It is early mid- January, not quite mid-January, but definitely no longer early January.  And that means the house is going back on the market soon, and that means I am very stressed out about it right now.  I’m meeting with my sister-in-law this afternoon to pick out a paint color for the hall bathroom, and then I will actually need to paint this weekend.  And clean the house, and take new pictures.  I leave next week for a work trip to Dallas, and when I get back, the house will go on the market.  So that leaves me very little time.

But it’s a holiday weekend!  I will have plenty of time to get it all done.  At least it seems so from here, on Thursday, before the weekend.  The weekend will come and go and whoosh and I won’t have finished anything.  But it’s easy to be optimistic from here.  I will dwell in this fantasy land of optimism, where I wake refreshed and happy on Tuesday morning with: a painted bathroom; all supplies rinsed, dried, and put away; a clean house with clean floors; updated photos for the listing taken and processed; laundry done and folded and put away just in time to be packed up for the trip; errands run; and maybe a warm egg-and-cheese casserole cooking overnight in the Crock-Pot to fill the house with the smell of cooking.

It’s a lovely fantasy.  A lovely, ridiculous fantasy, but it’s honestly where I really need to be on Tuesday morning.

Well, except the egg casserole.  It would be dumb to make that much food before I leave town!  And that’s the one I could totally do, as I got a Vegetarian Slow Cooker cookbook for Christmas, and I bought a giant programmable Crock-Pot to go with it.  My vintage avocado Crock-Pot is really cute, but it’s about half the size of the ones they have these days, plus the programmable feature is pretty great for overnight or workday cooking.  I am a fan of waking up or returning home to a house smelling of cooked food!

In other news, I am working on some New Year’s resolutions.  They aren’t really resolutions about how I should be living, but more about the things I should have done a long time ago.

I should have done all these things a long time ago:

• Changed all the passwords for my financial institutions, collected the various usernames, and keep up with those accounts so I know what’s going on.  Tougher passwords, tougher answers to the security questions, tough tough tough!
• Discontinued paper billing and paper statements.
• Organized my grocery list using an iPhone app.
• Organized my task list between my iPhone and my Outlook.
• Reorganized my contacts list.
• Become a member of KOPN.
• Keep all birthdays in a Google calendar with reminders for those who get cards.  (Everyone should get cards, probably, but I really must remember birthdays of people who always remember my birthday.)
• Fix up the websites that I’ve promised to run.
• Use the camera equipment that I’ve spent a lot of money on, but I’ve barely touched in months.
• Organize the high school class reunion that I should have organized last year.  (I can’t tell you how much guilt I feel about that.)
• Make copies of photos for people who have asked for them.
• Start doing research projects and papers for work, conference proposals, committees.  I always wanted to do this stuff, but it was never a priority before now, so I never did any of it.  But now it’s a priority and I’m motivated but lost.

There’s more, and I’ve already done a lot of this stuff just in the past few weeks.  But it’s all part of the goal this year- doing things I should have already done.  Some of it will be a necessary hassle, some of it will mean less hassle in my life.

I hope for closure on the house this year.  I hope for closure on some work-related stuff related to possible promotions and changes that have been going on for more than a year, but we’ll see how it turns out.

I just hope for the best, honestly!  That I’ll get as much done as I can, both this weekend and this year.

And maybe we’ll get more snow this winter too.

In my job, I regularly plan for future years.  Writing spreadsheets or negotiating fees for three to five years out is normal, so in my head it has been 2012 almost since last July when our fiscal calendar changed over.  I’m already planning for 2013.  The fact that it is just now 2012 is what is surprising to me!

Happy New Year!  We had a lot of warm days last week, and New Year’s Eve had a high in the upper fifties.  That is ridiculously warm for mid-Missouri in January.  I would like to get a little winter this year and I’m hoping for some snow.  It’s not too late!  The weather did turn chilly for the early part of this week, and there’s a chance of snow next week.  I hope it will come.

The New Year Christmas celebration with my family went really well- we had a great time.  Lots of food, lots of board games, and lots of gifts.  I received a lot of lovely presents, many of which were kitchen items.  Jay and I left a little early on Saturday night to join some friends for a concert by the People’s Republic of Klezmerica, one of the Columbia First Night celebration events.  They didn’t end up having any fireworks due to the wind (the cold front was coming in after the unseasonably warm weather), so we went over to Ragtag to see the New Year in with all of the Columbia hipsters.  And then back to more partying with my family on Sunday.  It was nice to have the day on Monday (yesterday) to sleep in, and clean up a little, and recover.

