Why

My main Christmas question was ... why?


Specifically, why in the world would a company make and market a game called "Pie in the Face"?


And a related question -- why would my aunt buy said game for my nieces and nephew?


And a related question -- when we are playing a lovely game of Apples to Apples (which my niece had received), why would my brother bust out Pie in the Face and insist we play?


Thankfully, I only played two rounds and I "won" both rounds (i.e., no "pie" (whipped cream) in my face), but I laughed regrettably hard at seeing my husband "lose" both rounds (I honestly didn't think he'd even agree to play, but the kids wanted him to and he obliged without complaint), seeing my brother lose, and seeing my nieces and nephew laugh like crazy.

But still, horrible, horrible game.  Avoid at all costs if possible! 

Cookie Monster

Part of the reason life is so crazy right now (besides doing the work of two attorneys right now) is because we are flying home for Christmas this week Friday.


We had a lovely local Thanksgiving, then the following weekend we were both out of town (me in San Antonio for the marathon, husband in Pittsburgh visiting the 'rentals), and then there was this past weekend -- essentially the only "holiday prep" weekend available.  Next weekend we'll be in Milwaukee and there will be time to wrap the things I shipped up there and do shopping for a couple more items, and then we'll drive up north on Monday for the rest of the week. 


But only one weekend in town to do all of my "big four" holiday tasks -- baking, cards, shopping and wrapping. 


Most the shopping was done online already, so it's pretty easy to check that item off the list -- although of course the few things that remain to be bought really need to be done ASAP. 


I did manage to wrap the only gifts that really needed to be wrapped (my husband's, the others will be given after we come back to Texas and therefore can be wrapped later, or will be going on the plane and don't necessarily need to be wrapped now). 


As for cards, I managed to address envelopes to everyone who sent us a card last year and a few others.  I'd still like to do cards to everyone else we usually send them to -- but that entails buying more cards.  I still need to write out all the cards (I've always been one to write some kind of note, I honestly don't like getting the "envelope stuffed" ones that much), and put on return labels and stamps, plus I need to make labels for the backs of our photos that we enclose in most cards.  Yow.  But really, I could mail cards from Milwaukee and it wouldn't be the end of the world.


Baking is done.  The one thing that absolutely couldn't wait, didn't.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to divide up the cookies and put them on plates/platters for distribution, but that will have to happen tonight (since I want to give the 4 work plates of cookies while they're fresh, plus there's 1 running friend on the calendar tomorrow, and another holiday party tomorrow night to which we bring a plate). 


8 kinds of cookies.  This morning at boot camp, Megan asked me how many of those I ate -- I concluded 10, but I might have been slightly underestimating.  But they all met my stamp of approval. 


The sad part of baking was that this year, it was largely a solo endeavor.  My husband helped with the three that really needed it -- the kind that needed decorating, the kind that needed "urgent" work (quickly shoving marshmallows on top while they're partially baked), and the kind that are best done by fingers with very low heat sensitivity (arranging the wreaths, made from corn flakes, marshmallows and butter).  But for the other 5, I was 100% on my own.  Usually my next door neighbor comes over and we bake as a team, but she's in Italy all month!  Next year...


Below:  salted caramel cookies, oatmeal/white choc/cranberry, and brandy/white choc/cranberry:

Below, same but with the mint swirls and the decorated shortbreads (already in a bag):

Below are the no-bake wreaths:

And with the addition below of the hot chocolate cookies:

And a poorly lit picture of this year's experiment, peppermint meringues: 

Grimm no more

Relief is on the horizon at work.  My new co-worker started on Tuesday, and of the 115 extra cases I'm handling right now, I have given her 6 of them!  And I'm planning to give her 5 more this week. 


Last night I left the office after 8.  Oddly enough, I was grateful for it. 


I was grateful that I was able to put in the extra time yesterday to allow myself to "tread water" (i.e., maintain an even number of screaming emergencies that need attention in my in-box, instead of going home with a higher number than where the day started). 


I was also grateful that working late didn't mean leaving a lonely or pissed off husband at home -- he was at the office past 8 too.  Crazy stuff happening in his work world lately. 


I was also grateful that working past 8 is novel for me.  I had a job for about 7 years where I was in the office from 8:30ish until after 10 pm, and frequently after midnight, on a vast majority of days.  That was the normal there, and it wasn't all horrible (though I did gain weight and felt like my dating life was basically on hold), I made lots of good friends, got great experience, etc. (of course being paid well never hurts). 


