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Monday, December 20, 2004

Stressed Out

Holiday craziness has set in and things have been super-busy. I'm not just saying that, I really have been busy. I've been so busy I haven't even finished a book in over a week!

The work trip to NYC was good, other than the lousy, rainy weather. I went to the Ground Zero site, only three or four blocks from the hotel, and the South Street Seaport, which was too much like Harborplace for me to be excited about it. After the seminar was over, I actually took the subway back to Penn Station instead of a taxi, which I figured was a better choice at 4pm on a rainy Friday afternoon.

Saturday (Dec. 11) was the children's Christmas Party that my work hosts every year. I took H. and my two nieces, as I did last year. They had a great time and really like the presents they received. Big K. got Pictionary Jr. and wanted to play it right away. When we got back to my parents' house, we played two rounds and had a blast. We were laughing so hard, our sides hurt. It was most fun when K&K were drawing.


Saturday night I got the lights on the tree while half watching that awful, cheesy Dale Earnhardt movie on ESPN. (M. kept saying, "Are you sure that's not Jeff Foxworthy playing Dale Earnhardt?" It was really his hair that bothered me the most.) We had originally planned to go out to dinner for our anniversary, just to the new Ruby Tuesday's, but H. fell asleep in the car on the way back from my parents' house and slept the whole night through. So I made crab cakes instead, one of Mark's favorite dinners. H. and I spent most of Sunday decorating the tree and it looked wonderful. However, around 12:30am that night, M. and I heard a terrible crash from downstairs. That's right, the tree fell over in the middle of the night, landing right on the coffee table. My worst nightmare! We got it upright, but I didn't really have time to survey the damage. I was completely stressed out on Monday because I was fighting off a cold, we had to go to that concert that night for work and the babysitter was coming as soon as I got home, with a living room full of broken glass. So I went home at lunch to try and clean up as much as possible. Somehow, there were only about four or five broken ornaments, none of which were especially meaningful to me, so I think I dealt with the whole situation pretty well. I finally got the tree back together Tuesday night, even though it doesn't look as good as it did.

The tree, before it fell over


The busy week continued, with deadlines at work since my boss is now out until after the first of the year, along with our department holiday lunch. Friday night we went to a dessert party hosted by N. and her friend, which was very fun and much more than just dessert. Mimi watched H., which she was so excited about. H. likes visiting her Mimi and playing with the Pekingnese dogs, plus they all got to watch Rudolph together.

Saturday consisted of finishing up the wrapping presents and napping, in between football games. And oh yeah, all the lights on the tree stopped working. I think we blew a fuse, since H. kept turning the lights on and off. Luckily, it was the fuse in the first strand of lights, so it was easily solved. I swear, I don't think the tree liked being in the living room this year and is rebelling. We'll have to move it back to the family room next year.

On Sunday we did some early shopping at Walmart and Target. I finally found a new teapot. You wouldn't think that would be such a hard item to find, but the selection at Walmart was terrible, so it was Target to the rescue. Now I only have a few gift cards left to buy and my shopping will be complete, hopefully with a few days left to spare. And, let's hope that the tree will hang on until atleast Saturday morning!

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