See the light

I've noticed recently that when I go to turn on the lamp on my nightstand, I always look over the shade at the light bulb when turning on the light.  Then I'm nearly blinded by brightness.

Why do I have to look at the light bulb?  To make sure its on?  Even if I look the opposite direction while turning on the lamp I'll know its on by the light it produces!

I find this a little unsettling, and am now trying to stop this useless habit.

I'm curious to hear if anyone else has noticed any odd/useless habits?

Have you ever been alone and sneezed and then said out loud "Excuse me"?  When no one else is in the room?

I have.  Its a useless habit.

Have you ever stubbed your toe and immediately exclaimed "Ouch!" even if it didn't hurt?

I have.  Its a useless habit.

Just like looking at a light bulb when you turn on a lamp.

This little light of mine

Since I am a big fan of recycling, alternative fuels, and zero-emission electric cars, you would think 
that I'd also be a fan of CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) bulbs, but I'm not.

I found the earlier version of the CFL bulbs to be annoying because they took 30-60 seconds to fully illuminate.  When you open a closet door and flip on the light switch to find something, you really don't want to have to stand around waiting for the light in order to find something.  The more recent version is better, with a 10-15 second warm-up period, but are still not ideal for places where you need light quickly, like a dark closet.

Another irritating thing about these bulbs is that they don't last as long as incandescent light bulbs.  We moved into our house 7 1/2 years ago and began gradually changing the incandescent bulbs over to CFLs.  I have already had to replace several of the CFLs because they only lasted a couple years.  Meanwhile, the incandescent bulbs that never got switched out are still burning strong after more than 7 years.

Oh, and did I mention CFLs are like 3 or 4 times more expensive than incandescent bulbs???

And when the CFLs burn out, you're not supposed to throw them in your regular household trash because they contain mercury!  You're supposed to drop them off at Home Depot or Lowes to recycle them.  What a pain...

But despite these irritants Spouse & I continue to replace bulbs with CFLs because they allegedly use less electricity.  How do you feel about CFLs?

Christmas trees and lights

As I was putting the lights on our Christmas tree Sun evening I discovered one of the strings had a section that wasn't lighting up. As with the outdoor lights, I tried replacing the first and last of the unlit bulbs, to no avail.

I removed the faulty string from the tree and threw it into the garbage so I will not have to deal with this again next year.

Yesterday I bought a new string of lights to complete the lighting of our tree. Only, when I plugged in the lights already on the tree I found a section not working. These lights were all working on Sun, now a section is not! Rather than make yet another trip to the store to buy more lights, I decided to tuck the non-working section of lights into the middle of the tree where they won't be seen, then attached the new string of lights I'd just purchased.

Finally! Our Christmas tree is lit, and looks very nice. Spouse & I carried the 3 large plastic bins of tree and home decorations down from the attic, and he held the strings of silver beads as I scalloped them on the tree. When we finished it was 8:30 so we decided to relax and watch a DVD. We'll add all the ornaments Thurs after dinner. I'll take photos when its finished and post them here.

Which brings me to an idea I had last night: I'm going to have a Christmas tree post. I want all of you to take a photo of your Christmas tree and send it to me. I'll post the photos along with a link to the respective bloggers. Sounds fun, right? Please send your Christmas tree photos to me at SingJaz@aol.com.

And speaking of Christmas trees and lights, my heart was warmed last evening (despite the frustration of the non-working lights on our tree, as described above) because I believe we experienced a Christmas miracle! Yes, that's right!

Remember when I whined about spending all that time winding the lights around the spindles of our wrap around porch, only to find unlit sections? Then I removed the string with the unlit section, and replaced it with another string which ALSO had an non-working section? Remember that? Well, when Spouse & I took the dog for her walk last evening Spouse said to me "I see you got those lights working." I replied "Huh?" He pointed to the porch and I saw that all the lights were now working! I couldn't believe that the section of non-working lights had suddenly started working! I was afraid it wouldn't last, so I took a photo:
So there you have it; our very own little Christmas miracle!

Crush du Jour: Chris Pine

Weekend highlights

Karaoke - Freddie's was not a full as it normally is on a Fri night, so there were fewer karaoke singers. I got to sing 5 times during my 2 1/2 hours there! I had a good time visiting with my buddies Chris and Sean.

Parade - It was really cold for the Manassas Christmas Parade, but at least it wasn't windy. We had a lot of fun and I ate too many sweets.

Dinner - Spouse wasn't feeling well so he didn't go with me when I met up with Susan, her boyfriend Gerry, Clara, her husband Sivan and their son Kai. We had a really nice visit, chatting about politics, work, quality of life, and holidays. We ordered Greek food from a nearby restaurant and ate at Clara & Sivan's. Afterward they surprised me with a birthday cake and sung "Happy Birthday" to me. It was sweet.

Brunch - Spouse, his mom and I picked up my aunt Mary and we had brunch at Ireland's Four Provinces. I had selected brunch as my meal of choice for this year's birthday, and Mary recommended the venue, which we all enjoyed a lot.

Lights - On Fri I strung the wrap around porch with white lights. When I plugged them all in, I saw an 8' section of lights that were out! I replaced the bulbs at the beginning and end of the un-lit section, but it didn't help. So, I unhooked that string, unwound them from the railing, and re- strung another string in its place. That string also had an 8' section that didn't light! What was particularly distressing was that I'd just bought these lights last year. After spending 2 1/2 hours wrapping and wiring the whole thing up, I decided to just leave the lights as-is, with the hope that the non-working lights would magically start working just as mysteriously as they had stopped working. I began to feel jinxed after remembering last year's outdoor holiday decorating debacle.

Then on Sun when we returned from VA, I decided to string the Christmas tree with lights. I got the 1st 3 strings tested and put on. When I tested the 4th and final string, I found a big section of lights that didn't work, so I threw them in the trash. I'll buy another string of lights this week to finish lighting the Christmas tree. Its just kind of weird that we decorated our house and tree for years in our old home and never had any issues, but our 1st 2 Christmases in our new house have been accompanied by lighting issues.

DVDs - Last night Spouse & I watched the 2nd disc in the 3-disc DVD set of HBO's miniseries "John Adams". It was nominated for a bunch of awards, and we've been enjoying watching it. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in history, like Spouse. I'm enjoying it to, and I'm not particularly interested in history. Add it to your Netflix queue and be surprised how much you enjoy it.

***Update***

Video - I can't believe I forgot to mention the wonderful video that fellow blogger Gallus made for my birthday! He included all my favorite stuff, and really made my birthday special. Check it out here.

Crush du Jour: Steve Zahn