Detente.

I have a cold in my head, and you know I'm not happy about that, but other than that we're having a lovely holiday. Scott and Carolyn and the boys are staying with us, Rich's parents were here for a couple of days, and Rachel brought Maddy over, so we've had everybody together!

The weather is oddly warm, so all the ice is melted off of the front steps! I don't know how long it will last - I heard that it might get really cold tonight, and in that case the steps will ice over again. That's how they are all winter, because there is a little slanted roof over the steps, and the sun melts the snow from the roof during the day, causing water to drip down onto the steps, then the water freezes at night, and we have icy dangersteps!

Soren was very afraid of the dog when they first came to stay, but he is so used to having the dog around now, that he is actually sitting next to Sonny on the rug right now, playing with Legos. They aren't playing together, they are ignoring each other, but it's peaceful.

In which I am tired of listening to the radio in my head.

We had some big snow today! I went out to lunch with RA, and when we started out there were a few light flakes in the air, but when we came out of the restaurant, there was some real snowfall going on, and as we went to do a couple of errands, it was snowing more and more.

It was coming down heavily when we got back to my house, so I asked Rich if he would drive Kim and I to get a Christmas tree, because he is the one you want driving if you have to go out in bad weather!

We went to the grocery store to buy a tree, because we are cool like that, instead of going out to a tree farm and riding in a wagon and cutting something ourselves, like Some People do (Sarah), and the trees in front of the store were all snowy and pretty! It was very festive!

Since it was all snowing and whatnot, we went inside and bought some staples - bread, milk and Diet Pepsi - just in case we got snowed in! The probability of getting snowed in was looking pretty high by the time we left the store, and I was glad we didn't have far to drive.

It kept on snowing all afternoon and evening, and it is deep out there, I tell you what! While I took my evening nap, Rich had been outside shoveling around my car and cleaning it off so I could drive to work, but I had to scrape the windows again before I could drive it.

Kim goes to college in the Southern part of the state, and she was laughing about how surprised her friends down there would be if they saw all this snow! She's going to take pictures tomorrow to send down to them.

What I'm reading today: Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett. Still have The Shortest Way to Hades by Sarah Caudwell for bedtime reading.

What I'm knitting today: I re-knit the thumb in a mitten for Rich, and I was very gratified that he asked me to do it. He doesn't appreciate handknits as much as I wish, but he really likes this pair of mittens for wearing to walk the dog. They are double-stranded mittens knitted in the Spruce pattern from one of Robin Hansen's books, but I didn't have the pattern handy, and I wasn't sure I could match the yarn, either, so I just ripped back a few rows, picked up the stitches and knitted the top of the thumb in solid green. The original thumb was green and white.

Tonight at work I'm making the first of a pair of fingerless mitts for myself. I like wearing fingerless mitts, and I started this winter with three pair and now I only have one pair. One pair was loaned to someone, and then I lost one of the other pair. It's okay, they are a fast thing to make.

What I'm humming today (and wish I wasn't!): I'm so tired of Baby It's Cold Outside! It's been playing on the radio in my head for two weeks and I'm so very sick of it! The first time I heard it this year was in a delightful video clip from Glee (I hate that show, but I have a crush on Darren Criss), and I've been humming it ever since! Make it stop! I wasn't actually humming it today until I read my sister Sarah's journal and she was complaining about that particular song, and that started it all again. Thanks, Sarah.

In which there is cake and my phone gets all sticky.

Oh man, I ate so much cake! Rachel made a beautiful layer cake, chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and served a huge piece to me on a plate that had been drizzled with raspberry syrup, and I ate the whole big piece! It was really good, but I think I will never be able to eat cake again.

She made the cake because Rich told me tonight as we were leaving the house how much he wanted to eat some cake, and I ran back and grabbed a can of Hershey's cocoa to take to Rachel's with me. I checked the back of the can, and yes, there it was, the recipe for chocolate cake, and for chocolate frosting!

Rich dropped me off at Rachel's, carrying my can of cocoa and also bearing a bowl of quinoa salad. Rachel and Ash are making an effort to have dinner every night, sitting down at the table, and this was day one of that new plan. They grilled chicken, made rice, and salad, and I brought the quinoa salad I made - it was a wonderful dinner.

Then I played with the baby while Rachel made cake. I had a lovely time, and the baby was so much fun! She did get my phone all ooky, and I just had to clean it up because the keys were too goobery. Yuck.

So that was my night, and Rachel sent home a huge slab of cake for Rich. He was very grateful and enjoyed it muchly.

What I'm thankful for today: I'm so glad that I finished my class last week so that I am unencumbered by finals this week and can be free to talk everyone else off the ledge while they finish their finals!

