Christmas is Here??????

To begin, I honestly can't believe its almost Christmas already. I've been living my life in a haze of stress lately, and the time has just flown by for me. Its almost surreal in a way how I can't wrap my mind around the reality that Christmas is 4 days away. All of my Christmas chores are finished, thankfully. My gifts are bought and wrapped. Updating this blog has been on my list all week, and I'm just now starting on it at 12:06 AM Friday night.

I'm leaving Saturday morning for the six hour drive to West Virginia to spend time with the family. I haven't packed yet, but that's nothing new so no big deal. My Christmas just isn't the same if I'm not in my home state surrounded by family. I am very fortunate to be able to travel to see them as often as I do, but Christmas really is the most important time for us all to reconnect.

To recap my December, let me start with the two shows that I was lucky enough to get to see this month. We were treated by our friends in honor of Daniel's birthday to a performance of the One Man Star Wars Show. It was hilarious, and Charles Ross is a very talented actor. If you're interested just look him up on youtube. You won't be disappointed. I also attended a performance of the Nutcracker with my friend Evelyn. It was magical and I'm so glad that I finally got to go here in Louisville. The orchestra was fantastic as always. I think the best part for me was watching all the little ones enthralled by the performance on stage. It definitely brought back memories of my first Nutcracker performance, and it made me even more excited that I may have the pleasure of taking my own children one day.

We had a wonderful gathering of friends tonight for a Secret Santa gift exchange and a cookie exchange. It was a great time. And we have some good news to share. Our good friends Marie and Anthony are now engaged. He proposed to her at the party. Of course she said yes! They deserve happiness more than anybody I know, and now they've found it in each other. I know they will have a strong and happy marriage that will endure for the rest of their lives.

The cottage is officially a Christmas wonderland. I am very appreciative of my mother in law, as she came over and helped me make some very nice arrrangements to make my decor even more festive. I took the photos with my new ultra cool digital camera. I'm very happy with the way they came out. I'm still learning how to use it with its many buttons and gadgets, so we all can look forward to many more good photos in the future.

One of these days, I'll get to just sit back and enjoy December and relish the holiday season for the joy that it brings. Maybe I'll get this respite when I'm 80, because I don't see it happening in the very near future.

As for updates on the home improvement projects, we have finally finished the painting in the living room. It looks awesome, and I'm so proud of us both for being patient enough to work with each other. You can see the portions of the paint job in the pictures. Also, we are planning something big in regards to the floorplan of the house. Those details will be forthcoming however, as it is very involved. Let's just say that we're finally going to have a formal dining room to appropriately host some dinner parties for our friends.

The picture to the left is not my first attempt at snapping a decent photo of both our dogs together in one shot. Trying to shoot these two is next to impossible. You get one to sit and the other is jumping all over you or vice versa. This was the only shot I got that wasn't blurry. I think they are conspiring against me because they don't want their photo taken. Kind of like those people that always put their hand over their face when you're trying to take a snapshot of them.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas. I hope to have another entry up by New Year's, so I won't wish anyone a happy one yet. If you are traveling please drive safe. We all want our loved ones to arrive safely at their destination.

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. ~Norman Vincent Peale