Conflicting Plans

Tis the season to want to do more than there is time to do I suppose.

But this year is a little weird for me.  Specifically, there are 3 nights with multiple events and I wish I could clone myself and do it all.

Tonight my baby brother is going to be in town.  I want so much to go out to dinner with him and my hubby and just get some quality time together.  I saw him in October at my other brother's wedding (and of course lots of time in July at his wedding), and I'll see him next month at Christmas, but a night with just the three of us would be awesome.

But tonight is one of the very few work dinners I need to attend all year.  I was hoping, hoping, hoping it would be set for any night other than the night my brother is in town, but of course that's not how it worked.  I know the work dinner will be tasty food, fun company, and a good time, but it won't hold a candle to some time with my brother.

My usual rule for conflicting plans is to do whatever was on my calendar first, but this work dinner was planned late in the day on the day that my brother bought his plane ticket (after clearing the date with me that morning), and it's an exception to the rule.  Brother dinner was planned first, but trumped by work sadly...

So my solution tonight is work dinner eaten quickly (but I'm staying for dessert for sure, this restaurant has my absolute favorite restaurant cheesecake in the world), and then I'll go meet hubby and bro for a drink.  He's staying with us, so maybe I'll just stay up late catching up, and depending on his work and mine, maybe we can do a workout, breakfast and/or lunch together on Wednesday.

But oddly enough, I have two more nights like this in the next week or so. 

Wednesday, Dec. 7 is my work Christmas party, which we're attending (spouses are invited) and I'm looking forward to (I've heard some crazy fun stories!).  But that night is also my law school alumni happy hour -- I really like that group of people and I make a big effort to go to all their happy hours that I can since we're a smallish group.  AND my running buddies are having a post-marathon happy hour celebration that night.  Because of the time of the work party, it's not possible to do more than 1 event, so the work holiday party is where I'll be, but again, I wish those happy hours were say Monday and Tuesday of that week instead.

And then Friday, Dec. 9, we are going out for an awesome dinner with one of my law school friends and his new-ish wife (I think they're 9 mos married now).  And by awesome dinner, I mean AWESOME as in we are trying to use up the balance on his work expense account for the year.  That means we'll be attempting to blow $2,000 on dinner for the 4 of us at one of the best restaurants in town.  That's some good wine and food!  I am happy that's on our calendar, but it would be nice if the other things for that night could have fallen on other nights.  One of our friends is having a holiday costume party -- not normally up our alley, but the "costumes" are to dress as Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.  Too funny!  If only his party were Saturday night instead of Friday...  And of course that same night is also a dance performance (followed by dinner) done by my husband's best friend's youngest son (his godson's younger brother).  It would be so much fun to attend that, if only it were on Thursday...

So lots of fun plans, unfortunately I only get to do 3 fun events instead of all 8 -- just because all 8 are scheduled over the same 3 days.  If only people would consult my personal calendar before planning their lives and fun events!  Hahaha!  Sigh...

We're also skipping hubby's work party this year, which is on Sunday afternoon (odd), because it's the day of the big local marathon and we're going to have an open house/brunch for all my running friends.  That will be awesome -- lots of baking to do!