Winnie and I have worked home improvement projects since we moved to our home in Northern Virginia. At this point, over the eleven-plus years we’ve lived here we’ve remodeled every room in the house except for the bonus room over the garage, which we’re presently working. Although we’ve already remodeled all three baths the one thing we didn’t do was replace toilets, on the basis that the toilets were mostly doing what they were designed to do so leave them alone.
This changed on Saturday.
So today the wind is blowing hard. Hard enough to shut down governments and schools and force people inside their homes. Power lines are tumbling and trees are dropping. The airports are closed and railroad trains are stopped. All because of wind. Strong winds changed the daily life-plans of millions of people. Maybe strong enough winds blowing long enough can change the direction of history?
Happy New year of 2018 everyone! We all survived the horrors of 2017, with a promise that 2018 will be a better year for everyone. So, to ring in the new year properly we need a bit of holiday music.
After a long writing hiatus, I’m back in action. Time flies when you’re having fun, time flies when you’re not having fun, time flies when you’re busy, and time flies when you’re not looking. So why can’t we ever catch time and stash it away for a rainy day?
This Christmas I decided it’s time to catch up my loyal readers with all the news fit to print (and more) on the Virginia edition of the Charest family. This has been a good year, and a busy year, for both Winnie and me.
It’s cherry blossom festival in our nation’s capital this week. Trees that survived the erratic winter are preening their all for hordes of gawking tourists who come from near and far to admire the temporary pink flowers. Meanwhile, chaos continues apiece in the Charest household eclipsed only by the magnitude of chaos in our centers of government power.
Winnie and I decided we needed to do something different for Christmas this year. Our Christmases past have normally revolved around either staying at home in quiet celebration, or visiting family. This year, we gave each other a Christmas vacation trip to Puerto Rico.
Back in December, Winnie decided that we needed to do some major home improvements. To be fair, our house is about 30 years old and needs some upgrades. So our plans were to redo the flooring in our basement den first, along with repainting. Then we’d move up to the main level and replace the old carpeting with wood flooring and be finished by April. Take off the spring and summer for more important boating and outdoor stuff, then replace the upstairs carpeting with wood flooring in the fall and be finished by Christmas 2016.
That was our plan.
Recently I was involved in another auto accident in which I was hit from behind while not moving. To add insult to injury Winnie was also involved in an auto accident, abet much more minor than mine, in another part of town just about one hour later.
Not a great day at all.
So yesterday we entered the time of year colloquially known as “Daylight Savings Time.” For those readers who live in a place civilized enough to not do daylight savings; the concept is that if you cut off the top two inches of a sheet of paper and tape it to the bottom of the sheet, you make the sheet longer.
The people who came up with this idea run the world.
Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year, ringing in the Year of the Monkey. Aside from being the biggest celebration of the year for Chinese people around the world, this year happens to be the year of my Chinese Zodiac sign.