Month: December 2010
Happy Winter Solstice!
Hope everyone enjoyed the shortest day of the year! Some of you might even have been lucky enough to have seen the lunar eclipse last night. I didn’t, but I saw several photos and it looked like a good ‘un. (For you Southern Hemisphere folks, I hope you enjoyed your Summer Solstice and your longest day of the year!)
Today was our last day of school for 2010. And we had an early dismissal. Yay! I actually got almost half of the catapult reports graded before I left today, which is an accomplishment. And I’m now done with the wood burning & shellacking of the various frames I’m making for gifts for family. There’s one hold-up yet with the crafts, which I hope to work on some during downtimes with the fambly the next couple of days.
Speaking of fambly – tomorrow is Baking Day for me & mom. Then tomorrow night, the girls arrive – Amy & Rachel should be flying in around 10pm. Yay! Will be great to see ’em again!
Will likely be busy with family stuff, though I hope to post a bit before The Big Day. But if not, I’ll just say to you all – Happy Holidays! Hope you are getting some quality time either with family or friends or even just with yourself.
Here’s the state of things…
… to her life she clings. Matrimonial devotion doesn’t seem to suit her notion, burial it brings, here’s the state… Oh wait, that’s the lyrics from a Mikado song. (Unfortunately the song is now stuck in my head. Here’s a how-dee-do!)
Anyhoo, I’ve actually had some productivity of late. Probably not enough (catapult reports still languishing in my bag, being brought to & from work daily), but more than had been. I even got one of my crafts done (though it’s actually a belated birthday present, not a Christmas present). That, in particular, was due to our day off of school yesterday.
Oh, you say, a day off of school? How was that accomplished? Well, see, winter’s going pretty strong here, even though it doesn’t start until next Tuesday. We got a fair bit (OK, under 4 inches) of snow between Sunday and Monday morning and with the blowing snow & lack of snow fences (why on earth don’t they put those up anymore around here?!?!) the road conditions yesterday morning were horrible. Despite only getting 3 calamity days for the year, our superintendent had to call off school yesterday. (Only 2 schools in Miami county were open, and they weren’t hit as bad, apparently.)
So yesterday I was able to continue with Sunday’s productivity. And then head over to Troy to celebrate mom’s birthday with her and dad. She’d already received her birthday gift from dad about 2 weeks early (a new wifi Kindle) and so I complemented it with a nice cover/light. And it’s red, which really impressed mom. (She’d only seen the black ones online.) Then we went out to Outback for steak and lobster and drinks. I tried their strawberry peach sangria which was pretty tasty. Yummy dinner and great company.
I’ve even tried being somewhat productive today. I’m hanging up pictures using lovely Command picture strips and needed to clean my walls first. Break out the Bissell Steam Shot and clean dem walls! Woot! (Well, actually, newegg.com.) And then for grins I tried out the squeegee attachment and cleaned the kitchen window. And then tried unwrinkling some curtains.
Anyhoo, the house is somewhat straightened out and sort of clean and definitely decorated for the holidays. New blinds are installed throughout the house and I’m trying a new curtain in the library to see if I like it. (So far, eh.) I still have many crafts to make before Christmas, but I’m a procrastinator so there’s plenty of time. Ha! And of course those darn catapult reports…
The holidays are coming and I’m excited! Not quite ready yet, but I think I will be! Yay!
Done with Shopping!
Well, no, I’m not done with all shopping, ever. That would be sad. But I am done with Christmas shopping. This might be the earliest I’ve ever been done shopping. Weyhey!
This weekend was a particular productive one, both in shopping and in other things. On Saturday, Bruckner Nature Center had their Winter Arts Fair, which was excellent. (And it was especially lovely since it was snowing the whole time we were oot & aboot.) We (the folks and I) were there over an hour looking at all the booths and buying quite a few things. And seeing a fair number of people that we knew. Last year was the first year we attended and I can see this becoming a yearly tradition.
Afterward, I took the parental units up to Piqua for a bit of shopping there. I found a larger wreath for my porch and got new window lights as well. Then at the Sears in the mall, I found an air purifier that was actually quiet and energy star compliant. After I dropped the folks off at home, I went to Lowes and picked up some cabinet pull-out drawers for my kitchen and some blinds for the library and bedroom. Once I was home, I finished my Christmas shopping online. Phew!
Sunday was Productivity Day wherein I did laundry and rehung my outdoor decorations and got the tree upstairs and made more ornaments and stuff. And last night I got one set of my cabinet drawers installed (the two-tiered one). This will definitely make getting stuff out for cooking/baking MUCH easier.
Still much to be done. Finish decorating the tree. Decorate the house. Make the home-made Xmas gifts. Install the blinds. Install the other cabinet drawer. More stuff that I can’t think of right now. 🙂
Hope things are going well with your holiday plans (if’n you have holiday plans)! Hard to believe there’s only 10 more school days of 2010!
And December Begins!
Today was our first half-decent snowfall of the season. Yay! This evening we were without power for about half an hour. Boo! But I spent the time reading on my cellphone, so that was OK. Yay!
Been busy of late, so I’ll do a quicky summary.
- Had the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off. Got some stuff done in the house, such as installing my blinds, which had been sitting around for ages. (Need to get more for the other winders.)
- Thanksgiving was very nice. Made Thanksgiving cheeseball (which I also took to the staff carry-in the previous Tuesday) and sweet potato souffle. I also prepared two Market Day pies – Apple and a chocolate pecan cream pie that was quite a hit.
- We held the Short gathering for Thanksgiving at the Clubhouse at mom & dad’s community. Most of the family was able to attend – yay!
- Didn’t rush off to stores on Black Friday, just hung out all day with the parental units. I did some actual Christmas shopping after I got home that night and hung out at Amazon.com, Edmund Scientific, and other stores.
- The weekend was a nice relaxing one with some exterior Christmas decorating (which has since fallen down – guess I didn’t have the right sized Command strips…)
Keeping busy and avoiding productivity at home of late by playing World of Warcraft (and I’ve already pre-ordered Cataclysm!) Hopefully I will start productivity up again soon!