Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

Freshly written MI election law says that Applications for Absent Voter Ballots must be in the mail by 29 Dec. The voter database did not have a final voter list until 23 Dec, and without that list the applications cannot be printed. Because the law was approved so late, the three state-authorised printers were very backlogged on printing the application return envelopes, and smaller orders were shifted to the back of the queue. All of this is background to why I went in to work three days this week. We *did* get all of the applications out, so there's that. Theoretically, the AV application list will be much shorter in the future, as people will choose to be on the "send me a ballot" list, rather than the "send me an application for a ballot" list. We shall see.

J and I went to church on Xmas Eve to ring chimes. Then we left, still a bit uncertain of our germ-carrying status, as we'd not gotten home from NC until late Friday - we could still have been pre-symptomatic.

Going in to work three days last week did mean that I was able to avoid the problem in the workroom, but I really need to get started on that. DonWanna. OK, I'll be very glad when it's done, but actually *doing* it isn't going to be much fun. The last time I did some sorting in the basement, the CD changer took a dive off the shelf and J had to rip it down to bare chassis and bend a few things back so that it would actually work. sigh.

Christmas was very quiet here. Nobody called (to be fair, the phone wasn't working, so I'm not sure how they would have). The phone guy came out on Tuesday and swapped the line connections at the switchbox at the corner -- mice get in, then snakes follow the mice, then connections short out.... I called Mum on my cellphone, which *was* working (sometimes I have no signal at the house), and she said that her "orphans" supper was going to have extra attendees, as at least one couple's Xmas plans were modified by the hosts getting ill -- nobody wants to give grampa COVID or RSV for Christmas, after all.

Very quiet day here. Sunny in the morning, and then the high clouds came in. Three for dinner (ham, roasted veg, salad, crescent rolls). No dessert, because we've got lots of fruit and cookies anyway.

EU got her Xmas box in the last mail delivery before Xmas. She put the entire box under the tree, and opened it on Xmas day.

Mum called from FL, where she and MidSis and AC were gathered for their holiday, and sang me "Have yourself a merry little Christmas" with AC on 'pianner'.

We skipped the Xmas Eve service at church, as we were not performing! (first time in over 20 years.) Well, and J was shuttling someone to Roscommon. The Bell Choir played on Sunday, and it was more of a train wreck than expected. Someone (not in the choir) removed a couple of pages of music between rehearsal and performance, and so we had to shuffle music & performers so everyone had appropriate music, and we wound up with misordered music and two rookies next to each other for the first time so that they had problems keeping their place. And then while we were performing, some late arrivals took our place and there was no-where to sit. So we left. (Late arrivals were annoying, as they were ostensibly there for peeps in bell choir. Service nominally starts at 9:30, with bells scheduled very early in the service. Service was running behind, and bells wound up at 9:50, and they were *still* late. sigh.) And there was a 'student choir' - youth too old for the children's program - that was horrid in rehearsal, so I didn't mind having an excuse to duck out.

Today, I finish clearing up after Christmas dinner, and then start on the cards. My plan is to get them to people by 6 Jan, but I should start sooner rather than later.

No "a year of making" posts this year. I made the point I wanted to make to myself (and got into a habit, so I have some confidence that it will continue).

The Xmas Eve service was decent, actually. The minister (a former music teacher) selected and arranged all the performance carols to fit the personnel and skill-sets that were available. The choir was about as good as could be expected (which is to say, not horrible -- there are a few people that we'd probably be better off without, but that's not something you can do in a teeny choir in a small church). We had a HS bassoonist show up at the last rehearsal. He's played with us before, and he and I work pretty well together. TM arranged a accompaniment duet for clarinet and barisax that was a lot of fun to play, even though I did have to be careful to not outplay the clarinet

I got the holiday cards out on Orthodox Christmas, a bit later than I wanted to, but it took me a while to collect enough gumption to clear a space on the kitchen table.

One day last week, I finally got the pictures back up on the walls. I couldn't put the dining room ones back until the cabinet doors went on, so that was first. Then I fumbled the door handles, so I need to get some wood filler and try again. The hall pictures were stacked in the living room, waiting to be put into the new frames also stacked in the living room. There were eight pictures on the wall, six in matching frames and two in entirely different frames, and it looked really disjointed. There's space on the kitchen wall for the hooks I got at MuseCon.

Sunday, we woke to no power -- the rain that had been falling at bedtime Saturday had transitioned to snow (through freezing rain and sleet), and there was wind. There was no power at church, either, so that was cancelled. DB did work a church service in town though -- Chelsea has their own power grid -- and he said it took him 35 minutes to get there, normally a 12-15 minute drive. We got power back before noon, so I went downstairs to sort in the workroom. About 3pm, the power went out again. I was finishing up anyway (and that end of the basement has two windows in it!), so I was able to put away the last few things before I came upstairs. About 4:30, J went out and fired up the generator again because DTE had no estimate for restoration. We finally got power back about 10pm.

We got the tree undecorated and down on Sunday during the power outage, and I found the basket of things that went on the little shelf in the dining room. The Honeck dragons are off visiting Butch and getting refinished -- running water in the fountain caused a lot of discoloration and some corrosion, so they went off to the "spa".

The tree is up, and finally decorated. It's been up since Thanksgiving weekend, but we've been so busy that we didn't get any ornaments on it until last Sunday it's a family thing). We had to replace the top strand of lights, so I got some warm white LED strands from Meijer. They look very much like the lights the tree came with -- you can really only tell if you stand right next to the tree and look closely.

Holiday performances are over, other than church stuff. DB is working with the kids on the Pageant and providing some narration; J will be working sound for it. My only obligation that day is to be at both services and sing with the choir in the 'everybody' sing portion. Christmas Eve is barisax in the praise band, flute on Silent Night, soprano in the choir and (maybe) song leader on the hymns the praise band isn't playing. DB will be singing a duet with RS, and joining the choir for our piece.

We had kidpix taken last weekend. DB was being very silly, and it was hard to find even a couple of pictures where they both had decent expressions on their faces. Sigh. Those pics won't be back until the weekend after Christmas, so I have a bit of time before I need to start the Christmas letter. :)

The squirrels figured out how to get into the seed bell, so I've had to rearrange feeders a bit, but the woodpeckers don't seem to mind much. I've seen all four of them at the new bell today, as well as nuthatches and tufted titmice.