Blogging Blank

As usual, when lots of things are going on that I could write about, I don’t have time to write. I meant to put up a big post about our Christmas party that we had on Dec. 1, but never got around to it and now it’s not fresh in my mind anymore. Then we were scheduled to go on vacation, but there was a huge storm on the Oregon Coast and the roads were closed, so we just stayed home instead. That was actually really nice! My biggest domestic accomplishment lately has been getting my bar counter entirely cleaned off and keeping that way – or at least leaving it that way every night. Except tonight. Tonight it has wrapping paper on it, but I’m going to need that again so soon that I hate to put it away. We decorated gingerbread cookies with the Honeycomb Kids at church one week and the next week cut out and sprinkled then baked sugar cookies with Grandma Valerie. I’ve been out nearly every day this week trying to get last minute Christmas/grocery shopping done and I’m nearly done now – except for the couple of things that I remembered today I hadn’t gotten yet. Arrgh! On\’c3\’82\’c2\~the plus side, Michael was able to take today off like he’d wanted to, after all. For a while it looked like he’d have to work today, even though he’d requested it off months ago, but he got everything totally essential done and can manage the rest from home by email. So we have him with us through next Thursday!\par
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Most of our presents are wrapped, but not all. Most of the Christmas cooking is done – but not all. Tomorrow, in addition to picking up at least one more small gift, I also need to do laundry (since we’re leaving Sunday and will need clean clothes for our 5 day stay at my parents), pack, bake sourdough baguettes, make fudge, finish wrapping gifts and make a fruit salad for church on Sunday. Oh, and clean the house a little since my inlaws are all coming over after church but before we leave, on Sunday\’c3\’82\’c2\~so we can open our presents from and to them altogether. Oh and fold and stuff all our Christmas letters that we’re giving to people at church tomorrow. Oh and… well, I could do that all night! I wrote down a list on Wednesday of all of the things to do for Christmas that I could do BEFORE DECEMBER! I’m going to staple it to my calendar for September and try to get started earlier – like I say every year! But this time I have a list, made in the crush of events, so I don’t think “Oh, I should start getting read for Christmas now… but what should I do? I can’t think of anything except shopping, so I guess I don’t need to start now after all.”\par
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Tonight we went carolling with other members of our church. There were maybe 20 of us. Ezra started out whining, but ended up enjoying himself. Judah had a pretty good time – especially when we got back to the church and had snacks and he got to run around with his friends. We sang at several houses where people were obviously home but refused to answer the door, but several people did the expected watching through the window or coming out on the porch to listen to us. It’s kind of a strange custom, really.\par
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I’ve been enjoying getting Christmas letters and cards from friends and family from out of town. It’s so fun to read people’s letters and see how they recap their last year. We got a Christmas letter today from one of Michael’s coworkers – On one side it had events and happenings from the last year listed under the columns Naughty and Nice. On the other side was a carefully worded statement declaring that the other side had been audited and that reasonable assurance could be provided that the statements were correct, without material errors. You got to love accountants’ humor.