Winter Solstice Wednesday

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Actually, the solstice occurs at 12:30 a.m. tomorrow (EST) but since that is after midnight tonight, I'll count it as today since it starts with a W and today starts with a W too!

See? We don't have to have things exactly perfect in order to celebrate!

For LisaB and Lynlee, the celebration is actually more muted since it is their summer Solstice and the days will be getting shorter now for them.

But for us, Bittersweet in particular because she's the most northern SHE, the days will get longer. And yes, we notice these things - dh commented that he's looking forward to tomorrow and the lengthening days.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

My sunrise today was 7:39, sunset is at 4:22. Now I don't feel bad about waiting until 8:09 to get out of bed.

I'm still on the treadmill, only 6 minutes to go until I've been on an hour so I may as well stay on.

I had to reboot my computer after starting the treadmill so that added to my workout and then ds distracted me with news.

Apparently, although he has email stating he's working 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. on the 25/26th, he's been put in for the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift on the 25th. Once we had his schedule, we scheduled our day around it and are out of the house from 10:45 to 2:30, participating in church and singing at a free Christmas dinner for those without family. I can't cancel either of those things and their timing is set so I can't ask that they change things (obviously.)

He's not home on the evening of the 24th so we can't do dinner then, and we have the Boxing Day party so can't do dinner that night. After that, he's still working overnights but dd is off with her friends and the next day we'll be able to connect for a turkey dinner in the 20th.

My biggest problem with this is the late timing of the change and the fact that I need my freezer space and have two turkeys sitting there. Plus, leftovers were a big part of the meal plan for the rest of the week.

So it looks like we won't be having a proper Christmas turkey dinner unless ds can get the people scheduled for overnight to change to afternoon. At this late date, this is unlikely but our only hope.

Sigh.....

I just crossed over 1 hour of walking (3.11 miles) so I'm off to stretch and then shower. I really need it!

[OKay]

Good Morning!

((((Kathryn and others juggling Christmas family gatherings))))

We are doing that too, but it is mostly going "over my head". DH side of the family (DMIL in particular) are scheduling holiday celebrations to the minute. I'm to the point of saying.....go ahead and celebrate regardless of whether we are there or not. Their happiness/joy of Christmas should not be based on our family lack of schedule/presence.

ON HAPPIER subject - we are driving 8 hours today to go/come to celebration of DGD1 year old birthday!!!! This is the little one who was covered in prayers this year when she was sooo very sick. What a joy to celebrate her 1st birthday. AND there is a little extra fun in the fact that she says "NaaaaNA" when she sees me, squeals and holds her arms out for me to hold her. OH - even an 8 hour boring drive is worth that greeting!!

[BookSaver]

Good morning, villagers ~

Yes, Kathryn, I'm definitely feeling the short days. Plus yesterday's cloud cover made the inside of the house almost totally dark at 2:30 in the afternoon. For me, that gloominess is as hard to take as the cold.

I've been up since 6, even though I didn't get to bed until after 1. I'm about ready to go take a nap. I'll never make it through my shift at work if I don't get at least another hour of sleep!

I got all of the soup mixes put together last night for DMIL and duplicates for ourselves. I still need to print out the cooking directions. I'm thinking she will appreciate a large font. I'll mess with that tonight after work.

This morning so far I've cleaned the kitchen and washed all of the dishes from last night's adventures. Also posted a couple of things on FB and replied to several Emails.

That's it, I've hit the wall. Let's see if the cats are ready to go back to bed for awhile.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

As I did my floor exercises, I realized that ds switching to a 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. shift would work too so phoned him. Turns out the overnight switch isn't possible because the person he's swapping with isn't trained for days. So we still have a glimmer of hope, although if the other people are like us, they won't be able to swap. I'm slowly coming around to the idea of a change in my expectations. This is partly ds's fault, he never checked the schedule, he was going only from the email from the scheduler saying "You Rock!" when he offered to take the overnight.

I'm using my backup laptop this morning because a routine scan last night found a virus so my regular laptop (and our media centre computer) are doing boot scans now. We started the boot scan on the media centre computer before bed and it found infected files so waited for an answer from us, so it is still at 1% complete on the scan. My computer just started its boot scan so I expect it will take most of the morning. I'm lucky to have my old laptop for internet connection and I can handle emails too, just not fully (I have my received emails but I don't have my sent emails.)

Good thing I did the quicken updates on Monday so today I'm only using my computer for internet.

[Harriet]

My ddad asked for the weather report here and I had to disappoint again. Rain yesterday, today and the rest of the week, so that he can't get outside at all.

Neighbors are dropping by at 3 today, so I need to spif a bit and make sure decorations look their best. They will be bringing homemade sweets to my ddad. They had this tradition with my parents, not with us, so I don't feel I need to reciprocate and in fact will make a point to avoid stepping into a new exchange.

I keep warning HRH and dd : no food after 10 or water after 12 tonight for Tobias, who has a clinic appt tomorrow. We drop off at 8 and pick up at 5.

