Now that’s more like it!

Boy, I’m sure getting some high quality holiday enjoyment time in now! Look at how restful I was over the last couple of days…

Yesterday, went back out for some ‘last minute’ shopping. Hit 4 stores in 1-1/2 hours and came back home. Managed to sneak in a new yarn store during this blitz, which was a tiny little piece of respite breaking up our blistering pace. The shop was nice although I prefer my LYS better. Besides, they were completely out of Kureyon. Hmph. I did get back to that bookstore and get those books. Yay me. This was ‘before work’.

At lunch, I went to my favorite LYS and got a few items there, swung by the sewing center to pick up some notions (rest and relaxation, there’s a notion!) Was so harried I forgot to ask about Kureyon. Then we thought we might run by the game store (which is near the mall) to see if they had something my dad was looking for, but I got paged with a case and we had to head home. What a shame 🙂

Picked up the kids from their various activities (bouncing and painting) and took them to a friend’s house to decorate cookies, ran back home to work. I imagined that during this time I might work, wrap presents, do cards, and get dinner prepared. I got some work done. Then it was time to go. No presents were wrapped, no cards were addressed, no dinner was prepared. I was a bit puzzled at this… I wonder if perhaps intent isn’t quite enough…

Martial arts class for the family, then I picked up a rotisserie chicken and headed home to, uh, catch up on my chores. I don’t remember why but for some reason these things remained undone before I slumped dreamlessly into bed.

See how much more relaxing my life is now? So, about today…

Had to call to make an appointment for my sick ailing kitty… looks like he’s majorly diabetic and he’s got to spend a couple of days at the kitty hospital. My husband dealt with the particulars but it’s a sad thing indeed 🙁

Took the Boy to bouncing, then went to breakfast and swung by ToysRUs to get some supplemental items needed for the Santa Stuff. Fortunately the Girl did not press me on the reason for these items. Nor did she insist on seeing what they were.

Then we had 3 leisurely hours at home before we took the Girl to art. Work was blissfully quiet so I put the Girl to work addressing Christmas Cards while I scribbled some kind of personal-ish message in each one (Next year, everyone’s getting a form letter. Deal with it). Surprisingly enough, after I actually started writing in them and putting them in envelopes, I got all of them done in a couple of hours. Infinitely more than when I was just, you know, looking apprehensively in their general direction. During this time I did get a few support requests, mostly from fanatically desperate engineers who were sure they would receive no support on this wishy-washy work day. They were very relieved that I helped them.

My husband took the Girl to art, so my dad and I bravely set up the present wrapping area and got to work. 2 solid hours of wrapping, and here are the presents (pre-finishing):

Maybe I exaggerated a little when I said there were 76 presents. Or maybe I didn’t.

We basked in the glow of the mighty present pile for a few minutes before we headed out to get the kids and grab some dinnerl, then swing by the grocery store for more Sweet Potato Bread Pudding ingredients, and come home to do ‘finishing work’ on the presents – you know, ribbons, bows, stuff to give the presents some personality. Now the poor tree looks like it’s trying to hatch an enormous batch of square eggs:

So, we’re done, right? We had just a couple more errands on our list for tomorrow, which wouldn’t have been too bad. But lo, a lone spark fires in my overloaded brain. Isn’t the mall open until midnight tonight? Spurred by an adrenaline rush brought on by being so close to the finish line, at 8:30 we headed out to finish our list. First to Kmart to get a couple of booster seats since my mother-in-law had accidentally boosted one of them (heh, heh) during her last visit. Then we headed for the mall again, blazed through Gottschalks and finished off my dad’s list, and *almost* made it home in time for my husband to get out and see his movie. Pretty close. He probably just missed some previews…

In any case, now the cards are sent, the presents are wrapped, work is pretty much closed for the weekend. Tomorrow morning I’ll run out and grab some foodish stuff to get us through ’till Sunday, but that’s it! No more leaving the house! Hey, maybe I can work on that Irish Hiking Scarf or something…