So I survived Christmas with Jay’s family, and he survived Christmas with mine.  We finally exchanged presents on Friday night- he bought me this little hair comb (which I had favorited on Etsy), and I bought him this analog synthesizer after much research and deliberation on my part.  It was a total surprise for him, and he seemed delighted by it.

And now the holidays are ending.  Epiphany is Friday, and I do really want to get a couple of photos of some Christmas lights before then (since that is usually the day when they take down the lights).  We’ll see if I can manage to get my tripod out before the end of the week.  One of my New Year’s resolutions is to take more photos, which also means processing more photos.  I hope I do!

It’s also time to get serious about the house again.  It’s been nice to have the time off since right before Thanksgiving, even though I didn’t spend any of the time on any projects.  Of course not.  The holidays always go so fast.  But there’s no way around it now- I want the house sold, and I gotta get back on the market to sell it.  It will be a slow winter, I hope, and then maybe things will pick up again towards the end of February as we head into spring.  I really hope it’s a good spring for the real estate market, but I will take what I can get.  Anyway, I already contacted the realtor to sign contracts.  I’ll put it on the market and fix what I can during the slow winter months.

In the meantime, winter!  Are you aware of Pinterest?  It’s basically a bookmark tool for pictures, illustrations, and images.  Some people use it to save clothing or design ideas, but I love using it to save pictures that are pretty and evocative.  I’ve been collecting winter images (both Christmas and winter) on this board for the past few months- take a look.  You can see all my boards here.

I have the smell of onions and garlic in my nose this morning because I woke up early to make sweet potato chili for a family party at my house tonight.  I put it in the Crock Pot for the day.  It’s the first time I’ve used a Crock Pot unattended, and it makes me a little nervous.  What if it breaks and burns my house down?  But then I remember that it’s set on low, and low isn’t really hot enough to do much damage, and they’re supposed to be left unattended.  That is their whole point!  So I am not going home at lunch to check on it, even though I want to, because I have a lunch scheduled.  I will just have to worry all day.

I like getting up in the morning and cooking.  Whenever I have to make something for work, I’d much rather get up a little earlier and prep and cook it before I go to work than to stay up late to cook.  I am pretty good about following specific directions first thing in the morning, half-awake, as long as I don’t have to think too much.  I wouldn’t be able to halve a recipe or double a recipe at that hour of the day, but I can follow a recipe where all the ingredients and tools are right in front of me.

So, yeah, party tonight at my house!  Sweet potato chili, crackers & cheese, and bread pudding.  Jay likes whiskey sauce on bread pudding, so I will attempt that too.  My sister is bringing a board game and we will have a nice quiet holiday evening.  It is the Solstice and the second night of Hanukkah, though I am not digging out any additional holiday ornaments.  The menorah got packed away somewhere and I refuse to go looking for it.  My low-key holiday this year will make for more nostalgia when I bring out that stuff next year.  Next year!  Next year in a new house, I hope.  Anyway, I’m looking forward to having family over since I will miss them this weekend.

Today is the last day of my week and then FIVE days off in a row.  Five!  Then three days of work and another four-day weekend with a four-day workweek after it.  The second week of January will be tough!  It will be hard to get back to the grind after all the holiday partying!

Tomorrow is really my only true vacation day over this weekend.  I have some shopping to do tomorrow, some packing and cleaning and preparing for the holidays, and then I leave with Jay to go to his hometown of Tulsa from Friday through Monday.  His parents and grandparents will be there, but not his siblings.  I am not sure if the cousins will make it or not.  Anyway, I have met them all before.  It will be nice to see them again, of course, and to see how Jay grew up celebrating his holidays, and also to see Tulsa.  I am looking forward to getting a tour of his teenage hangouts.

I guess I don’t have that much preparing to do.  I finished all my cards and sent them out.  I finished all my shopping and it’s wrapped and under the tree.  My parents will take the presents for the extended family, so I won’t get to see them open any of it.  I’m sad about that, of course.  I love to see people unwrap things.  But that’s how it goes when we can’t all get together.

I’ve missed extended family holidays in the past.  In fact, we’re moving towards the point with one side of the family where there really isn’t a specific time when the extended family gets together.  Thanksgiving and Fourth of July are bigger family gatherings than Christmas is, even though everyone ends up in the same fifty-square-mile radius over the same five days.  The other side of the family usually does put something together, and I really can’t remember when I last missed it.  I think I have thought about missing it before, but ended up going after all.  Anyway, I hope they survive without my spinach tofu lasagna!  It’s been a tradition with that family for Christmas since 2005, I think.  It’s certainly my tradition!

