close to Christmas

I'm 1 work day away from Christmas break.  That means I've held my current job for just about 2 years.  And I still will have the job when Christmas is over. That's something to cheer about!  Over the last couple of months I've decided that I should learn some java.  Not only will this make me seem really cool, but I will hopefully have a better understanding of what I'm testing (tomcat, apache, and more!!!).

Since the students are now gone for the holiday break, our church only has a single service that starts at 10:45.  As we struggled to minimize the extent of our tardiness, I asked Clara if she ever felt bad about being late.  She said no.  So I wondered if she ever felt bad about anything she's done.  She hasn't.  Jill suggested that she get some counseling (Uncle Matt is certified).  She refused to entertain the idea.

Size charts are available all over the web for children, but I've never heard anyone mention a conscience development chart.

Did I mention that we went to Nashville for Thanksgiving?  It was a bit unusual since Lupita and the kids were away, but Clara and Janny had fun anyway with Grandpa and Grandma.

I helped Matt a bit with installing a wood floor in their guest bathroom.  My job was to figure out how to mark the boards around the toilet.  Not easy!  I wish that I had gotten about a cm closer all around, but not bad an amateur.

Our adopt a student group helped set up the Christmas tree.  This was the year of engagements for our group.  3 weddings are planned for the upcoming summer!

 Christmas is also the time for kids' performances.  We forgot our camera for the church one, so you'll have to image the super cute group of kids with Clara and Janny as angels.  Clara impressed us all by singing loud enough to hear in the 2nd service.  Janny mostly looked at the crowd.

For the school performance, Janny was a (black) sheep, and Clara was again an angel.  Good work by Mrs. Strom to get the kids to sing a number of songs!  We practiced at home a little bit.  Clara knew many of the songs and did great.  Janny knew bits and pieces, and did sing a bit.

 After the show by the Christmas tree.  Janny was a sick with a bad cough this week, so we left the party without eating any cookies.  Plus we hadn't eaten dinner yet.  Clara became very sad.

I continue to be obsessed with limiting our gas usage during winter.  This year, we have another person in the house, so I was curious to see how we compared to last year.

Since I'm still an engineer at heart, I made a chart.  The x-axis is the average degree-days for any given month (I've tried calculating a few different ways, but they all give about the same result.  SoI take the difference between our thermostat setting and the average temperature for the month from Ameren).  The y-axis is the gas used for that month (this includes heating water, but not cooking (electric stove and oven)).

The 3rd point from the left is November of this year.  It's a tiny bit more than our usage last year, but is quite close the the linearized fit.  Stay tuned for more exciting data!

Lastly, I wish a happy birthday to my big sister Lisa.