Sunday, November 30, 2008

I Emerged Alive

I have not written for weeks mostly due to a huge drain on my time called WORK. Beginning in August and gaining intensity through September, October and into November, work commanded much of my time, attention and energy. The rest was devoted to eating, sleeping, running and the necessary support activities such as grocery shopping, cooking, laundry, and keeping on top of the bills and mail, etc.

The work involved mountains of data entry and records updating, ballot layout and proofing, equipment programming and testing, some preparation of supplies, working many extra hours and most Saturdays. The eating and shopping involved lots of quick-recipe, big-batch meals, lots of leftovers, and many stops at the store on the way home - my checkbook register says nothing but Kroger for about a month! The laundry involved making sure we had clean underwear and running clothes. The running involved less running than I wished for - I really need to work at getting more days added back in to the schedule. And I pretty much gave up going to the gym for about 6 weeks.

But that is now in the past and I am determined to quickly regain a normal routine and revive some other interesting pursuits.

The first set of activities centered around getting DRH to and from a minor surgery procedure. He is getting back to normal, but the first few days were quite a pain for him.

Of course, holiday demands do take some priority. I have dabbled in shopping for gifts, picked out Christmas cards, made some good lists, put some things on the calendar. But there is still a lot to accomplish before the lists are checked off!

Thanksgiving weekend has been nice. Thursday we spent with family and had a very good dinner. We also found out our first grandchild will be a girl. Of course, we're excited about that and for her mommy and daddy-to-be, also.

Friday I did some chores and laundry around the house, went into town for a little shopping, and went to the basketball game. Saturday I cleaned the bathroom and bedroom thoroughly including vacuuming under the bed and rearranging all my shoes. I enjoyed the outdoors, too, by going for a 5-mile run, and spending time cleaning up the dead flowers in the pots on the deck and porch, and sweeping the deck and porch. That turned out to be a good decision, because we woke up today to about 5 inches of snow covering everything! It was a heavy, wet snow - hopefully it won't stick around too long. Saturday night we had another basketball game and enjoyed the company of friends and a pizza afterwards.

Today we had church, Sunday school class for the Advent season on hymns and carols of the season, church potluck (thank goodness for canned "homemade style" baked beans and microwaves, AND that everyone doesn't make the same thing - HA), and then went to more basketball games!

No more exciting news that I can think of... but that's okay - I am glad to be back in the routine, as I said above.