Neato 2.0, early Xmas

So my early Christmas gift to myself showed up yesterday along with several other boxes.  The big box contained a Neato Bot Vac 65.  Anyone that knows me knows that I have been a loooong time robotic vacuum enthusiast.  I got my first Roomba at least a dozen years ago.

A few years ago I got my first Neato, a robo-vac that uses more intelligence than a Roomba to clean a room, utilizing a scanning laser that identifies obstacles and maps a room.  The Neato also had far greater suction power than my Roombas, required far less maintenance and was just better tech.  Really the only negative I have had with them is the batteries can be a bit touchy but that is the case with Roombas as well.

The BotVac65 adds more features including a more modern design, better lcd screen, a larger dust bin, a rotating side edge brush and a quieter motor.  After letting it charge for a couple hours I set it loose on the house.  The less noisy vacuuming was something Cindy immediately noticed and liked. The Bot seemed to move a little faster than my older Signature XV bot while still doing a fine job of covering the floor space in an efficient and complete manner as opposed to the random bouncing a Roomba does.  So far I am quite pleased with my Neato upgrade.

One of the other boxes was from my brother Patrick.  It was a STAGGERING collection of candy and other quirky things from his recent travels to Japan and South Korea.  He knows how interesting I find far east food items.  The most intriguing item I saw in the box was green Kit Kats, yes GREEN.

We also got a box of homemade Xmas cookies from my step mom.  They were awesome as well.  It’s been a few years since I got to sample them.

Cindy was running around like mad trying to prepare food for the arrival of her mom, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend.  We were doing an early Christmas celebration.  We had all the decorations glowing and the Christmas music playing, the house seemed appropriately festive.

I rented a Christmas Story for us to sort of watch while eating dinner.  There were a lot of side convo’s going on that made the movie a distraction at best.  When Cindy and Katie get together it is normal for lots of sillyness to go down and last night was no different.  There were lots of laughs and smiles to go around.  I know that there is no better gift for Cindy than spending happy time with her daughter, something she just doesn’t get to do all that often anymore.

The celebration didn’t wrap up until close to 10.  To be honest the time passed quickly because we were all having fun.  Katie said she may try to stop by again later on Christmas day if she can, something I know Cindy would love.

So normally our office is closed on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  However because of Xmas falling on Thursday this year they decided to give us the day after Christmas off instead which is awesome.  I would always rather have it this way.  Having the day after Xmas off is great, it let’s me play with my “toys”.  Add in that I took off next Monday and Tuesday and I now have an EPIC 6 days off in a row.

So although in many ways this has been one of my more upbeat Christmas’s in decades, thanks to Cindy’s positive influence on my life, there is obviously is a large hole this year with my mom passing away.  As has been the case for most of the time since mom died, I have tried to not let myself get spun into a sorrow cycle about mom not being part of my Christmas for the first time in my life.  My Florida Xmas mornings have always included mom waking up with us and participating in the festivities. Waking up tomorrow with that bedroom unoccupied will be sad for sure.

I’ll continue to try to focus that mom got to leave this planet in a way she always wanted, without the prolonged suffering, mental deterioration and pain that accompanies far too many elderly people into their later years.  Even though she is gone, her love for us lives on.

Merry Christmas to my friends, family and other regular blog readers.  I appreciate you taking the time to digest my thoughts throughout the year, as silly as they may be at times.  I hope you have a great holiday.