The kids and I just got back from dropping Susan off at the airport. She’ll be in Florida this week, flying home over the weekend, and flying back out Sunday for a second week in Florida. The kids each have five days worth of clothes laid out for this week. Mason has to take his lunch on Tuesday (it’s “stew day”). Other than that, everything should be fairly routine. Morgan was fine with Mommy going on a trip until we arrived at the airport and she realized she wasn’t going. It was a rough ride home but she’s over it now, at least for tonight.

I don’t know if Susan knows this or not, but the minute she leaves town on one of her trips the first thing I do is get the biggest trash can I can find and put it smack dab in the middle of the living room. Recently I picked up ten 22-gallon trash cans from an auction (don’t ask; in all fairness, five of them are Jeff’s …), so the minute the kids and I got back from the airport I found the Hefty Hefty Hefty trash liners, installed one in one of the new trash cans, and put the trash can in front of the fireplace. When it comes to cleaning I subscribe to the theory of “least amount of steps,” so this system works out well. I may pull a clothes hamper out here and put it on the fireplace too.

Tomorrow is Mason’s first day of school with the cast on his arm. The cast is on his writing arm which essentially prevents him from writing. We’ll see how that goes. Also, he cannot tie his shoes or button/zip his pants by himself. He did okay playing Rock Band the other night with the cast on, so I suspect “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” He’ll get through the day, somehow.

I am putting the finishing touches on my 2009 Resolutions and I’ll be darned if they don’t look a lot like my 2008 Resolutions. I know that one of the ways to success is to not just make resolutions, but determine your path to success, so I am trying to incorporate that into this year’s plan. In other words, I’m not just saying, “lose weight.” I’m saying, “lose weight by exercising 3-5 times a week” — stuff like that. One trap I always seem to fall into is the technology one — like the time I couldn’t start cleaning the garage until I set up a laptop capable of streaming mp3s via wifi from the server out there, or the time I couldn’t start walking for exercise until I bought a better mp3 player. One of my resolutions is to “read more books,” but most of the books I’ve been getting lately are eBooks, and I find I don’t like reading while sitting at a desk. I pre-ordered a Pandora (a new hand held device) last October and had hoped it would be here by now, but the pre-orders have all been cancelled and the unit has been delayed. One of the things I was looking forward to using this device for was reading eBooks on the go (in the car, in bed, etc.) If the units don’t materialize soon I may break down and buy one of those mini-netbook/sub-notebooks for that purpose instead. The prices are comparable (~$300) and I was really looking forward to the Pandora, but … well, we’ll see.

For Christmas this year I got a couple of $50 Best Buy gift certificates, a $50 GameStop gift certificate, and a $25 one for Hastings. Yesterday Mason and I went on a citywide mini-shopping spree. We ended up buying two more Wiimotes for the Wii (we’ve only had two all this time), a four-Wiimote charging station (those AA batteries were starting to get expensive), and two Wii steering wheels. I rounded out one of the cards with two stickers — one that says “I {heart} Metal” (for Mason’s guitar) and one that says “I {heart} Pirates”” for … something. I have one card left and I plan on picking up another Xbox 360 controller (I only have one) this week. Mason has been having a good time with the Wii steering wheels. He and Morgan are playing Mario Kart Wii right now, in fact.

Recently I discovered the crack addition that is Facebook. It’s MySpace, but with less spam and less bling, and more networking and more real time feedback. I’ve spent the past week or so uploading photos, reconnecting with old friends and meeting some new ones. Very fun, very addictive. I figured out how to send my blog entries here via RSS to Facebook so there’s another place my drivel will appear. Icing the Internet cake with my crap, one site at a time.