Today is closing for the Visa account. It's over $4500 this morning. I went to work on the ceiling again. I did some light plastering of a few more pock marks then hit it all with the paint. It's not perfect but it looks pretty good. The job is complete - Lib waxed the floor as the final touch. This is our last day of 50's before the artic blast tonight. They're predicting a low of 9 degrees tonight. Dinner was curry chicken over spaghetti with broccoli. Listened to Falstaff live over Sirius. Cecilia of Carolina Ballet was at the performance in NY. We exchanged a few words on Facebook. Amazing.

Sanded and plastered the foyer ceiling. What a messy job - there is dust everywhere. I attempted a cleanup but Libbie did a better job with the vacuum. Lunch was the ham and cheddar delicious sandwiches with a little Dijon mustard. Dinner was Lib's incredible pizza once again.

It's cold outside!!! It went down to 20 last night. Went over to home Depot at 1 and got the new lock rekeyed as part of the effort to get all the exterior doors on the same key. After Home Depot we went to Trader Joes which was crazy. We parked out in the Boston Market parking lot. The lines were long. We got our wine, Libs oatmeal and my oranges. For some reason Trader Joes has the nest Oranges compared to Kroger. I came home and after a lunch of ham and cheese I did the first coat of plaster in the foyer pock marks. I also installed the new lever handle on the door going from the house to the garage. Bad news in the spare bedroom - the ceiling is cracked and covered with popcorn. The popcorn will have to come off for the repairs. Dinner was Thai shrimp and Shiraz. It was spicy and good but not very filling. There wasn't much food there. I tried to do a recording of Boito Mefistofele from the Met but the satellite receiver was programmed to turn off in 45 minutes. I forgot about that.

Worked on the bathroom today. Changed the outlets and switches, put back all the towel bars and shower curtain, hung the pictures. Went to Home Depot for ceiling paint and get a lock rekeyed. They couldn't rekey the lock because their locksmith was not in. Told me to come back tomorrow and see Albert. We went home tired. Had a dinner of Salmon, salad and Yam with water, no wine. Left at 8 for the "Secret" party at Carolina Ballroom which was kind of fun. Andrew opened the ballroom for friends of his parents that wanted a place to dance. We were glad we came since it wasn't so crowded. Had a nice time dancing, still not getting it but we must be getting better. met the owners of the Cary Pub.

It's raining outside. I removed the sink and counter from the downstairs bathroom. the caps we bought didn't fit the pipes so I ended up putting the faucet back in after removing the sink. With Libbie's help I tossed the sink out the side garage door for a future dump trip. There was a ridge of caulk on the wall that I scraped and sanded then Libbie painted the room while I Painted the ceiling in the foyer. I'm pretty unhappy with the paint job. I'll need to go in there with plaster and sandpaper to fixup the pock marks and bumps. We were so tired by the end of the day that we chose to order Chinese takeout and an eggroll which we had with water. It was a tiring day.

We watched the Rose Parade this morning which started at 11 AM. Lib had to pause it midway so she could call her parents. This was a good break since we were watching it on HGTV which had no commercial breaks. The announcers were not plant people, they did not know how to pronounce anything for the floral materials. This was too bad since it is the garden channel. Watching the parade made us both wish we were there again. Mary and John called about some trip planning they are doing for Costa Rica. We told them about a Groupon I found which seemed to be pretty good. I'm not thrilled about traveling again, I was hoping to stay home in February. Dinner was leftover ham slices, yams, peas and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon. We went out late in the afternoon to get home Depot pipe caps then Kroger for wine and salmon for tomorrow.

This is New Years Eve. I lightly sanded the bathroom patches for painting and Libbie went out to Home Depot to buy paint. In the afternoon Libbie made her Tex Mex dip which we brought to the party. We had the Tex Mex for dinner with tortilla chips. We listened to Die Fledermaus live from the met then left at 9 for the party which started at 9. When we got to Carolina Ballroom the parking lot was empty. We didn't think too many would come but eventually the ballroom filled up with all the regulars. I think we did much better at the waltz but I still regret we can't do much more than basic steps. Robert had a TV in the ballroom so we could watch the ball drop at midnight. We danced until 12:30 then left while the party was still going on. Not sure of the ending time but we were done. We were pleasantly tired and fell asleep right away when we got home.

I tried washing the foyer ceiling but eventually ended up sanding it. It doesn't look too bad. It may need plaster in a few spots. That was the extent of my labor for today. I downloaded some movies from torrents. Libbie and I watched "The Silver Lining Playbook" which was excellent. Dinner was BBQ on a bun with a salad. Nice.