And finally, I was grateful that both of our extra effort and hard work is noticed, and at least in my case, appreciated (probably in my husband's too, but we haven't discussed).  Yesterday at 7:30, as my husband and I touched base about when we were going home and what we'd do for dinner, both of our bosses were still working as well.  We decided to give it another hour and then touch base again.  In that hour, sometime around 8:15 maybe?, my boss left.  On his way out, he told me that he'd talked to our divisional president that day, and I've been approved to go with them to a conference at the end of January that I really wanted to attend.  Usually our company hates sending people to stuff like that -- lost revenue plus travel expenses -- so this felt extra special. 


But anyway, all that wasn't the point of this "short" post.  When I finally did get home, I heated up some food from the prepared section of the grocery store and sat down to watch TV while I ate and while I waited for my husband to get home.  I made a decision then, and then I waited until he got home to make sure he approved of my decision -- and then I deleted about 50 hours of Grimm off our DVR.  We just weren't watching it.  I hope I'm not missing out on some awesome show.  We liked the first season okay, but then never got back into it. 


Now our DVR has all kinds of space and it feels oddly freeing.  No pressure to clear it off (not that there was any pressure in the past, or that if there was, it motivated me to actually do anything about it). 


Not planning to add anything new.  Our current "regularly record and watch" list is:
Law & Order SVU
Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown (and any of his other shows)
Fareed Zakaria GPS
Amazing Race (my show, not "ours")


And our current "record but don't regularly watch list" is: 
Americans (not airing currently)
Bachelor/Bachelorette (not airing currently)
Tyrant (not airing currently)
Simpsons (rarely watch but still record)
Family Guy (rarely watch but still record)


The other show we're watching ... no surprise to people who know me in the real world ... Amazon Prime's series The Man in the High Castle.  Like it so far, only about halfway through the season. 

Thankful

This year I've been keeping a "grateful list" -- an old school journal started many years ago, but with remaining pages.  I couldn't bring myself to post something like this on FB, so many similar posts make me roll my eyes.  And it hasn't been convenient to post the list here (I write as I get in bed each night).  So the journal has worked well. 


It's been fun to look at the journal itself.  It keeps falling open to pages I wrote in 2007 on our trip to Europe when we got engaged.


But, in an effort to get back into the habit of blogging and bring things back up to speed, here's a rough run down of my current "grateful list" as I sit at my desk eating lunch.


I'm grateful that we got to go on an amazing vacation for most of October, enjoying time in the Andalucía region of Spain, all over Morocco, Southern Italy, and then a final day in Milano.  The trip was one of our best ever and we honestly had trouble on the flight home trying to decide what the "low point" was (I concluded it was getting ripped off by a cab driver in Tangier (charged us the equivalent of $7 when it never should have been over $2), husband concluded it was spending as many nights in Tangier as we did, considering it was actually our least favorite part of Morocco and the nights would have been better spent elsewhere). 


I'm grateful that I still have 2 vacation days to use over Christmas!  That means my "work remotely from Italy" plan worked!  It was 100% worth it to carry my work laptop all over creation with us.  The goal was to do 50% on a Wed., and then 75% days on Thurs and Fri.  Of course the very nature of vacation in my job means there's tons of stuff that builds up when I'm gone, and I was able to easily blow through tons of it.  I actually worked the equivalent of 3 full days I think, instead of the 2 full days I'd planned. 


I'm grateful that I have a lot of job security.  While I was on vacation, my co-worker (who just started in January!!!!) gave her notice.  And her notice was basically "I'm quitting in 2 weeks, but I have some unused vacation and floating holidays, so I'm out of here next week actually."  That was horrible.  Fortunately, we were able to recruit back someone who quit a few years ago, and she'll be starting next week.  It will take some time for her to get up to speed, but far less time than it would take with anyone else we could have hired.  So right now, my main excuse for not having posted since we got back to the US, I'm basically working double time.  I'm handling all my cases, plus all of my co-worker's.  It's impossible.  I'm not really "handling" them -- I'm doing more triage than anything.  All my major reporting deadlines are passing me by and I'm powerless to even make a dent into my "real" workload -- but for the most part, I haven't horribly dropped the ball yet as far as I know.  It's scary, because years ago, when I was hired, it was a situation like this -- I was coming in to take over for someone who had left the office a few weeks earlier.  And my old co-worker (the one who quit's predecessor, who is still with the company but in a different role) was basically managing a double workload.  And she inadvertently had a lawsuit go into default on her watch.  She was notified it was served, intended to retain counsel, but failed to actually do so.  Total disaster in our industry.  We were able to work around it in the end, but I feel like it's just a matter of time until I basically do the same thing.  It's impossible and unrealistic to manage this kind of caseload, so if/when I drop the ball, I have a feeling my boss will be forgiving.  I just hope it doesn't have dire consequences.