What I'm reading today: I just got Making Money by Terry Pratchett from the library today and brought it to work to read. Also, I'm in the middle of What the Dickens, by Gregory MacGuire, and my bedtime reading is The Shortest Way to Hades by Sarah Caudwell.

What I'm knitting today: Still working on the first sock of a pair of man's grey socks. Men's feet are so big! It takes forever to finish the foot!

When I'm going to put up my Christmas tree: When Kim gets home from college, and not a minute before, and I consider the week before Christmas to be still a bit too early! When I was a kid, my parents put the tree up on Christmas eve after we were in bed, and that is, in my opinion, the perfect time! When we got married and Rich wanted to put up the tree two weeks before Christmas, I was shocked! I have compromised through the years, but a week before Christmas is as early as I can go with it, and it comes down on New Year's Day! (I will probably buy the tree tomorrow, though.)

In which we find that dogs don't like to potty in the snow.

It's winter, I'm bored, I'm done with Intro to Chem, and so now it's time for me to do what I do every winter - go to the movies! I do this every year - always start to feel like I never get out of the house, and I tell Rich we have to go to a movie every Saturday, and then we go, maybe two or three Saturdays, before I forget or we can't find anything that we want to see and that's the end of it.

This weekend we finally went to see The Deathly Hallows. Yes, I know, we are the last ones to see it, but I can't go on opening weekend because there are too many people, and then I was busy studying, blah blah woof woof, and now I've seen it. I liked it very much. The kids get more attractive every year (especially those Weasley twins, yum!), and why did no one mention all the lovely knitted garments they wear in this movie? There were a couple of things I would really like to make!

When we came out of the theater, it was raining and cold, but as the evening went on, the rain turned to big wet flakes of snow, and then it just went on snowing all night! When I went to work, all the maintenance guys were out plowing the parking lots, and they kept at it all night.

It was so snowy that church was cancelled, and I was happy about that, because I was so tired, and I just wanted to go to bed! When I woke up, Rich made a fire in the fireplace, and I made a pot of chicken noodle soup for supper. I love a snow day!

In which I did not fall apart, but someone else did.

Whew, the chemistry final is over! Afterward I was supposed to meet Diane to go sell back our books and then take Rachel to lunch as a thankyou for tutoring us through it, but after I had been waiting for an hour, Diane came out of the classroom where we had been taking the test, and said she was going to stay to double-check her answers! She had already been taking the test for three hours!

I went home to meet Rachel, who usually drives when we go out, because she has the carseat for Maddy in her car. We went to the restaurant and had just gotten seated when Diane called. She sounded so crazy, and was ranting about the test, so I went into Calming Mode, and talked her off the ledge, because hey, that's what I do.

Once she settled down, she came to join us at the restaurant, and after lunch I did some shopping with Rachel and Maddy and then entertained Maddy while Rachel got a haircut.

Now that Intro to Chemistry is over, I have to start working my way through the Intermediate Algebra book during Winter Break, because Rachel says the reason I have so much trouble with chemistry is because I don't know algebra. For crap sake, who knew I'd ever need it for anything?

In which I have lost the will to study.

Yes, it's true. I did suggest to a couple of people that we do Holidailies again, but it was already December 4 when I thought of it, which is a bit late to get started. I was studying for the Everlasting Chemistry class at the time, so I emailed three people that I thought might be interested in posting every day, and scratched some notes on a scrap of paper to remind myself of what I had done for the first three days of the month, but then I went back to doing equations and forgot all about it. Until today, when Sarah said she was doing Holidailies at my suggestion, and guilted me into making an effort to post something.

So I found the scrap of paper that I made the notes on - I was surprised at how unhelpful the notes are! Here is what they said:

• Dec. 1 - Test in Chem. Compared grades.
  
• Dec. 2 - Day off - did what?
  
• Dec. 3 - Beans, handbells, snow.
  
• Dec. 4 - Practice problems. Dog in snow! Top Gear. Shoveling out a spot.
  

And now it is three days later, and I'm wondering what I can possibly make out of those cryptic notes!

I have spent the last few days reviewing stuff for my Chemistry final, and going to Rachel's to work on things that you'd think I'd know by now. She has been so helpful and kind, but I'm beginning to see cracks in her veneer and I'm wondering if she is breaking up under the strain of pulling me through Chemistry like a dead seal.

I'm feeling pretty much at the end of my rope also, and I have that flatlined, brain dead feeling you get when there is just nothing else you can learn, and if you keep trying to push stuff in one end of your brain, then things will fall out the other end, things that you don't want to lose, like important memories of your life or what pie tastes like.

So I've done all the studying I can do and tomorrow is the final and I don't even care about it anymore. I'm going to get in bed and read and knit and warm up my cold toes, because hey, it is only 11 degrees outside!

Tomorrow I will be done with my final and I can write about something else. Something maybe more interesting...