Isn't Today Friday?

The day is only a few hours old but already at least half a dozen times I've found myself thinking "Hey! It's Friday!" Having Christmas break begin on Wednesday is about as wonderful as wonderful can be, seeing that it makes for a two-day work week.

And for everyone whose Christmas break begins tomorrow night at midnight and lasts exactly 24 hours, well, I'm really sorry. Truly. Having a 12-month contract in a nine-month work environment makes me appreciate how irritating it is when people around you are all WHOOPEEEE! about leave time that I don't have, but then I go and do it myself when it's time for the extended Christmas break many of us get in academia. It's like driving a Ford when you're surrounded by Cadillac owners, but forgetting that most people in the world drive Kias.

Yup. Most tortured analogy ever.

Anyway, in the spirit of thinking that today's Friday, I have a couple of orts to share. The first concerns the enormous box sitting just inside the front door. Want to know what was in the box pictured above that showed up on our porch a week ago?

This:

Fifteen pint jars. That's what was in this container so large it would not fit through most of the doors in our house.

World Market, you get the 2014 Overpacking Award, although in your defense all of the jars arrived intact.

I leave you today with a Christmas story from Husband, who is still discovering things about me after 31 years of marriage. He was wrapping gifts last night when he mentioned that he had read yesterday's post in which I mentioned he was the gift-wrapper in the family.

"I didn't really intend to become the gift-wrapper in the family," he said, "but you are just so BAD at it." Then he looked at me to see if I had been insulted.

Insulted? I don't think so. Just surprised it took him 31 years to uncover my devious plan to make sure the job of wrapping didn't end up on my to-do list.

Mwahahaha, and merry Christmas Eve Eve!

Now, Not Then

Okay, next year at Thanksgiving dinner, I want someone to walk up to me and say "It doesn't all have to be done now."

That's because every. single. year I go into a Christmas panic on approximately Nov. 27.

I'll never get everything done! There's too too much! This year Christmas will be RUINED by my ineptitude!

What I forget is that as I panic in late November, I have three whole weeks plus four days in which to get the things done that I want done before Christmas. Everything doesn't have to be done before December starts.

In the past several days I've made great progress on my to-do list. Tree up and living room completely covered in festivity? Check. Finish knitting the rice-bag-friendly mitts for the wonderful co-workers in my office? Check. Host office party? Check. Rustle up a white elephant gift for my women's group party? Check. Discuss Christmas shopping with Husband and split up the actual shopping? Check. Shop? Check. Order Christmas cards and write Christmas letter? Check, with the proof that the graphic today is on the letter. The cards themselves will be in the mail before Thursday.

And because Husband is in charge of the wrapping in our family (did I find a rare one one or what?) my to-do's are down to baking peppernuts and weaving in the yarn ends on one final knitting project.

Everything did not need to be done by the time I first panicked about the mountain of tasks that were standing between me and Christmas. Everything had to be done now, and everything pretty much is done. The first wave of Boys arrives tonight, and I'm ready. I've even had enough time to take recuperation soup to a friend who had surgery last week.

It's a Christmas miracle.

No One Is Luckier

I have held jobs and had bosses since I was 14 years old. During these 36 years and dozen or so jobs, I can honestly say I have never had a bad boss. All have been smart, ethical, talented people who have mentored and nurtured me professionally and personally.

For the past 16 years I've had the same boss, and this week he announced he will be leaving Small College for a new challenge. This boss has been particularly fine and has both supported me and pushed me to succeed when I didn't have the self-confidence to push myself. He is smart and funny and likes words, which is the highest compliment I can give. The news that he is leaving makes me terribly sad, but because I have had good bosses all my life, I am hopeful that the person who replaces him also will be inspiring and ethical.

I have been a boss for those 16 years and during that time I have unfailingly had people working for me who inspire and challenge me, and make our school (and our department, and me) look good.

