Everyone says I'm looking great, but it's hard to stand up, let alone to try and concentrate...

Today's title and pic are brought you by the letters B, N, and L.  

Which reminds me, we haven't been to any concerts lately.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog entry here, we secured tickets (and in some cases, airfare and hotel reservations) for three separate and much-anticipated concerts back in 2019.  Then 2020 happened, as you're likely well aware, and all three shows (actually it's four shows, but three different artists.  We have tickets for two shows by the same artist.  And the one concert is actually slated to have three bands, or was it four?  I'm not into mathing today.) were postponed until 2021.  

The point I'm trying to make is, we didn't go to any concerts in 2020.  

And in 2021, I think we just went to one concert. We saw Casting Crowns in concert at the MN State Fairgrounds -- and again, because sometimes technicalities are my thing, more specifically it was in the Midway parking lot.  It was a drive-in concert, because indoor venues hadn't opened back up yet.  It wasn't quite the same, because we were sitting in the car listening to the concert being broadcast on the radio (it was cold that night, so we didn't stand outside like a lot of people were) but it still counts as going to a concert.

For 2022, we will hopefully be able to finally use those tickets we bought back in 2019!  At least a few of them.  One of the tours was cancelled altogether and the tickets were refunded.  But now we have tickets to a concert that never happened!  That'll be worth something someday, right?!  😆  I've been to enough rock n' roll museums to know that unused tickets to concerts that were cancelled are worth their weight in gold. Um.  If they're rare, and by well-known artists, and all that.  I'm pretty sure no one else has tickets from concerts that were cancelled in 2020, so I'm golden.  Alright, so I won't quit my day job.  Yet. 

I remain hopeful for the two remaining tours that were rescheduled for 2021 then cancelled again and are now rescheduled for 2022.  Three shows, two tours, four (or was it five?) different bands total.  

I wish I would've saved all the tour books I bought at the first few concerts I went to, though.  I don't even know when they stopped doing tour books; it feels like I'm dating myself by even mentioning tour books.  Of course, this was way back when you couldn't take pictures at concerts without being all ninja-like and sneaking a camera in, and then afterward waiting for a week or whatever it was to get your film developed to see how (or if!) the photos turned out.  How did we survive back before digital photography?!  So much waiting.  Because one-hour photo developing was way out of my budget back then, I tell you what.  Not that I ever snuck a camera into any concerts, because I had a huge Fear of Getting Caught.  (Actually, it's more of a Fear of Disappointing People in Authority. Maybe I'll save that for a future blog topic.)  That's why I loved the tour books so much.  I loved photography as well; that's probably another reason why I didn't try to sneak my camera into concerts, because I didn't want to risk having my precious camera taken away.  They didn't exactly grow on trees, you know.  One more thing about film photography: I was always annoyed that the people developing the film would get to see how my pics turned out before I did.  That was so not fair!  Photography is an art, and what other artists have to let other people see their finished product before anyone else?!  Hmph.  So as you probably already know if you know me at all (or have perused my FB), I still enjoy photography.  The fact that I have a camera on my person at all times (that also happens to function as an internet-accessing device and, oh yeah, a phone) amuses me muchly.  And every now and then I take some halfway decent pics, too. 

I'll have to finish this later, after work.  Toodles!

(Nineteen hours later...)

...speaking of photography, I actually got out of bed at oh-stupid-o'clock this morning (translation: 4am) just to take a couple of pictures.  After which, I went right back to bed.  

I spent a good part of the night wondering why the backyard floodlight was on last night.  Our new house has some strange electrical quirks.  Not "strange" as in we should be worried that the house is going to short circuit and burn down (I hope!) but "strange" as in, this place has more light switches and electrical outlets than other house we've inhabited.  It probably has as many light switches as all our previous homes put together, and I'm only slightly exaggerating.  I think we have most of them figured out by now (closing in on week 3!) but the logic behind them is still a bit perplexing at times.

For instance, in our living room we have a switch that activates only the top input (probably not the right terminology, but dammit, I'm a nurse! Not an electrician!) on each of the outlets in that room.  Now, I'm familiar with the concept of having an outlet or two wired to the toggle switch, especially in rooms without ceiling lights, so that you can have a lamp plugged into that outlet and turn it on and off with the wall switch.  But I'd never heard of wiring only the top plug-in thingies of each outlet.  The first time I tried to vacuum the living room, I was disheartened thinking none of the outlets worked because I was only trying the top input thingie.  My hubby mentioned this to an electrician he works with and was informed that this was a popular trend in the early 2000's.  Who knew?!  

Another example is the three light switches that are next to the patio door in the dining room upstairs.  One switch turns on the chandelier above the dining room table -- that makes sense.  The next switch turns on the light outside, which probably has a specific name other than "decorative light next to the door".  That also makes sense.  The third switch turns on an outdoor flood light that's down on the lower level, and lights up the yard closest to the house.  Ummm...okay, but why wouldn't they have put that switch on the lower level instead?  It's a walkout basement on that side, and the basement is completely finished.  There's a switch down by the basement patio door that turns on the decorative light just outside that door.  I don't know, to each their own I guess.  

This is relevant, I promise. Because while I was trying to fall asleep, there was a bright light on our windows that was distracting me.  I figured I had accidentally turned that light switch on when I was turning the dining room lights off, or something.  (Actually it was more like "or something".  After the storm the night before last, our TV antenna wasn't working; and neither was the outside outlet on the top deck. This I know because I have a string of twinkling lights plugged in there and wrapped around part of the deck railing, and those lights weren't twinkling yesterday morning! It didn't seem like the two should be related, but it was an odd coincidence that those were the only two things not working after the storm and power outage.  Long story short, they were related. The antenna booster and the outside top deck outlet are both on the same GFCI outlet.) (And I totally did not just Google that to make sure I was using the term correctly.)  

So when I woke up at about 1am to empty my bladder, I peeked out the bedroom window.  The flood light wasn't on; the moon was just that bright.  See?

But that's not the shot I pulled my tired self out of bed to take, a few hours after I made that discovery.  No, I took this one while lying in bed.  

The one I actually got out of bed and made a half-awake effort to take looks more like this:

And it made me think of that line from "Twas the Night Before Christmas" that goes, "The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, gave a luster of midday to objects below."

Of course, it's NOT the night before Christmas, but that's not in the specific line I have stuck in my head now, so it works.  

And, I totally didn't Google the words to make sure I had them right, either, which is good because I thought the moon was on the crest of the new-fallen snow, not the breast.  Wouldn't I have looked silly with that mistake!?

Then, after I took the above pics (and one more very similar to the second one, but in landscape orientation) I tried to go back to sleep but for some reason my brain decided we should try to remember as much of that poem as we could.  (Which, after looking at the poem in it's entirety this morning via Google, we didn't accomplish very well.)  Which then lead to me wondering why I would think I knew that poem well enough to recite it by heart, anyway?  We certainly didn't have the Christmas tradition I've only read about in fictional stories (and/or maybe the Little House books) where the family sits around the fireplace on Christmas Eve while the patriarch reads the poem to the eager listeners before sending them off to bed.  (Do people actually do that in real life?)  No, I remember reading it for myself when I was little.  Over and over and over and over, because I was young enough that things like "the moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow gave a luster of midday to objects below" sounded nice and poetic and beautiful, but I had no idea what they actually meant.  I mean, I knew what each word individually meant, and I got the general idea in context, but I didn't understand the image those words were painting until about 1am this morning. 

And on that note, it's about time for work to start.  Yes, I'm blogging before work today, because I didn't want to leave this entry unfinished. I hate it when that happens.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!