But this will definitely be the first year that I’m not going to be with my parents on Christmas Day.  That has never happened, even when I lived out East.  I was home for Christmas Day every year, even the last few years when we moved our celebration to New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day.  (Is this really the fourth year for that tradition?  Wow!)  So I won’t miss any actual celebrations with them, but I will miss them, of course.

We’re supposed to be back in town by Monday night in time for the radio show, barring any weather complications or unforeseen occurrences.  Gah, hope for none of that!

Happy all the holidays, all of them!  Don’t forget Festivus on Friday, either.

The Christmas tree is up at home!  As I posted on Facebook, it was a real pain in the ass, of course.  On a high shelf out in the cold garage, where the lights are currently both burned out because I am far too lazy to replace them.  It took all of three minutes and maybe 38 seconds, though I haven’t yet put the box back in the garage.  It’s cold out there!

But against all odds, I put up the tree this weekend.

And I bathed the dog.  It was a weekend to remember.

Yeah, it was a weekend of stuff I should have already done, really.  The house is mostly a mess.  I had all sorts of plans to get stuff done while it was off the market, and here it is mid-December and I just lived my only empty weekend between Thanksgiving and New Year’s and I did not open one paint can.

I did put up the tree, though.  And I bathed the dog.

And finished the Christmas cards, and did laundry.  It wasn’t that unproductive.  It just was not very productive.

I don’t know what I would do if my holidays were filled with sunshine and long days.  I guess it would make a big difference in terms of how I would feel about it all.

Boom!  We got some winter this week.  The announcer on KBIA, the NPR station that I wake up to every weekday morning, even apologized yesterday for the lack of warning about the surprise snow on Tuesday morning.  It wasn’t much of a snowfall, just an inch or two, but enough to cover a thin slick layer of ice.  Everyone had a tale of bad traffic on the way to work on Tuesday, accidents that caused backups for miles.  I have the luxury of waiting to come in if I need to, so I gave myself an extra hour at home.  There was some traffic, but people were moving slowly and carefully, and I got to work without any headaches.  Lucky me!

As far as the holidays are concerned, I am slowly recognizing the existence of the fact that they are coming.  I am so much further behind than usual, though I have made some major headway in the past week or so.  I started working on holiday cards and I’ve finished a lot of shopping.  Today I finally figured out what to give Jay, and now I’m totally excited for it to arrive and to give it to him and see what he thinks.  Otherwise, it’s not been a very creative holiday season- I’m buying a lot of things off lists rather than coming up with my own ideas.  And I’m trying to buy a lot less than usual.  So I’m almost done just after starting, and I have to say that I like this a lot.

I haven’t done any decorating at home, though all the lights are staying up at Jay’s house and a bunch of my tackiest decorations made their way to my office because this new office decorates for the holidays.  I think there’s even a competition or something.  But I did my part with tinsel garland!

St. Nicholas Day was earlier this week, and I can finally tell you about my one big creative holiday project this year!  I made fruitcake for my mom, who loves fruitcake.  I wanted to make it last year, but then I didn’t start it early enough.  So the plan was made for this year, and I started gathering supplies in early October.  I was stymied by the need for some things that weren’t available until after Halloween (the first time in my life I’ve been anxious for Christmas stuff to appear in the first week of November!), but I finally was able to get the cakes together during the first weekend of November and they’ve been aging ever since.  I intended for it to be a St. Nicholas present, so it was exciting to finally bring it to her last Sunday when I went to put up their tree.  (A St. Nicholas tradition.)  And I got to try a bit, and it was pretty good.  Success!  Now that I have the supplies and I’ve done it before, I will do it again next year too!

So it hasn’t been a very creative holiday season, but it’s still early-ish, right?  I could still get into it.  I could still put up the little tree.  I could.  I might.  Maybe tonight!

And then I went to Jay’s house and spent a few hours hanging up lights at his house for the party tonight.  It took me about three hours, which was two hours longer than I thought it would take.  But you know how it goes- you spend half the time unraveling the lights (which is like unraveling a pile of grappling hooks and Velcro) and then the other half the time figuring out how to get the extension cords to work with the number of outlets you have available.  It’s all strategy!