Yesterday we had our staff Christmas party at the House on the Corner. We ate soup and swapped recipes and played the most raucous game of Apples to Apples ever--I laughed until my ribs hurt. I really like these people I work with.

Lots of us love our families and spend our personal hours with folks who fill our hearts. But how many of us also spend our professional hours with folks who make us better at our jobs and (even more important) make us better human beings? Only the very lucky do this.

No one is luckier than I.

Cross This One Off the List

The very last post I made here talked about hooow muuuuuch I had to do in the next few weeks, and how very buuuuuusy I am, and how tooooo muuuuuch my life is right now. So what did I do the next day? I let someone tag me with the black-and-white Facebook photo challenge.

I know! I'm an idiot, because have I mentioned I'm busy? (Also kind of in denial that Christmas is happening, but that's an entirely different problem.)

And there is the issue with photography, namely that I am really, really bad at it. Around my office I'm the designated Photo Nazi because I'm just dandy at arranging large groups of people so that everyone can be seen, and you in the red sweater, please make sure you can see the photographer or you will not be in the photo. Also, young lady, whoever told you that sticking out your butt and bust and putting your hand on your hip is super-sexy? That person lied to you, and cut it out right now.

So I'm pretty good at arranging photo shots mostly because I'm mean. But when it comes to taking pictures? Not so much. The only C I ever received in a class IN MY ENTIRE LIFE came in my college photography class. It wrecked both my grade point average and my ego, and made me hate photography.

But with today's new point-and-shoot cameras (also known as my phone) I always believe I am a photographer, and when friend M. challenged me to post five black-and-white photos on my Facebook page, I though "What fun! I'm so artistic! I'm a photographer!"

Yup. Wrong on all three counts.

This morning as I left for work I tried to figure out what artsy-looking subject I could shoot in black and white. Last night we had a big wind and all the autumn leaves finally dropped off the trees (I guess fall is over). The sweetgum tree in the back yard was left with only its gumballs clinging to the branches.

Ooooh! Artistic!

I switched on the black-and-white app on my phone, shot a few of the lonely-looking gumballs, looked at the results, and realized that for me the challenge was over. The lighting is wonky, the gumballs are out of focus, there is no real point of attention, and the whole thing is kind of a muddy-looking mess. I'm out of my talent depth, and this is me throwing in the towel on worrying about shooting artsy photograph.

Sorry to bail on you, M., but it's Christmas. I have 99 things to do and black-and-white photography just stopped being one of them.

I feel merrier already.

Friday Orts and a Blurb

Not much new around the House on the Corner this week (except, of course, for the sewer line, which probably doesn't need a post of its own). I've been preoccupied sending the Boys and Husband photo texts with the caption "CHRISTMAS IS HERE!" or "READY FOR SANTA!"

Even while I'm trying not to think about how much I have yet to do in the next (ohmigosh) 13 days I'm loving the season this year. Last weekend Husband was at a conference so I did my gussying up of the living room, which is the one room in the house I decorate. To those of you who have trees in every room and special holiday Kleenex box covers, I have only one warning: Santa hates overachievers. Just sayin'.

Anyway, it's fun to put the wooden soldiers and Annoying Rudolph under the tree. The wooden soldiers are a set we found in a Mexican market for $3 when Boy#4 was an infant, and I am absolutely patting myself on the back that they are all still with us. It's probably because I'm suspicious they're painted with toxic paint so every time a child went near them I shrieked. It was quite effective as aversion therapy. The Annoying Rudolph, on the other hand, was practically loved to death. He was a Christmas gift from grandparents, as most completely annoying toys are, and when batteries are inserted he "walks" and bobs his head and plays "Jingle Bells" in the most grating e-music imaginable. Fortunately, we rarely had batteries in the house so he survived to become a tradition.

*****
My list of items that must be done before Christmas is down to, well, just about everything that was originally on it. I still have peppernuts to bake, Christmas letter to write (in case there is anyone in the world on whom I have not yet inflicted this blog ), 14 knitting projects to finish, a party to host, and all of the presents in the world to buy.

