Heading North

I’m heading north for Christmas in the morning.  Yes, this is the latest in December I’ve ever made the trip to my parent’s in Nor Cal, but I have work to do at my new job.  Possibly could have taken off a day earlier, but I’m trying to make a good impression.  I still think I am, but I want to keep it up.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to a long weekend with my family enjoying Christmas together.  It will be a nice few days away relaxing.  I’ll get to see some extended family and some family friends as well.

Now, I just need to actually get off my computer and pack.  Maybe I’d better to that.

Anyway, have a very Merry Christmas.

Word Association for December 22nd

Time for a little pre-Christmas word association.

1. Disappiontment :: Sad
2. Searching :: Finding
3. Counters :: Store
4. Snippet :: Excerpt
5. Carol :: Sing
6. Tiresome :: Familiar
7. Booger :: Nose
8. Freak show :: Strange
9. Summarize :: Shorten
10. Heartache :: Painful

One Week Until Christmas!

Can you believe it’s only one week until Christmas?  Me neither.  Fortunately, I’m further along than I was the last time I posted here.

My decorating has been pretty half-hearted this year, and I don’t see that changing.  Especially with only a week left.  I am sticking with what I have, and that’s final.  On the bright side, it will be much easier to undecorated after Christmas.

However, my Christmas shopping is finished!  Last Saturday, I sat down and figured out what to get and ordered it.  I’m still waiting for one thing to arrive in the mail, but that should show up any day now.  I’m hoping to get a jump on wrapping tonight.  If not, that’s what this weekend is for.

I have done a little wrapping for people in town, including the friends I hung out with last night.  It was great to see them if only for a couple of hours.

Of course, I’ve recorded a couple of Christmas movies on TV – classics of my generation (or maybe a little later) that I’ve never seen.  Time to fix that.  And I still have all the movies and specials I wanted to watch this year to go.  So I’ll be being doing that over the weekend.  Sounds nice and relaxing and fun, doesn’t it?  I’m looking forward to it.

Bugs

I’m way behind on Christmas this year.  I’ve barely started doing my shopping and only about half way through the decorating I was going to do.  And I’d gotten such a great start back in November.

I’ve been easily distracted and haven’t gotten to it like I thought I would during the week at night.  I’m just spending too much time on line these days.

Then, last weekend, I wasn’t feeling well at all.  I caught a cold when I came back from Thanksgiving.  And on Saturday, I was feeling extremely sick unless I was laying on the couch.  Sunday, I was feeling better, until I started doing some decorating.  It was too much too soon, so I took it easy again.  Fortunately, I was fine at work all week.

Well, except for this cough.  I wish I could shake it.

And now I’ll stop whining and talk about some great news on Monday.  I won a table top display piece from my local Hallmark!  And it was one I really wanted to win, too.  It’s a larger version of an ornament I really like from a couple of years back that features a house all decked out in Christmas lights and play to music.  This one is also an MP3 player and works with any song you play through the speakers.  I was thrilled, and I love it.  Not completely sure where to display it, but I truly do love it.

Word Association for December 9th

Yep, I'm doing two word association posts in a row.

1. Fantasy :: Reality
2. Square one :: Starting Over
3. Impostors :: Fake
4. Hydrate :: Water
5. Card :: Trick
6. Respects :: Give my...
7. Big city :: Lots of People
8. Alert :: Danger
9. Scrabble :: Crossword
10. Neighborhood :: Friendly

Word Association for December 4th

Time for this week's word association.

1. Smug :: Proud
2. Swan :: White
3. Ginger :: Ale
4. Doctor :: Sick
5. Handshake :: Friendly
6. Studies :: Student
7. Pond :: Scum
8. Register :: Voter
9. Surgery :: Hospital
10. Compass :: North

Wonderful Thanksgiving

Of course, I went up to see my family for Thanksgiving.

Okay, so maybe with the new job it wasn’t quite as obvious as it might have been, but I did.  I left a couple hours earlier than everyone else, and that was all the extra time I took off work.  And I got paid for the time off, too, since those days are paid holidays.  I’ve got to say, those little things are exciting.

The drive up was fine on Wednesday.  Thursday, we went to my brother and sister-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving.  They had people bring enough stuff that it was more potluck than anything else, and it was all delicious.  I was sorry I got full as quickly as I did.  And we had some delicious desserts, too.  The only bummer was my niece had been sick the day before, but she was definitely feeling better that day, and she was full of energy the rest of the weekend.

Friday night, my niece and nephew stayed over at Mom and Dad’s, so I got plenty of time with them.  It was fun getting to play with them.  My niece is five and a half, and my nephew is one and three quarters.  They are both fun to be around.  Well, most of the time.  They have their moments, but what kids don’t?  They do bounce back quickly, however.  And they were both thrilled to see Uncle Mark, which always makes me so happy.

Sadly, I came home on Sunday.  This is a busy week at work, and I didn’t want to take any time off from it.  Besides, I also want to keep making them happy they hired me, and it’s just been a couple of months since I was officially hired.  Unfortunately, that drive home was the worst part of the entire trip.  It took me two and a half hours longer than normal, and traffic kept keeping worse as I went along.  I’m just glad I reached my exit when I did because it was still looking pretty slow as far as I could see in front of me.

I get to do it all again in a couple weeks for Christmas.  I’m taking a couple of unpaid days off at that point to go, but I’m used to that.  I’ve been doing that for the last two years, and it’s well worth it.  In fact, I can’t wait!