Well, it's probably not really a special Christmas edition, although we do include Rita's annual Christmas letter in this issue, and even went so far as to use glaring Christmas colors for those on the internet. But I had to put some kind of headline up there to preserve the space and font for future use. And I also wanted to keep the two-column table format so I wouldn't have to redo that, even though I had absolutely nothing to put on this side, which is why you are reading this and wondering what in the world I am talking about -- sorry, but this side is all useless filler! Don't bother with it, just move over to Rita's letter and get on with it. We are pleased to note that this marks our first year of monthly newsletters. When I started, I was sure I would not be able to keep it going, and I admit that by the end of the year we suffered from a lack of news and not enough time, eventually resorting to outdated carnival tricks like this paragraph of nonsense just to take up space. But my overtime work is now done, so I will try to continue the monthly format for at least another year. Still not sure what to do about the lack of readers.

The best news, which you may have noticed, is that I got the webspace provider to move us to a new server. We were getting terrible service for many months, with very slow page loads, and often "service not available" errors. I finally got them to move my site to a different server, and so far everything seems to be running smoothly. Now if you are among those getting the paper copies, you probably won't notice any difference.

The Cirque du Soliel came to town, so Rita and I went to see it. It turns out there are a half-dozen different versions of C du Sol, we saw something called Saltimbanco. Very expensive tickets, and there were some clowns, but we thought it was well worth it.
A lot of it was like tribal mating dances from distant planets, but mostly it was like the dreams of a kid who stayed up too late reading Dr Seuss and eating fluorescent finger-paints. Rita, who is never at a loss for words, says it is best described as Undescribably Different. She is highly impressed by the colorful skin-tight leotards and wants one for herself. I also thought the costumes were really skin-tight.
Right at the start of the show and again after intermission it became a bit stressful for us as they went wandering up into the seating area to mess with people -- oh boy, here comes audience participation. I did not want to be there at that point, and tried to project into their minds that our seats were actually empty -- 'these are not the ones you want'. I guess it worked, or maybe they were warned off by the scowling of Rita, who is not to be trifled with, and had to be sat on to keep her from attacking the clowns.

Not sure if we are actually making any progress on the house. I seem to be permanently stuck finishing up the tiny little details of the family room and kitchen. This must be what it's like to be a ghost, always stuck in the same place, doing the same thing over and over. I had to redo Rita's family room shelf, the one she bought iron brackets for, which I already did once [as seen in Vol III Issue 11!] but it didn't fit. This month I got a wider board, cut, routed, plate groove, sanded, stained, but the stain came out too light (in some people's opinion); managed with great difficulty to overstain it a little darker (still not perfect) and got it put up. The piece from the first try should of course be left out on the curb if it was up to me. But Rita, who knows no bounds, decided we can still use that one on the other side of the room. But I have no brackets for it, have to look around for something. Also got the kitchen over-the-door shelf done, cut, routed, plate groove, sanded, stained, but the stain came out too light (in some people's opinion), etc, etc, still have to get brackets for that one also.
I started painting the stencil designs on the old pantry doors, didn't get that done because it takes several coats and Rita, who never takes 'no' for an answer, decided I should do the next big shelf first.
You know we got that new couch set for the family room [as seen in Vol III Issue 10!], which has a curved section in the corner. Now Rita, who is beholden to no one, wants a table to go in back of the curved section, and since there is no such thing, I have to make one. I don't know how to make a table, and don't really want a bunch of table legs back there in case we have

to crawl through to plug in a lamp in the corner, so I made a shelf instead. I got the big curve cut out with the help of Rita, who is not what she appears to be, so it fits in the corner and wraps around the couch. She wanted to use it right away for her Christmas decorations, so I didn't finish it yet, but it is put up and works ok.
We got a few other little things put up -- pictures, mirror, coat rack, towel bars -- but still lots more little things to do.

Working outside is better, because even if you don't do everything you planned, eventually it gets too cold to work and therefore it is done for the year. We got the leaves raked, and the last mowing of the year out front. Not sure what's going on in the back, I guess maybe the last mowing of the year will wait till the first mowing next year. Rita, who has no regrets, got all the flower gardens cut down and cleaned up, and I cleaned out the garage a little. Bushes are trimmed, and we got all the outside Christmas lights up -- waited a little too long on that, we missed the nice warm weekend and had to do it in the cold and rain. I also finished taking apart the satellite dish and patched up the garage roof. Oh, and three more cats were caught this month, that will probably be all for the year. One of them was obviously a lost pet, and there was a matching lost notice on their bulletin board, so we believe it was returned to the owner, but the others were wild.

We returned all the receivers and antenna to the satellite TV company, so we are now back to where we were three or four years ago -- cable TV, and AT&T for phone and internet. Here is our TV schedule at this time: just finished Dancing With the Stars, and midway through Survivor and Amazing Race. Our new shows we are watching this fall are Samantha Who, and Pushing Daisies. Friday is still sci-fi night, although it's getting sparse -- Flash Gordon and Stargate Atlantis. And Rita, who never looks back, still has her Most Haunted and Ghost Hunters.
We had Thanksgiving dinner here. All the kids had off work, and Alan brought his friend Amy. We bought a medium-small turkey and they pretty much demolished it, so only a couple of leftovers meals. After Thanksgiving (actually before that, in some of the rooms), Rita, who never puts off till tomorrow what she can do today, started decorating for Christmas. She has all the walls, shelves, countertops, tabletops, furniture, and door handles decorated, as well as many small, medium and large size trees. I put up the two big trees and put the lights on, then she decorates them. I just started on the cookies, which is my other Christmas job.