I am surprisingly sanguine about trying to fit this ton of work into the 10-pound sack of time I have left.

*****

These only have five ingredients

And for today's blurb:

My Free Space group had a cookie exchange Wednesday, and I used the occasion to make a recipe from my favorite cooking blog, Gimme Some Oven. Ali promised that her chocolate chip meringue cookies were "simple to make, super delicious, and only 35 calories each!"

She did not lie: They are, indeed, simple to make and super delicious. I'm going to take her word on the 35 calories part, because she is a Small College graduate and truthiness is something we stress here. The best part about this recipe is that you put the entire batch in the oven at once, then walk away and let them cook for half an hour and cool for half an hour in the oven, rather than being at the beck and call of the timer while you're scurrying around trying to find the beautiful Christmas sweater you wear to this party every year.

Be aware, though, that if you try to sneak-eat a cookie before the exchange and you are in a hurry, it may explode and you might end up with cookie crumbs IN YOUR HAIR that someone will have to pull out when you get to the meeting, and instead of looking like a sophisticated Christmas-sweater-bedecked party-goer you will look like a monkey being groomed.

Not that this would ever happen to me.

The Downside of Being Grown Up

Photo courtesy of Husband

Sometimes being a grown-up is not all that wonderful.

Today, for example, I am sitting at my desk at work getting ready to proofread while out back of the House on the Corner there are machines! And digging! And piles of dirt!

Twenty years ago I would have been parked on a blanket just west of the scene above, surrounded by four little boys bundled into their winter parkas and gloves and with hats pulled clear down to their excited blue eyes.

We loved machines and digging, and excavation of the nearly century-old sewer lines next to the garage would have called for a day of sidewalk supervision from the Boys while I reiterated the blanket boundaries and tried to keep them corralled. I would have been irritated at the tree roots that threatened the smooth operation of our plumbing, but (much like a good kindergarten Christmas party) the disruption would be a small price to pay for the thrilling spectacle.

But the Boys have grown up and are scattered around four states and instead of seeing the work being done in person, we're all getting text photos updates from Husband every few minutes--they've discovered an old gas line! And now city workers are coming by to make sure it isn't active! Such excitement!

I miss seeing the world through the eyes of little Boys. I'm glad I still have a big Boy on the scene.

The Universe Loves Me!

This is the time of the year when I schedule all of my routine maintenance physicals. I am checked and questioned, poked and prodded, my tires kicked and my fluid levels checked to ensure that I am roadworthy for another year.

This morning I had a fasting blood draw to make sure my tendency toward low thyroid levels is being adequately medicated.

I do not like fasting blood draws. Not at all. And it is not because they're painful (my doctor's aide kicks all sorts of butt when it comes to painless procedures), it's because of cofffffeeeeee.

My name is MomQueenBee and I am a coffee addict. By 8 a.m., when the draw was scheduled, my brain already has been waiting for its triple shot cappuccino for 90 minutes (no, I'm not kidding) and is beginning to nudge my forehead with its give-me-caffeine-NOW sledgehammer.

Within seconds of when I checked out of the doctor's office I was on the way to McDonald's where I ordered a senior coffee (two creams) and a healthy bowl of oatmeal. When I got back to the office, though, I opened the to-go sack to find my order had apparently been switched with the order of the oilfield roughneck in the truck behind me.

It's way too far to drive clear back to McDonald's to correct the mistake (19 blocks, which in Small Town metrics means you practically need a passport to get there) so I laid the Sausage McGriddles and hashbrowns out on my desk to make a decision on whether I should go ahead and eat the roughneck's breakfast or go across the street to the House on the Corner to make my own bowl of oatmeal.

The decision-making process lasted less than a second, then I laughed heartily and tucked in because McGriddles are delicious.

Obviously the Universe loves me today, and who am I to turn down this kind of gift, even if this coffee was lacking its two creams?

Thanks, Universe. It was yummy.