It's pouring rain today. Rain gauge shows 1.73 inches before it was all done. The sun came out later in the afternoon. It was another day off from scraping the ceiling. I worked a lot online and ended up downloading Saving Mr Banks with Tom Hanks. I stayed up until midnight watching it but thought it was about 30 minutes too long. I would rather see the movie about 90 minutes long instead of 120. I also had a hard time understanding the British accents, they tend to mumble to my ear. Dinner was another wonderful Libbie pizza. She used the parmesan garlic olive oil we received from the Benzigers for Christmas.

I took a day off from scraping the ceiling. I didn't feel like getting all dirty and covered with white powder from the ceiling. I added the photographic index to the AVSA website and heard from Terry, the person who now is doing the annual index. Went to the Cary mall around lunchtime to look at mattresses. We visited Macy's then bought a Serta Posturepedic in Sears. We got an additional 10% off from some promo they had going. We also get two pillows free with a mail in certificate. Cost was $840. Delivery in about a week. The mall was surprisingly easy to navigate. Dinner was a ham and pineapple stirfry with peppers and rice that Libbie found online. It was quite good. We had it with Shiraz.

I worked on getting the ceiling scraped around the edges. This is a messy job. Dinner was 15 bean soup with cornbread and shiraz. Libbie used the ham bone to make the soup. Very good.

I spent all morning loading spreadsheet files into the AVSA database for the annual magazine index. I got all the years loaded. After lunch we went over to Home Depot and ordered a countertop for the bathroom. It will be around $750. I also need to order a sink and faucets. I resumed scraping the foyer ceiling. Arlene called to tell me Ed Glembocki died which I knew. She heard from Dotsy Hughes. Also dead are Linda Cook, Joan Cook's daughter and Albert Stanski of Skillman. We made ham sandwiches for dinner but got delayed because Joe called about his Christmas.

Libbie went down first and made the coffee. We had ham and eggs for breakfast then opened presents later. It was a quiet Christmas Day. It was also cold but we went outside anyway for a walk around Seagrove Farm. Dinner was ham, sweet potato and Shiraz. After dinner we drove around the neighborhoods and even went up to Dr Pauls house on Green Level Church Rd. We parked the car and walked around the front yard admiring the hundreds of inflatables and spotlights everywhere. What a show. We tried driving out Olive Chapel later looking for Judy Howells place but never found it. She too has Christmas lights most years.

The UPS guy delivered the LED lights this morning for the garage fluorescent fixtures. I started working on the fixture after a Kroger trip for senior day on Christmas Eve. The first light went up easily but the next one had problems because the lamp holders are shunted instead of individual wires. I went to Lowes one hour before the early Christmas Eve closing and found non shunted lamp holders. Bought them and hooked everything up in the evening. While out today I also bought some Russell Stover to be from Santa. I stayed up pretty late working on the AVM indices for the AVSA website. Dinner was Spiral ham with sweet potato and Shiraz and broccoli.

I started working on removing the popcorn ceiling in the foyer. It seems to be going well. I had to run out to Home Depot to get another plastic tarp to cover the floor and also a sponge. It's pouring rain today but warm. A good day for indoor projects. I did some research today on the Infocast I bought a few years ago and how to replace the firmware to repurpose it. I want a digital picture frame with big numbers to represent greenhouse, plant room and outdoor temperatures and possibly a few other parameters. It may be more worthwhile to build a stand for a nook and tether it to a power cord instead of repurposing the Infocast. Dinner was leftover chicken and pasta casserole with rice mixed in. I picked up Spinach today to go in this mixture but Libbie forgot to put it in. We now have 2 bags of lettuce and a bag of spinach in the refrigerator.

This morning I got a copy of Saturday Night Live and we watched it over the Chromecast. It had quite a bit of stuttering. I plugged the drive into the router and tried streaming from there and all the stuttering was gone. I can only think the issue is between my laptop and the router. Too much stuff going on in the laptop. We did soome garden work, I worked on the FM antenna and managed to trip with the 20 foot pole and destroy the thing. I put it back up all mangled. Came back in and watched christmas Vacation streaming it from the router which worled very well. It never missed a beat despite being in high definition. Dinner was Libbie's wonderful pizza. I finished my Christmas cards after dinner. Sadly I found that ed Glembocki had died in March. I looked up his obituary when I had not received a card from him.

Went to Kroger for lawn mower gas and ingredients for Lemon Spinach chicken. It hit a high of 77 today, unusual for the first day of winter. I mowed the Jaoanese Iris down while Libbie worked on cleaning up the rest of the garden. It looks pretty nice. Dinner was salad, lemon spinach chicken and Shiraz. ginger Spice cake was the dessert. I really like the Raspberry Pi music player - it's spitting out non stop christmas music.

