Busy times, shopping, house hunting still

The busy evenings leading up to the presentation of our Christmas play at church Sunday night begin tonight. Tonight is not part of the evenings of practice for the play but those will follow after services tonight. In light of having every evening spoken for and the need to finish some of the required Christmas shopping before we travel to Florida, Mama and I went shopping last night and spent the entire evening out.

Some of the stops we made were for items needed at the house but the more expensive stops were for gifts we needed for a gift exchange at church tonight and for regular Christmas presents – none of which were expensive, there were just a lot of them. Mama also completed her gifts for her secret sister at church. She’s been working on getting that put together for several weeks now.

We did not get home until after 9 pm. The same arrival time back home should follow through the remainder of the week. It is harder to gauge the time at this time of the year since it is dark by 5:30 every evening so most of the time I am home from the office is spent in the dark. Many evenings I have looked at the clock with mild shock when I realized it was only 7 pm.

Since Mama and I do not have TV we do not measure time unconsciously through that medium – by tracking the evening through the lineup of programs. Neither of us have a desire to have that back in our lives. The content has gotten more and more questionable in the last few years to the point that even commercials have very suggestive if not moderately pornographic content.

Before I went to bed I did my customary visual of the property in back of the house. There were three bucks just outside the chain link fence that surrounds the back yard. When the light shone on them the dogs went crazy – especially Allie. Two of the three bucks would have made any respectable antler hunter proud.

Rain is forecast for the next few days so there will be a delay on outside projects but Mama can get the well house and a couple of closets painted if I can keep her home. She has spent the past couple days house shopping with Grandma and Grandpa. They are continuing to look for a rental house that will fit in their budget. They are meeting with very little success.

When they look within their price range – which is pretty low – all they are able to find are homes that they are shocked someone would offer for rent much less ask what they are asking for the “privilege” of paying a landlord to occupy it; at your own risk, of course. So the hunt goes on.

I am not sure why Mama is involved in the process, but she is. So the sense of accomplishment that Grandpa feels having gotten all our stuff to the house and property in Chico is overshadowed for me and Mama but the daunting task of sifting through all those packed and stacked items and getting them put away properly.

Chase and Makaila are coming over Friday afternoon so Makaila can paint Mama’s kitchen cabinets. That will help a great deal since Mama has been hesitant to put anything away while she waits to get the cabinets finished.

We are still weeks away from getting settled but we are happy to be where we are.