present. For some reason, neither of them had the right clothes for the cruise. So while we didn’t buy anything cool, we did get something practical!

In respect for not giving away secrets, the items purchased to date have included a couple of movies and a small gift for my wife, all from Amazon. I am a sucker for free shipping, especially two day shipping for a flat rate all year long! We hardly use the “prime” video services, so they don’t really influence the decision to continue the prime shipping service year over year. It is mostly the convenience of knowing that almost everything we buy will be shipped to us in two days or less. That alone continues to justify the annual membership price.