Another nice day. More outdoor garden work. We had a very light dinner of zesty beef and barley soup. Left at 7 for the 7:15 Ballroom Christmas party. We brought our Ham Delites which once again were a hit. It was nice seeing everyone dressed up. We're still having trouble dancing anything that's a little complicated. I guess it needs a little more practice. Not sure how to do this. There were quite a few pretty women there - Angela who said she followed Andrew from another studio and of course Nancy in a slinky white gown. Erica was there home from college for the holidays with a boyfriend who didn't know how to dance. It was a nice night. We won the third place prize and it was 2 free lessons. Nice. Our investment was $100, payback was worth $150 at regular rates, $128 at Festival Victory party rate.

Did a little garden work today folding the shade cloths and cleaning up the tomatoes, squash and cucumber grow boxes. Libbie raked and I spread the resulting pine needles around the azaleas in back. We did a Kroger trip for white fish and ingredients for our ham delights for tomorrows dance party. This afternoon I worked on getting the Google Chromecast to work. The secret ended up being installing it on Libbie's laptop and getting a button offering to update the firmware in the device. After the update it attached to the WiFi network and started accepting streams. I was disappointed in what could be streamed. It doesn't recognize some file types and only streams from a few apps. One of the apps is Google chrome but Chrome won't do MKV files. I purchased an app for the Tablet that works with Chromecast that makes it better. We had a dinner of leftover squash, brown rice and baked white fish with Panko crumbs. After dinner we went to Viennese Waltz at 7:15 with Andrew. We had a nice small group of 6 which included the ladies Jennifer, Libbie and Mary. I did a video tape at the end of Andrew and Mary waltzing the length of the ballroom. When we came home I tried listening to WCPE but the signal is very noisy. I successfully tuned into WCPE on the browser and then used Chromecast to send it to the TV. I need to work on the antenna some more.

This morning I played some more with the control program for a pi to learn php. In the afternoon we went to dance class where Robert set us straight on the Foxtrot and we also practiced turn on the waltz. We went to the Post Office with Christmas cards after dance then stopped by Trader Joes. Dinner was leftover Chicken Pot Pie.

Purchased all the ingredients for a pot pie today. Made the pot pie in the afternoon with the chicken leftovers. We had it with Pinot Grigio which went into the pie. We went to waltz amalgamations after dinner. I danced with the very attractive Mary as well as Libbie and Jennifer. I still didn't get the pattern we were doing. The Raspberry Pi is doing a great job at serving music to our stereo. I used it for Christmas Music.

Libbie worked at mail order while I went up on the greenhouse roof and removed the shade cloth. Today is a light eating day so we had a rotisserie chicken with squash for dinner. I'm planning to use the chicken leftovers to make s chicken pot pie tomorrow.

Today is Sunday. Didn't do much - worked on the computer a little, showed Libbie how to use the Pi program to water the violets. She watered the one shelf that was new for 22 additional seconds after we wet the empty mats down yesterday for 30 seconds. We also added the shelf to the watering program. In the evening Libbie made her excellent pizza while I studied some PHP programs to see if I can make it easier for someone to change the members section password.

It's supposed to be a rainy day today. We got going to Falstaff today at noon. We allowed a little more time so we wouldn't get stuck in Christmas shopping traffic. Took Tryon and had no problems getting to the theater. Traffic was heavy but we navigated it well and got to the theater a half hour early. The performance was wonderful, it was played campy. Falstaff is huge, the other two ladies are no dainty ones either. It's the 1,000 pound cast with all three of them. Totally enjoyable and wonderful performance. When we got out it was pouring big time. We made a run for the car. On the way home we decided we were not going to stop for groceries for dinner. We did a Chinese takeout consisting of rice, 3 meat Szechuan and egg rolls accompanied by a bottle of Shiraz. Very nice. My maglite came today. It's an incredibly nice flashlight. I'm going to hang it in my closet. I bought the hanging hooks with it also. I could probably have done just as well from Amazon.

Stayed indoors all day today until time to go out. Worked on reading about B4A projects and found a sample program to read a CSV file. Joe Bruns has given me his database in CSV format. Late afternoon I worked on putting the LEDs and fringing on my San Francisco sweatshirt for the tacky sweater contest. It was fun. We went over to Dance early and did a little bit of Samba with Andrew's group class. We enjoyed dancing very much. winner of the tacky sweater contest was Nancy, an attractive and laughing thin girl. She wore a skirt made of a tree bottom cover and had glitter and funny elf like shoes. She was cute. We sat with her last night at our table at the Esquires dinner. I posted the posed Christmas tree picture of Lib and I on Facebook. 21 people have liked it so far. Too cool. I'm still having trouble with the waltz and connecting turns going down the line of dance. Need to really concentrate on this.