It's my last day in New York before I leave for the Holiday, and I've managed to finish most of my Christmas shopping. One project didn't get finished (and I'm still deciding what to do about it), and I need to buy another thing once i get to Sheboygan, but otherwise I'm DONE.

Overall, I need to do better next year. A few things are arriving in the mail, and since I didn't order them soon enough, they'll probably arrive too late for the Christmas morning paper ripping. So sad. And I was thinking of doing Christmas cards, but they never happened either. I considered turning the idea into New Year's cards, but... too little too late, probably.

I'm getting excited; it's almost here:

ONE week until Christmas!
TWO many things left to do (and buy). (i know... too)
THREE more work days until I'm outa here.

I miss my 5 week Christmas vacation. Speaking of which... the movie of that title was on TV tonight, but it just isn't the same after they censor it. I guess I need the DVD version.

I hope I even have a Christmas vacation. The flights are pretty dang full already for the holidays. I guess I've always traveled much earlier, and have thus skipped the rush. Aww, there's three seats left; what am I worried about?

I almost bundled up to go outside for my fourth shoveling of the storm, but I decided that it can wait until tomorrow. The snow just keeps piling up; 14 inches is a lot of snow. Luckily, my Wisconsin roots have prepared me for this sort of thing.

That's where my quirky obsession with shoveling developed. I know that it's supposed to be a chore, but I look forward to it. Perhaps my parents tricked me into enjoying it; I remember jumping out of bed to get outside before my mom had shoveled all the good stuff without me.

When I moved into this apartment in June, I noticed right away that there was a shovel in our seedy little entryway. And with only three apts in the building, I knew that shoveling duties would be up to me. Nobody's going to balk at that.

So I'm a little off... get over it.

Thanksgiving weekend is nearing its end, my tummy is trying to deal with all the chocolate chip cookies that I've added to the mounds of turkey dinners already crammed in there, and I need something to take my mind off the fact that i have to return to work tomorrow morning. So I thought I'd start a blog. If my sister-in-law, Tracy, can do it, why can't I? Well, we'll see if I figure out what to do with this or not.