So, by the time I was done with light-hanging, it was dark.  I had a couple of other plans that got scrapped, namely a bath for the dog (way overdue!).  But I went home and got cleaned up so that Jay and I could go out for dinner.  We went to 44 Stone, a new restaurant that serves British pub food but in a nice atmosphere.  The food is really good there, and they have amazing desserts.  In all, it was a wonderful day.

I’m taking off work tomorrow, as I have done for my birthday every year since I’ve been in Missouri.  (I think.)  I don’t know what I am going to do, but it might involve a hike with the dog and then putting up twinkly lights at Jay’s house for the party on Friday.  I told him I was going to do that, so it won’t be a surprise except that I will do it without him.  But no more decorations than twinkly lights.

It was a good Thanksgiving and long weekend.  I took Wednesday off work, and got Friday off work anyway, so it was five whole days of vacation in a row.  It was tough to get up and return to work yesterday after all that time off, especially because the weather turned brisk and cold.  But last week was very pleasant weather for our trip up to northern Iowa.  We had a cloudy but warm day on Thanksgiving itself, with a high in the upper 50s at least.  That was great because Jay’s grandparents’ house was small and too warm with the ovens on high and the place full of people.  It was one of those little 1950s houses with a full basement rec room.  They were all champion ping-pong players, of course.  And then they basically passed a guitar around the living room with nearly everyone able to take a turn playing it.  I loved that.  But when it was too much, the weather was nice so I could escape to the backyard and cool off a bit.  And the food was good!  I was concerned about being the only vegetarian, but they were very nice about it.  Maybe another time I could bring something for myself.  I think they would have been nice about it!

The trip was fast.  We saw The Muppets on Thanksgiving night and were back on the road south to Missouri before Friday noon.  I liked the drive, mostly on Highway 63 north.  Two-lane highways are perfect for being nosy about other people’s property.  There’s even some Amish communities along that highway, which has wide dirt shoulders for the buggies.

On Saturday, I helped Jay clean his house for the party on Friday.  He has been talking about having a party for months and months, and finally I suggested we have one for my birthday.  He is excited to be having it, and I am excited to have it there.  He has a great house for a party with a couple of gathering spaces and a fire pit in the backyard.  I am looking forward to stringing up twinkly lights around that fire pit tomorrow.  It will look cool.

Then Sunday was my annual birthday lunch at Flat Branch.  I just like Flat Branch more than any other restaurant, and on my birthday, there is an excuse to have dessert.  So why choose anyplace else?  This was at least the third or fourth year in a row for it, though.  We were all going to see Hugo afterwards but it was only playing in one theater and the times were inconvenient.  So the family scattered and I saw it with Jay later on.  I thought it was great.  I would recommend not seeing it in 3D though… I didn’t like the 3D, especially in the action sequences.  But I would say that both The Muppets and Hugo were worth it.

And then this weekend.  Did I tell you about the party?  Yes, I did.  There is also Santacon, which is a big bar crawl where everyone dresses as Santa or something Christmas-related.  Just a hat won’t cut it in the costume department; you have to go all out.  I have a smattering of pieces that I am putting together.  I am not sure if I am going to buy anything new, but I will have to try on my smattering and see if it works as it is.  We will see!  And then, on Sunday, my friends are doing a Moveable Christmas Tree Decorating Party, and I will see how many Christmas trees I can help decorate without feeling a need to pull out my own.  I have a feeling the fiber optic one will make an appearance this year, if not the aluminum one?  The aluminum one is pretty fragile, but I do love that color wheel.

Yes, it’s brisk and cold out there.  I pulled out my short boots for today, short boots that I bought specifically to wade through snow on the way to work.  But I just wanted some warm shoes today, and my big down coat, and a wool scarf, and it’s not even really that cold today.  In February, if it’s this warm, I will wear a dress to celebrate!  But right now it feels cold out there.  Possible snow this week or next week!  It’s definitely turning winter on us.  And hooray for that, except I need to start bundling up more.  Gotta be warm to celebrate the cold, in my opinion.

Well, have a happy last day of November/my birthday!  Treat yourself to something on my behalf.  I will appreciate it.