[Harmony]

Tobias losing his manhood, Harriet?Ooooh, Kathryn, another person juggling Christmas scheduling. OKay too.

I was on the phone with DD2 till after 1:00 this morning. She just did not want to get off. She is an extraordinarily cheery and forgiving person. She was just clueless about what all the Christmas problems were, and talked me into coming to her house first Saturday - which is what I was hoping for all along. How long we stay will be determined how I handle things with DD2, who has formalized her food plans based on what I told her under duress yesterday.

I hate perfectionism (mine and DD1's) and find lack of organization and SHE qualities annoying (DD2).

DD2 was just thinking out loud when she disinvited us at a stressful overwhelming time after several heavy working days. She has an impossible work schedule and I was trying to wait it out to see how she managed...but DD1 was having none of this waiting to see stuff. ...sigh.... now to straighten things out with DD1 which actually has me a little worried.

Good thing, if I tell DH everything's ok he'll be happy as a lark and go and do whatever I say.

Anybody else here think out loud while making plans? That's what DD2 was doing. DH does that all the time and I've trained myself not to rely on what he says right away. He's made us several houses (in his head ) even with drawing up plans...so I don't get frustrated with him much any more. Now I must train myself to do that with DD2...and the hard part get DD1 to have patience with us. Sheesh.

I simply couldn't sleep last night and ended up on the couch, have managed to get my days and nights mixed up again and boy that habit was hard for me to break, and instantly goes back to that if I have a bad night or two...

Off to wrap presents now.

[bittersweet]

Our "day" is definitely short here! Sunrise is 8:48am (MST), and sunset is 4:16pm. That gives us a grand total of 7hrs 28mins of "daylight", although there's the whole dawn/dusk thing, too. Basically, it means it's dark when I go to work, and it's dark when I head home. It does begin to change slowly...but it's hard to really notice a difference until about mid-January.

Although I got about seven hours sleep last night, I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open this morning-not sure what that's about. I'm on my second cup of coffee, but it doesn't seem to be having much impact so far. However; I have far too much to get done today to spend much (if any) time napping. There's housework to be done, a turkey to buy, errands to run, kittycat pads to sew...and if all goes well, DH and I will watch the last HP movie tonight. If I want to have a productive day, though, I'd better get moving as soon as I have my coffee. I'll be packing a few more things into the donation bag to drop off this morning, as DS wants a ride over to pick up his paycheque so he can cash it and give me money (insert evil, greedy chuckle). Since the donation place is right beside where he works, it only makes sense to combine the two errands.

One of the first things I'm going to do this morning (since the ddogs have been out, and the other furbabies have all been fed) is put away the laundry, strip down the kitten room, and get a bunch of stuff soaking in bleach solution. While that's happening, I'll vacuum in there, and do some serious bathroom cleaning. There's a ton of dirty laundry to deal with, too..so I'll gather that once the basket is empty.

We freecycled our living room TV last night, since we bought ourselves our Christmas present yesterday - a 40" flat screen TV. We're buying a PVR from a friend who just upgraded theirs, so I'll actually be able to watch some of my favourite shows when *I* want to! I'm on hold with the cable company now, so we can set up an appointment to get it all hooked up properly, and have our digital box switched for a new one. I'm seriously tired of having to call in or reset it myself, and the last time they told me that if it didn't stop screwing up, I should just call to have a service appointment, so I may as well combine that with the PVR hookup. Now.....if only they would answer the flippin' phone!!!

BBL...I'm going to answer a few emails while I wait.

[Nancy]

Getting some minor tweaks in my schedule this year I thought was going to have a greater effect on my life. Like not knitting until this past month, giving up farmville, and doing the sp food log last night.

B.S. is 205 today. That's a pretty big number , had some meds. and I'm sipping black coffee aka breakfast now.

Hubby said he just spooked off a couple of geese in our front yard. Love having the wild life around here

No Christmas turkey here this year it is not a family thing we do traditionally. We have other things like dips, fish of some sort, smoked, in a dip, or cooked up and served fresh with a salad.

Joining those of you who are on kitchen duty today I need to think about getting a batch of cookie dough made up dgkid{s?} are going to be here again today. Cookies have pretty much vanished around here I just have a few plus crumbs left. Dd took some dgd & I frosted to a cookie exchange dgson said the ones they got were really good.

s2s x
laundry x {did that up before bed last night}
granny duty has begun
sinks need attn.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Bad weather is moving in now. We didn't get the milk in time because dh forgot he had a conference call and it turned out to be an important one and ran long.

I've cleaned out the inside of the car and checked the garage door auto-reverse setting. That crosses off zone card for yesterday. Still have to do one for today. Maybe work on greasing the window latches because it is close to freezing today so not too cold.

I have my regular weekly chores to do but don't feel like doing any of them.

My scan is done and now I'm scanning my backup computer. I don't expect it to have many, if any, problems because all it is used for is Facebook, gmail and coming here while I'm on the treadmill.