Licensed

We arrived for our DMV appointment a little early and that was a good thing because we had to get both cars inspected prior to starting the registration process.  It was easy - the inspection station was at the same location and the guy took the California registration, got the current mileage and returned a minute or two later with the form we needed.  Back in line and called immediately to a window.

Not quite 2 hours in total and I think the guy helping us was sort of purposefully stretching it out so he could then do his lunch break once we were done.  It was quite a bit of paperwork:  Nevada Real ID's for each of us, registration for two cars and plates for both cars. 

As we finished getting our pictures taken, we hear a voice say 'Hi, guys'....and it was our builder S. who was waiting to be helped with registering a vehicle.  Gave J. a chance to ask a question and I said to S. 'sorry, S..  You can never get away from work, can you?'.  As always, he was fine - he is such a truly, genuinely nice, stellar person.

Last night, we did our homework from the electrical guy and drove to the most recent development completed by our builder to look at the different options of outdoor lighting.  I think we've decided what we want - at least I knew what we wanted until J. opened up the discussion again when we got up this morning.  We're adding some expense to the house with the selection we've made - and I'm as mindful of that as anyone - but this house is the ONE house in our entire lives we've had input on from start to finish and I don't want to settle.  Our Tracy house lacked outdoor lighting and we don't want to make that mistake with the new house.

It will be a Holiday week next week mostly though we do hope we see some progress on the house.

J. has done his Christmas cards and I've got to get to work on mine.  My friends from my old job are now officially on Winter Break so if I want them to get a card, I'll have to look up their home addresses to mail them.  It will be do-able.

We're making white bean and kale stew and we're adding meatballs we made with ground chicken and some leftover ground mild Italian sausage.  Smells yummy simmering on the stove.

The heater wouldn't turn on last night so it was pretty cold.  We both slept OK 'cuz we have a lot of bed covers.  We had a repair person out when our builder (when we saw him last week) confirmed that what we were describing hearing when the unit fired up was not normal.  The guy adjusted the filter and adjusted tabs to keep it more secure.  But the unit stopped turning on at all - so another repair person came by today - first thing this morning - and actually went up into the attic space where the unit is and checked the burner.  Made an adjustment and now we're good.  AND he replaced the very dirty filter with a new one.  We're super toasty and comfy now.  (About 30 minutes after the first repair person showed up, another guy showed up - didn't know the first guy had 'pulled the ticket'.  Nice they really made it a priority - no heat is a big deal when it's 22 degrees outside.

In the news, Trump was impeached by the House.  Now we wait and see what happens.  I don't know how the Senate can ignore all the direct evidence of his actions but...these are extraordinarily crazy times we are living in so who knows what will happen -

It's been a 'hard' week having multiple commitments across all days - other than Monday being completely 'clear', we've had appointments daily - things to do, places to be.  It's good since many of the appointments related to the house and we are ever-so-anxious to get moved there soon - but I'm looking forward to Sunday through Tuesday being low key and at home.  Atlantis for Christmas dinner on Wednesday.

It's an adjustment being 'just us two' for Christmas this year - but we've kept it very low key in general, which is really nice.  The boys gifts are done and easy (cash for H. - distributed via the joint account he has with J. at Wells Fargo so we can monitor his spending) and we paid for B.'s ticket to Banff and here over Thanksgiving.  J. ordered a couple things and other than that, Santa is gifting us some fun $ for our time at Atlantis over Christmas and New Years.  I'm really excited to be able to be there for New Years - something we've been invited to do each year but never could get there from California - but this year, we're IN and really excited -

Time to add the meatballs and fire roasted tomatoes to the stew and get our cheddar biscuits going.  I enjoy cooking with the time to do it - J. and I split the duties and can throw together a meal pretty easily!