Christmas Greetings to You

Hello all and Merry Christmas! I hope today has allowed you the time to spend it with the people that matter the most in your life. Unfortunately for me, I have to go in for a 12-hour shift in a matter of a few hours, so it's not exactly the most joyous of Christmases for me. Never the less, I was able to spend a little of my day today with members of my family, so all was not lost. And even yesterday, I had the entire day to be with a large group of people that matters the most to me. So even though when you're an adult and have to juggle around work in order to celebrate Christmas, you do what you have to do to enjoy it as much as you can. Oh how nice it would be to be able to have the week between Christmas and New Years off just like when we were kids.

It's been a particularly hectic month in a half for me, which is why you haven't seen nearly as many blog postings here as I would've liked. They have been forcing a lot of overtime on us at work lately, including the past two weeks where they had us working 68 hour weeks. When you're working a lot of 12-hour shifts, it really eliminates a lot of your personal free time. During that time, I still had Christmas shopping to try and complete as well as to find something for my mom's birthday. I did manage to find a few items on-line, but I had to resort to being one of those last-minute shoppers to get everything done that needed to be completed, in the shopping sense. No matter, though, as there sure seems to be plenty of last minute shoppers in the world out there.

I have also been trying to work on projects around the house and to keep up with the shoveling and snowblowing outside. Yes, winter is in full force here in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It's amazing how quickly things can change in just a matter of a couple of weeks. The first week of December, we basically had very little , if any, snow. But then the lake effect machine started kicking in and we were even hit with a significant winter storm at one point. So yes, it's like the dead of winter around here - which isn't any surprise seeing that it's December after all. I have a couple of rooms in my house which I am looking at painting here very soon. When I have a stretch of days off coming up, I'll be looking to get that project completed. So as you can see, things have been very, very busy for me. Hopefully once we get into the New Year and beyond the holiday season, things will begin to settle down. No rest for the weary, as the saying goes!

I sure don't plan on this being the final blog posting here at Luke's Ponderings for 2010, but ya never know considering how things have gone since November. But here's hoping your Christmas holiday has been worthwhile and filled with joy. The New Year is coming upon us quickly, so make sure and enjoy the remainder of your holiday season and here's wishing you a joyous 2011. It's hard for me to believe that 2010 is just about over; how quickly the year went! Here's hoping for a wonderful 2011 here at Luke's Ponderings with plenty of new blog postings to come. Cheers!

No Time These Days

Do you ever feel like sometimes you don't have enough time in your day? I think I've felt that way for a good week now. There has been a lot going on lately for me and I've been finding it difficult to fit in my normal activities. I am actually rather relieved American Idol is over because I just don't know how I'd be able to fit that into everything. It actually ended at a perfect time. And even though it's only been a little less than a week since I last blogged, I feel like I could've been able to blog every day, but just couldn't get the opportunity. Anyways, this is why I been feeling so overwhelmed this past week.

The first significant undertaking in my life these days is the hunt for a house. I actually started working with a realtor a few weeks ago and went to see a few houses in person. This is basically how the tour went: the first house was a complete dump, the second house was better, but the home needed to be connected to the township's water system, which would've cost $15,000. So obviously you could tell that was out. The first impression of the third house we visited: smokey, VERY smokey. Obviously someone needs to install some air fresheners! The fourth house was decent, needed some work, but the taxes are very high in that particular area. So it was way down the list. The fifth house was the big winner on the tour. The house had been updated very nicely and the price was actually pretty reasonable. Right now, it's the front runner. And last but not least, the sixth house on the tour was pretty much run-down. It had a lot of land but the house needs some pretty extensive work. I just don't know if I'd be willing to continuously work on it at this point in time. Tomorrow I am looking to get pre-approved on a loan and hopefully take another tour of the fifth home (along with my parents who were absent the first time around) and then get the ball rolling on making an offer on the place. I was a little discouraged to learn that the next day, the same realtor I am working with showed the house to a young couple and they really liked it too! So needless to say, if I am serious about actually buying this house, I need to get things moving. More updates to come on this in the future.

Also on my plate - work! Yes, mingled in with the search for a home and the other assorted activities I plan on discussing, I am still busy with work. Believe me, I am very thankful to have a job, particularly in times like these. The same holds true for the area where I live, where good jobs are hard to find. It's just that on the weekends where I work 12 hour shifts, it's hard to do much of anything else except for sleeping, eating, and going to work. On Saturday I had to fit in my niece's birthday party after I slept until roughly 2:30 PM (currently working midnight shift) - and only getting about four hours of sleep. My sister from Wisconsin was also up for the party and the disappointing thing is that I didn't get to spend as much time as I would've liked thanks to my schedule. However, I did get to spend about three hours with her on Friday night and then a bit at the party on Saturday. So all was not lost there.

And that's not all - I am also the main project planner for the improvement projects we are going to be making on my parents' house this summer. We're going to be replacing four windows, install plenty of vinyl siding, and try to make the house weather and energy efficient as much as we can. At this stage of the game, I am figuring out our supplies list which is a pretty time-consuming task. And sometimes, I run into motivational issues to get this done. I don't have much more to go and probably after I'm done writing this blog, I'll get working on that and try to finish this up. I have a feeling we'll be making a trip to the big-box hardware store sometime the end of this week because a lot of the supplies we need for this project are on sale. My dad also wants us to go to the place where we ordered windows and siding from last year and get all that ordered. So as you can see, I have a deadline! But that's not always a bad thing, either. I tend to work the best when under pressure.

You add those things, plus trying to keep up with this blog, and other normal everyday activities like spending time outdoors and running errands - and you can see I have a lot going on. To some I'm sure it doesn't seem like much. But for me, where I tend to lead a pretty low-key life, it's suddenly turned to quite a lot. And that's fine in all honesty. It's better to be busy running around than living a completely boring life.