I am home!

As I mentioned previously, my main rig is pretty well foobared at the moment. Though I was very careful to reassemble exactly the way it was–even taking photos–veteran Windows users can guess what the end result was, despite all my anal diligence in putting it back together. Yes, the Blue Screen of Death. So now I am looking at a reformat–nay, actually a whole new drive, because in the process of futzing with data recovery off the main drive I corrupted the partition table, which essentially gives you a brick. But wait! There’s more! Oh yes. My lovely backup computer has died also. The power jack on the laptop bit it while I was traveling. Unfortunately, getting it fixed is extremely labor-intensive and therefore expensive. Something tells me it’s going to wind up on ebay for parts.

So while I am waiting for a new hard drive and another laptop (Merry Christmas to me), I am kind of technologically crippled. I am typing this on the twins’ computer. The horror.

But probably a good thing, because it’s forcing me to actually unpack and do laundry and feed the kids and stuff.

Our trip was nice, and in a typical Jersey fashion, we got a little bit of everything with the weather. Bright, beautiful days, cloudy/rainy days, and even one snow day–the twins were absolutely thrilled to wake up to fluffy snow falling. (And I was thrilled that it didn’t do much, and therefore required no shoveling). Oh, and the leaves. Everything was on fire when we got there. It was so breathtaking I found all kinds of excuses to go out no matter what the weather was doing. And no shortage of things to do, if you don’t mind driving: NYC, The NJ Children’s Museum, The Paramus Mall, Turtleback Zoo, etc. etc. (Would love to post the photos I took if not for the above!).

Thanksgiving was a little insane what with eight adults and four kids under five in my mother-in-law’s tiny little WWII box house, but it was short and sweet. We forgot to defrost the Tofurkey and had salmon instead. Everybody else had the real deal.

Bruce came back to CA a couple of days before us, and I flew home with the twins all by myself. Six-and-a-half hours. On a plane. With tired twins. Then a couple of days later, the four-hour drive home. A little stressful (mostly because of all the security BS at the airport), but not too bad. But if Bruce hadn’t let me sleep in when I got home I think I would have killed him.

Our neighbor watered the garden while we were away and it looks great. All the plants are so big. The artichokes are doing great, the sweet peas are thriving, and the cauliflower is not nearly as decimated by bugs as I thought it would be. I am sorry it took me so long to get the bright idea of planting everything new in potting soil over there.

Time to pass out!