Don’t take my absence from here lately as anything bad. I’ve just been very busy working and having fun and catching up on those household projects I mentioned last month.  Ripped out an old lighting fixture in the stairwell and replaced it, modernizing some wiring in the process.  Finished painting my office, a project started last spring when I removed the popcorn ceiling and installed a ceiling fan.  Getting giddy as a schoolgirl reading the Ninth Circuit opinion on Proposition 8, and watching (right now, in the other window) the debate on Marriage Equality in the Washington State legislature.  Enjoying afternoon siestas on the patio in our abnormally brutal SoCal winter.  Other than posting some photos from the Penguin Plunge back at New Years, the little I’ve done with websites the last couple of months has generally involved repairing damage from a hacker rather than actually posting content.  But I’m in a good place and happy.

In three and one-half weeks we will have been in the townhouse for a year.  It hardly seems like a year, but the alignment of the stars seems to bear out the calculations.  While we’ve done a lot with the place, I’m having some trouble with the whole one-year anniversary as kind of a line in the sand.  For another 23 days I can point at the ugly green paint in the master bedroom and the two remaining hanging lights downstairs and a list of other things and blame them on Freddie Mac and the prior owners.  We inherited that – we’ll take care of it soon.  After one year, at least in my mind, the line changes to it was here when we got here, but we didn’t put it very high on the priority list of fixes.  There is a statute of limitations so to speak, and at some point the remaining eyesores are ours.  Don’t get me wrong – I love the townhouse and am very proud of all the improvements we’ve made.  Just expect a last-minute flurry of knocking out some of these projects before the tenth to help my own peace of mind.

We welcomed in 2012 with a wonderful jolt of refreshing coldness at our sixth Penguin Plunge, and the year has gotten off to a great start.  Nothing like this though:

1st day of 2012 from Benjamin Dowie on Vimeo.

Just a little multimedia help for the kiddies who never read books.

[via Seduced by the New]

With two weeks to go until Christmas we went up to Disneyland Sunday for a little shopping and a chance to for our little Sith Bobblelord Darth Santa to check out the decor.  The results were great, and are all in their very own little gallery.  Honestly, I haven’t had this much fun with a little plastic toy in years, and the response from other guests and cast members at the park were fabulous.

It’s been more than eight years since the radiation, and there are still no signs of cancer returning.  So why do I dread this afternoon’s checkup so much?

The 2010 holidays kinda fizzled around here.  We were in escrow on the new place and never really committed to decorating, and didn’t want to unpack a lot of decorations we’d only have to pack up again a couple weeks later (the escrow was originally scheduled to close on Christmas Eve).

Having a blast decorating the new house though, and out of frustration with work, and just a bit of idlehandedness, I’ve turned to the dark side for Howling Point’s host of the new decor.  Our revered and beloved Darth Santa bobble debuted here in 2009, having been adopted in Vegas earlier that year.  He’s back now, making certain everything is fully operational for the arrival of the Man in Red later this month.  More documentation of his efforts (prequels, sequels, and maybe even an animated Life Day special), not to mention 3-D remasterings scheduled for 2020, will be forthcoming.