I am trying to get myself into the mode of getting Christmas things done, because I have done little to nothing in preparation of presents and cards and all of it, and there are things to do.  I think I have the idea of the cards sorted this year.  Instead of making new ones, I have a stack of unused ones from previous years (going back to 2000) and I am going to use them up and send them out.  It feels right, actually.  I have been in a transitional state all year due to the house cleanout last spring and having the house on the market, and it seems right to use up the old cards this year.  Use them up and move on to new things next year with a clean slate behind me.  It feels very symbolic.  And, yes, it’s convenient, but actually it required vast amounts of time spent in reorganization last spring to have assembled the collection of unused cards all in one place.  So it really wasn’t easy.  I think I will put a sticker on the cards to say that I am using the old ones due to my current spirit/state of transition.  I doubt anyone would actually remember that I’d sent that card before, but I do remember.  And I love all the cards I’ve sent over the past few years, and I’m happy to revisit them.

I am not sure how motivated I am to spend time decorating my house for the holidays.  I am definitely not stringing lights into the trees this year.  I might put up one of the trees, maybe.  Time spent on my house in the next few weeks is better spent painting or fixing than in decorating.  But Jay is having a party at his house next weekend, and I might take some of my stuff over to his place to decorate there.  Outside lights, for sure.  Gotta light the house up- it’s kinda hard to find.

Jay and I head up to northern Iowa tomorrow for Thanksgiving in the small town where his parents grew up together.  He is from Oklahoma, but they are from Iowa.  I am really looking forward to it.  I always love traveling, but traveling for holidays is particularly great.  And I am imagining that this is a pretty perfect location for Thanksgiving, though we will see if my imagination meets up with reality.  We’ll be back on Friday, so it’s not a very long trip.  But I get to travel for Christmas too.  I like filling my holidays with hours and hours in the car.  Seriously, I do!

After that, we’ll still have the whole weekend.  And then it will be the last few days of November, notable because my birthday is in there.  And then, my friends, it will be December, and I will be officially behind on Christmas.  Officially.  Yuck.

Today was the office Thanksgiving lunch, and I’ve become involved with the organization that puts those events together.  When I asked if a vegetarian main dish would be provided, that somehow translated into me making the vegetarian main dish for the event.  So I was up this morning at 5 am, putting two Tofurkys in the oven.  I went back to bed while they were roasting, but didn’t sleep much after that.  They turned out great, and they were gobbled up by the vegetarians in attendance.

I think that was probably the only Tofurky I’ll make this year!  I usually do a vegetarian Thanksgiving, but can’t imagine I will put that together for just myself.  Jay is not vegetarian, and we are going to a non-vegetarian family Thanksgiving (to which I am not supposed to bring anything).  But I’m glad I did get to make some.  It’s probably one of my favorite foods, and it’s pretty nice to only eat it once a year or so.  It makes it special and celebratory.

But, oh!  5 am wake up calls are not my bag.  I am tired today.

Somehow it is the weekend before Thanksgiving!  Students will be leaving town tomorrow for break, and I love a quiet Columbia.

I have a few things going on tomorrow night, but the rest of the weekend schedule is empty.  Even emptier because I don’t have to worry about house showings!  The house is officially off the market on Saturday because the agreement with the realtor expires.  Since it coincides with the holidays, I am giving myself a break so I don’t have to worry about everything at once.  I’ve got a few projects I’d like to do, and I hope I’ll get around to doing them.  Either way, I will sign the new contracts in early January, and hope to sell the house in 2012.

My mom came over last Saturday, and we both put in a few hours’ work on my yard, cleaning it up for the winter.  It looks much better, all mowed short.  I pulled most of the dead stuff out of the flowerbeds.  All the leaves got mulched in the mower because I don’t really have a lot of mature trees.  So that is nice.  And the house retains some semblance of cleanliness.  We’ll see how long that lasts after the threat of last minute showings is gone for a week or two!

I haven’t dug out my winter clothes yet, so that should be on the list for this weekend.  It is turning chilly!  But that also comes with week-before-Thanksgiving territory.

Halloween weekend!  And it looks to be a busy one, too.  My costume is together, but I need to conjure up some Halloween party snacks and some food for a BBQ on Sunday afternoon, and I’m drawing a blank so far on anything creative.  I guess I don’t need to be creative, but I’m invited to a Party Prep Party tonight, with the assumption that I have creative things to work on, and I don’t, so there’s that.  I can just help out, though, and be a sport.

The weather turned chilly this week and fall is here.  Tuesday was warm and sunny, and then Wednesday was cool and dark and rainy.  It was a bad combination- I did not want to get out of bed, and I spent the day running behind and feeling crazy.