I'm grateful that I'm running.  I wore my ankle brace religiously on vacation.  As the weeks went by, I noticed a decrease in the amount of pain and swelling (though it's still a bit swollen).  By the end of the trip, I could walk for hours with no pain at all, unless I was on any kind of side sloped surface (think walking on a sidewalk, crossing a driveway that slopes down to the street).  I went for a follow up doc's appointment, and got the all-clear to start running (wearing a brace) as long as I was pain free.  Well, running in the brace lasted all of 5 minutes.  That thing was going to blister me like no one's business.  So I'm wearing the brace for boot camp, but I'm running brace-free -- trying to stay off all sloped surfaces (frequently running in the middle of the street; luckily, not many cars at 5:15 on the streets we run), trying to avoid stepping on any kind of rock or pebble or acorn or anything else that might cause my ankle to rotate out or in.  There's some definite medial (inside) ankle pain when I get over about 6 miles.  But the places the doctor said to watch for pain (and immediately stop if there was any) were all on the outside of my ankle and a bit into my calf (where the stress reaction or fracture is).  No pain there at all, so I'm proceeding.  I ran 13.1 miles this past Sunday.  Pace was terribly slow, and I definitely would have had trouble going further, but it's miles.  The plan is still to do a marathon next weekend (WTF????!!!).  Fortunately, it's never a marathon I intended to race.  It's a girls' weekend trip, and I may do the full with my bestie if she does it and our paces line up.  I don't care if there's walking involved, I'd just like to finish.  I read Amy's post about basically doing the same thing -- running a marathon severely underprepared, but just because she can finish, and because she likes to run.  And so many people can't and/or don't.  And that's basically my attitude.  I think the race will be fun, even if it takes 6 hours.  And I don't think it will hurt me to do it (if there's "bad" ankle pain, I'll absolutely stop). 


I'm grateful that we don't have to travel for Thanksgiving this week.  I get to keep up my longest streak race (huge local Turkey Trot (over 30k people I think), 8 mile distance for maybe my 12th consecutive year?).  We are going over to my former boss's house for dinner as we've done the last couple years.  And this year, I'm going to endeavor to make the main course for me and my friend (ex-boss's wife, my former co-worker in Big Law) -- the vegducken.  Butternut squash stuffed with an eggplant stuffed with a zucchini stuffed with scallions.  Looks labor intensive but we shall see...


I'm grateful my husband is feeling better.  He came back to some work chaos as well, and (my theory...) got stressed about it, wasn't sleeping well, etc., ended up with a weakened immune system and caught an upper respiratory infection.  He was down for the count for about a week (even took a sick day, which is rare for him).  He got better, finished off the steroid pack, and then within a week or so, he felt like he was getting the same thing.  He was considering going back to the doctor, but as of this morning, he thought he was actually around the corner, making a comeback, feeling better. 


I'm grateful some family drama has resolved.  It unfortunately began last week Monday morning, and continued throughout my nearly 100 hour work week.  Lovely.  The short version:  my sister-in-law was very upset because I had asked her kids what they wanted for Christmas the first weekend of October when I was up there for the marathon that wasn't.  And then I bought them what they wanted.  And it turns out that I can't return things on Amazon after more than a month.  And it turns out what they asked me for (and what I bought) is also what they wanted from Santa.  So she was freaking the f out about it.  Which was awesome given my work hours and stress level.  She was texting me all the time about it.  Unnecessary lost sleep for me stressing about it.  But we found a solution -- she is buying the gifts from me for the kids from Santa, and she is going to shop for new gifts from me and wrap them.  Win-win.  I told her my whole point was to be done with them (and a lot of the rest of my family) before vacation, buying as much as possible small items that I could wrap here and fly home with, rather than large things I'd ship there and then have to hurriedly wrap in the days before Christmas.  But I honestly don't think our relationship wasn't harmed by all this -- I'm not a quick forgetter or an easy forgiver unfortunately.  I'm left feeling kind of bitter and unappreciated -- there was no "it's so great you did all this to make my kids happy" and there was a nasty voicemail from her telling me I "just don't understand because [I] don't have kids".  But I shall try to let go and move on...  Either way, I'm grateful it's over, resolved, done. 


I'm grateful I finally got back to writing.  Just sitting here for half an hour, checking out of the office mentally, it's nice.  Not sure I'll ever get caught up on blog posts I missed while I was gone, but at least I'm back to reading, which is always what I've liked to do.