FRIDAY FINISH LINE

[Twins' Mom]

Good news! I talked to dbro and there is another pair of glasses at mother's house, so I will pick those up and deliver them to her. He is going to go with me for lunch with dmom on Monday too.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Cards are done but have to be delivered. That's another 33 done. And all of those have been invited to the Boxing Day party (although only 20% of them will likely come.)

I'm going down to pick up the mail and drop off the cards for staff. Then I'll come up and start delivering.

[LadyMaverick]

Gingerbread houses are done. They are ugly (IMHO) but no one here cares. The kids are thrilled with their efforts.....as well as eating candy while decorating the houses.

Lunch was chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, cucumbers and cole slaw. I have made the dough for pizza tonight. It is in a bowl to rise. I'll punch it down and knead it in a couple hours and then let it rise again.

We had Plan C but it has fallen apart due to weather. We have rain falling and it is 30F which means everything above ground is covered with ice. It looks like we will not see DSon and family until after Christmas.

The kids are playing well together. They are building a town in Minecraft. I'll let them continue until they "forget" their manners with each other. When they get cranky then I'll separate them.

[helia]

Goals 2 and 4 accomplished; goals 1 and 3 have made progress. I'm done shopping for the entire C family, Ds, and dd19. Perhaps also dd22, I'm not sure. I need to get one more thing for dd19's friend K, and I need to get dh something. I know one gift, but it's not very pricey, not that he cares about that. I'll need to figure out something else as well. . . . . I finished the long distance packages a couple weeks ago. 2 packages have been sent, and we'll bring my parents gifts with us when we travel there next week.

Main goals for today:
1. Finish Cmas shopping, if possible. . I've done all I can do, and now, I need to make a trip to the mall.
X 2. Airport run to pick up dd19 and friend K around noon. K is from Taiwan and will be staying with us for 2 weeks. She's been one of dd19's roommates for the past year and a half.
3. Get the room ready for dfriend K; this may be finished after she arrives here.
X 4. Get Maia's food from the vet; I've already called so it should be waiting for me.

As soon as dd19 and K arrive home, I'm going to drop them off at dd22's fav bubble tea place on campus en route to downtown, where I'll get one gift for dh. If I can stop by Walgreens and WF later today, I can finish up shoe gifts and K's gift! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! Then, I'll need to wrap the gifts. Dd19 wants to watch a LOTR movie, one of which I have traditionally put on to keep me company while I wrap. It'll be nice to have some company. I have the extended versions of all 3 films.

[CathyS]

I was vacuuming the back hall right in front of the door and saw dh on the other side. Backed up to let him in and he said he is home for his holidays. That was around 2 ish... because I had just gotten off the computer thinking I had 3 hours until dh got home and maybe I should finish a few things.

Supper is reheating and it smells so good. I used the potato masher to squish the potatoes.

Dh is watching a very old episode of Batman and I have been surfing.

Dh just mentioned that his best friend might be popping over tonight. They made a pact many years ago to not exchange gifts at any time for any reason.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Dh delivered the cards for our building while I did the staff and then flipped the laundry. We then walked over to the store. Our high street was backed up badly with traffic blocking the intersection to cross to get to the grocery store. While we were assessing our options, I mentioned we still had to get dsil something so we walked the half mile to that store. Along the way, I kept my eye on certain cars and we made it on foot to the store before they were able to drive to it!

We walked back to the grocery store, deciding on what we'd have for dinner. Then I picked up the last items I need for tomorrow's cooking-fest and as we were leaving realized I'd forgotten the meat for dinner. Thankfully, the store had every cash register open so there were no lineups.

I'm at 9500 steps for the day so am pleased about that.

I still have the cards to the other buildings to deliver. I'll do that after dinner. I also have something to take over to the RA storage locker.

[Nancy]

I painted some replacement signs for the trading post. Had em here just did not get to it before so now seemed like a great time. H will attach two of them to a stick and branch. One I noticed I did upside down will need redone.

Payroll beginning now. They both have had dinner & napped. The youngest one is cutting eye teeth. Broth through a straw helped with his sore throat a bit of a cough. On the home stretch now.

Did one load of laundry.

[lucylee]

Racing here — but the finish line IS in sight, isn’t it?

I really didn’t have much Christmas to do — just one last *** I THINK *** trip to the grocery store.
Also went to the bank.
Mostly, I’ve been on the phone all day — called a dear dear friend I have not talked to in YEARS. Sixteen years to be exact... we last saw each other at another friend’s funeral...
But we exchange Christmas cards and when I got hers today, I just wanted to talk to her. Lots of sad things we had to catch up on, but so good to talk to her.

Have talked to dmom (3 Times) but the third was at the request of dcrazy uncle... also talked to him (twice.)

Reconciled checkbook.

Third load of laundry in.

Whew!
Waving to EVERYONE!

[Lilac]

CathyS, I love cabbage, potatoes and ham with butter on it. Yummy.

I woke up at 6:30 and bs was low. Took me awhile to get going but I did get the basement cleaned. After an early lunch, I showered and went to buy groceries. I had planned to only go to WM and the grocery store but WM didn't have any of the hams that I was wanting. So went to Sam's and they had no hams because they had marked them down earlier this week. So came home and hauled in the load from Wm. Then I decided to go to the small Wm on west side of town and low and behold, they had the brand of ham that I wanted. Since I was on the west side of town, I decided to go to that grocery store. We have the 2 WMs and then 2 of the other grocery store, plus Sam's. They had everything on my list so I didn't have to go to the other grocery store, but I still hit 4 stores for groceries. The big WM and Sam's were super busy.

Will try to get back here later, but need to eat something and start wrapping gifts.

[blessedw2]

hi! finally back! I also found the Wis badger sweatshirt!
house nothing - errands check
good night all

hi d lilac! hope you have a great evening

hi d lucy wow lots of family phone calls - Yay on getting checking reconciled and 3rd laundry washing themselves

hi d nancy good luck on payroll

hi d kathryn yay on being at 9500 steps

hi d cathy! hope you had fun having dh home early!

hi d helia yay on getting goals done!

hi d lady yay on getting gingerbread houses done

hi d twins yay on your d brother finding another set of glasses

hi d harmony welcome back from shopping

hello to all.