It was compounded by the fact that Jay* and I had tickets to a concert in St. Louis on Wednesday night, so we had to book it out of this town right after work and only skidded into St. Louis as the concert was getting underway, with a bite at Taco Bell in between.  I had rough time getting out of town between the traffic and my own ability to lose focus in my attempts to get an overnight bag together and get out of the house.  But we did do it.  We did it.  And the Adrian Belew concert was great, just great.  I only recognized one of the songs, and most of them were instrumental.  I have learned a lot in the past year, though, about music and music appreciation, and I think I liked the concert a hell of a lot more than I might have if I’d been to it last spring.  I was especially psyched to see a 25-year-old woman playing bass guitar and just absolutely blowing the minds of all the old men in attendance.  (About 78% of the crowd was men over the age of 40, and Jay said that it was even rarer to see a woman musician in a prog rock outfit, not to mention kicking some fucking ass at it.)  On the way home, I looked her up and was delighted to find out that she was part of the Rock School documentary back in the day… well, six years ago.  Awesome!  Julie Slick, you are fantastic; I love your hair and I’m reading your blog.

I am hoping to break out my camera a little this weekend, after several weeks of not taking or processing any photos.  It’s just not integrated into my life these days, unless you count the little vintage photos that I take with my iPhone.  I don’t really count those, even though a picture counts for more than no pictures, but it feels like a cheat to me unless I’ve put some work into it.

At the same time, though, I kind of hate taking pictures these days.  I mean, I love taking pictures, but I hate being the one with the camera at events, family or otherwise.  It just doesn’t feel good anymore.  I used to think people liked what I did, but mostly I get the sense these days that I’m harassing people when I produce the camera and take pictures.  Some people don’t like it when I post pictures online, but they don’t actually say anything about it to me, so I get passive-aggressive comments that are hard to interpret until someone snaps at me about it, which makes me never ever want to take another photo of them ever, or even be seen in their presence with a camera in my hand.  Or they criticize the fact that I only take photos of kids (because kids don’t just sit/stand there like slugs), but when I go out of my way to take pictures of adults, I don’t ever hear any good feedback about the photos.  I just hear negative comments, and it weighs on me these days.

Negatives.  Ha ha.

So generally all I want to do is take pictures of nature or whatever, but I don’t have the time to do that with the same kind of frequency as in the past.  I hope I do pick up this part of it again- it does make me happy to get good photos, and I like the peace and quiet of going out for a walk with my camera.

I haven’t inundated my friends with picture-taking as much as I have with my family.  If I pulled out my camera and went nuts with it around my friends, they’d be mostly surprised, and happy to see the photos, probably.  But there’s still residual stress about it for me, and so even if I manage to remember my camera to events, I usually either leave it in the car or don’t work up the nerve to pull it out of its bag.  At the same time, I’m enjoying myself instead of spending all my time behind the viewfinder.

I am particularly interested in getting some photos of Jay this weekend as he is taking to the stage to play bass guitar in a reunion show with his now-defunct band on Sunday night.  I haven’t done a lot of concert photography, but I am hoping that I will have the chance to take a few shots on Sunday night, while I’m rocking my socks off.  So that should be the very least of camera-using this weekend, and maybe there will be more.  Maybe!

The one upside to the whole not-doing-Halloween-at-my-place thing this year is that I have only bought a small amount of candy.   Just fun size Butterfinger Crisps, specifically, because the full size Butterfinger Crisps are really hard to find these days!  If they are discontinued, it will be the worst thing that ever happened to anyone ever.  Specifically, to me.  And I finished those a few weeks ago and still have managed to avoid buying bags of Kit Kats in the meantime.  Which is good news!  Next week will be time for Christmas candy already, and it’s one thing to be able to avoid bags full of candy bars that are easily purchased in single serving amounts (Kit Kats and Snickers are my weaknesses), but it’s another to only find large bags available of Cadbury, whole chocolate oranges, and boxes of Almond Crescents.  At least with single servings available, I limit the craving.  Whole boxes of Almond Crescents just disappear in an afternoon.

Christmas.  I am somehow ready this year, but only because I have been looking for some things that I need to buy that are only available locally with the seasonal Christmas items.  I have even already put all my Christmas music on my iPod.  And I started Christmas shopping this week.  I still haven’t ordered cards, though.  Yeah, I know.  I don’t want to hear it.  It’s fine if you’re not there yet, but I am somehow already ready already.

*Getting tired of calling him “my boyfriend” in every post, so he is getting a nickname.  It is not his real name.