let the countdown begin

We had a very busy and productive day yesterday for the very first week day of Christmas break. The kids cleaned the house for me, I did the laundry, and we made another batch of Christmas cookies. Success!!

I'm off to the library this morning with the middle kid in tow to stock the bookstore. It has been doing great business the last several days and I've been told it has some 'holes' on the shelves. Well, we can take care of that in short order. Then we will reward ourselves with some Starbucks and then off to the grocery store we will go to get some things we need for the next several days.

I. Have. A. Plan.

I began reading "The Rhetoric of Death" but it is due back at the library now, so I have to return it unfinished. I will need to check it out again as I'm enjoying the story. Another amateur sleuth mystery, but this time set in Paris in the 1600's.

Okay..off to do what needs doing.  Posting may be sporadic over the next two weeks as I enjoy a more relaxed routine.

jingle bells

Just a few hours and the kids will officially be on Christmas break. Yeah! They are very excited, which makes me excited. The girls seem to be surviving their finals and the boy has parties all day today in middle school. No big tests to study for in his world.....yet.

I have a couple of errands to run this morning and some groceries to purchase. We have a weekend of baking planned and not much else scheduled.

All is well.....I hear the bells jingling off in the distance....Christmas time is coming!!!!!

Happy Friday.

homebody

I stayed home all day yesterday and loved every minute of it. I think I'm turning into a hermit. It was so nice not to have to rush somewhere, squeeze things in and watch the clock. I made a delicious pot of vegetable beef soup. I baked a really yummy winter spice cake. The Christmas music was on and the good smells of cooking food filled the house. The dog was snoring away in his comfy chair. It was pure bliss. It will be the last quiet day like that until the New Year.

Today won't be so laid back. I have several appointments to keep and the evening concludes with the youngest kid's first ever band concert. Sixth grade band concerts are interesting events. The bad notes, squeaks, squeals and snorts make for some rough moments, but the progress you can hear when the Spring concert rolls around makes this winter time endeavor worthwhile.

My homebody self will be put away as we enter into the three weeks of holiday frenzy. I will bring her back out in January.

baking up an event

I've decided to do some big holiday baking this year. When we traveled two years in a row, to Indiana one year and to Europe the next, I didn't do much baking. I think I might have made two holiday favorites and that is it. I did a little more last year, but with visiting my folks after Christmas, I curtailed the cooking then as well. I knew my mom would have plenty of yummy treats and by the time we got home, I'd be ready to scale back on the fun food consumption.

This year we are keeping our happy bums at home and I'm baking/cooking up a storm. Made some fudge yesterday. Think I will try some Dickens Christmas cakes today. A slew of other yummy treats are also scheduled to be made once the kiddoes are finished with exams. Skillet cookies. Apricot cookies. Cutout cookies. Kieflies. The list goes on and on.

I enjoy making these holiday treats when I have the time to enjoy the process. Like many things in life, doing something is often more fun when you aren't on a major timetable or have to rush through it. The activity moves from being a chore to being an event. 

I like events. I don't like chores. So, we will be baking up an event starting on Saturday. The ingredients are purchased and ready. The rolling pin is waiting. I've even dug out all of my Christmas CDs and put them in one pile so we can be inspired as we create.

Let the 2010 Baking Event begin!!

the joy of netflix

Netflix is my guilty pleasure. It streams right to my TV through our Wii system. I also get movies in the mail from them. Yesterday, after I ran more errands than I had planned on running, I sat down to fold laundry and watch a movie called 'Winter's Bone.'  This film won the Grand Jury award at a recent Sundance Festival and was on some movie critic's list last year. I took note of it, added it to my Netflix queue and waited. It was worth the wait. Good flick. Subtle, intense, heartbreaking, interesting. Really well done.

On the other end of the spectrum, we've been watching 30 Rock, from the beginning, episode after episode. Definitely not subtle, but laugh out loud funny. Tina Fey is a genius and when you watch this show, it is pretty darn obvious why it swept the Emmy's year after year.

Not sure what I will watch today, or if I will watch anything, but Happy Tuesday!!

grave goods

I have such a book crush on the Ariana Franklin series featuring medieval lady doctor Adelia Aguilar. I love these books. In the third story, "Grave Goods", Adelia is traveling with her friend Emma and is summoned by Henry II to examine the bones from two skeletons found in a crevasse near Glastonbury. Rumor has it that they might be the bones of Arthur and Guinevere. Henry wants an answer and Adelia is soon wrapped up in not only a mystery involving the legendary king, but also several other unexplained events.

This was book number 96 for me this year. Yeah!! 

Not sure what this week will bring. I have a hair cut scheduled for today. A lunch scheduled for Thursday. A beginning band concert to attend that same day. No soccer for the girls as it is finals week and the coaches took pity on them. Plus, the weather is supposed to be brutally cold here....nightly lows in the teens just isn't normal for this region. Brrrrr.

We watched a good portion of 30 Rock's first season last night via Netflix. Hilarious. Had us all laughing.
So, as we slide into the Christmas holidays.....lots of random things going on. Sounds good to me!

all caught up

I made a to do list at the beginning of the week and I'm happy to say, it is all checked off and I'm caught up. I had a variety of small rather boring housekeeping tasks to accomplish. I'd put them off for months, but finally, as the year is coming to a close, I managed to get them started and finished. Yeah!

It feels good to know that my desk is purged of papers that are no longer needed or wanted. It feels good to know that the check book is balanced, and no I didn't let that go all year, just a few weeks. It feels wonderful to have compiled a fresh list of my wallet contents. The house is relatively clean. The laundry is under control. Bags of old clothes have been donated to Goodwill. Things are in their proper places and in good order.

My dearest friend and I were talking the other day and she said she recently told her husband that they needed to move. Why, he asked. Well, she said she needed the motivation to purge the house. Yep. We all tend to accumulate things, even the most diligently organized person winds up with cupboards that are filled with things that are no longer used or needed. It just happens.  We talked about "Toss it Tuesday" and "Throw Away Thursday". That is a concept a friend from high school uses to keep her home under control. One drawer, one closet, one bin at a time.  Slow and steady. A constant vigil.

I need to tackle two cupboards today as the plastic cups and containers that find their way there have seem to multiplied to the point where they spill out if the doors aren't properly closed. Into the recycle bin they will go. I have no need for 24 Booya's cups and 18 lunchmeat containers. Nope.

Next week is the mad dash to the end of the semester for the girls. The boy has an easier time, one speech to deliver and then party time for him.  I have a lunch scheduled with the library director. It will be what it will be. Then we will be on holiday and begin the Christmas baking. I'm looking forward to that and am going to coerce the kids into helping.

It is good to have a plan. It is even better to see the plan fall into place.