Home stretch

Seriously, can the weekend take longer to get here? So. In. Holiday. Mode. Got gifts to wrap, baking that ain't getting done, epic piles of laundry...i don't have time for this work thing! But there's still a glimmer of hope for a Christmas bonus from my company, so I guess I'll hold out patience for one more day. Half day tomorrow, then we're heading out. Tonight I'll organize clothes and pack. Saturday I'll do laundry and help with food, hopefully get in some of my own baking so I can leave them with some treats since not everyone's getting gifts. We won't know until we're up there whether a) we're coming back Sunday or Monday, and b) whether Les is staying for the holiday. Since we haven't any means to celebrate it with each other, so to speak, and don't care much about the religious ramifications of not celebrating it, we're not missing anything by not being together necessarily. His family's going through a significant bit of tension and it might do them some good to have him around for a bit; we'll see...Tuesday we'll hang with my fam, then I work a half day on Wednesday and things get back to semi-normal.

I learned this season about how I'd like my pantry stocked, how I'd always like to have certain things on hand to throw together this or that on a whim. I like having a full cookie jar, though I need to investigate healthier recipes. I like making my own bread, and having fruit and veggies handy. Such simple things. So easy to neglect when it's just you and a husband...I'd never think of keeping the larder as bare as we do if there were a small person in the house with us. Ridiculous double standard.

I want to frog the virgin wool scarf and use all that yarn for knitting soakers. I want to always have a pair of socks on the needles. I want to knit a sweater for Husby and mittens and gauntlets for myself. I want to take more pictures and rearrange the dining room. These are things that are doable.

As a Celt, I try to take stock around Samhain, write resolutions, look forward and back. But we lost Jordan right before Thanksgiving, which rounded out 2007 as a suck year in my book. So I'm doing some looking forward as we hit the end of the year, but for once, it's for small, realistic goals that do right by me and my little family. I see what real debt is, and it'll give me the clarity of focus necessary to never let things get this bad again. I feel my body reacting in its small ways to the extra weight, and it'll give me the motivation to get stronger. We'll take care of Fig better, because we don't ever again want to feel the level of guilt associated with Jordan's loss. People may not necessarily change, but we do have the capacity to learn.