Drive-By Random Thoughts

Life has been a blurrrrrrr lately, and updating the blog has fallen by the wayside. In an attempt to catch back up a bit, here's a random accounting of activities and thoughts from the last couple of weeks:

• Work has been a whirlwind, and I'm clocking 12-15 hours a day right now, trying to keep up. I think it will settle down a bit in January, once we're done with all the year-end rush. Fingers crossed.


• I just got back from Toronto, where it snowed 3-4 inches on the city before I got out of there. Snow is so wonderful when you can look at it out your window; not so wonderful when you trudge to work in it. Still, being from the relatively warm south and spending much of my time in the tropics, snow is always a novelty, and if it's going to be frigid outside, it may was well snow to make it worth the while.


• I feel like I am way behind on Christmas shopping. Truth is, compared to the short list I'm buying this year, I'm not. But compared to what I bought last year, I am. I feel a bit like Scrooge -- I've been trimming down my list, sending more cards than gifts. But it's sort of the mode in these economic times. Conspicuous consumption is a bit gauche right now anyway.


• Current Christmas plans are up in the air. Plans to spend it with my parents have been dashed due to a flu bug at their house. We may not go now. If not, it's just my husband and I, and no gifts to boot! So we're thinking of being creative this year -- midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, a volunteer gig to pass out holiday meals on Christmas Day. And as for cooking, I think maybe I want to do something like research what a traditional Christmas meal is in Italy, and try to recreate that here. Something completely different, but perhaps establishing a new tradition for us. I'm sort of in the mood to break with the old and bring in the new. I must say that not rushing around to over-buy Christmas gifts this year has been refreshing. Perhaps some good things will come out of this bad economy; perhaps we'll get back to finding meaning in non-material things, and we'll find more joy in the giving of our time to others and in the little things. I'd really like to see that happen.


• Finally, I have managed to work off the extra five pounds I put on during the summer by being lazy, eating too much frozen custard and starting on some new BC pills (which I think is the real culprit). It's odd, because I've lost the poundage during the holiday season and while working for 12+ hours a day, a set of circumstances that usually has me finding the 5 pounds, not losing it.


• I have been eating a lot of sushi lately -- perhaps too much. I need to cut that back to once a week, as I'm hearing about avid sushi lovers getting too much mercury from it (Jeremy Piven), and that's a really bad thing.


• Parents all around me are starting to fail healthwise, including mine. My husband's mother, my neighbor's dad, my parents....all starting to feel their age. I fear that some of them won't be with us for long, but also the road ahead will be difficult for us all, as we struggle to help them with their health issues. Thirteen years ago, my husband's father fell over dead out of the blue (heart), and while that was a shocker, I'm starting to think it might be preferred to the deterioration of health as they get into their 70s & 80s. Sometimes I think maybe we just weren't meant to live so long.

• My shitzuh is the cutest boy ever. For some reason, he has become my constant companion lately, following me around the house at all times. Suddenly, he' s a mama's boy, and that's okay by me.

• I am in a mental panic over the first few months of next year. We still have some ugliness going on with my husband's business that has collapsed, and it is likely to peak in March '09. I am trying very hard to hang on mentally and financially to get through it all. I don't talk about it much...I try not to think about it much....because it sends me into a tailspin, and I have to continue to be functional to get us through this. I have to say that it's amazing what life throws at us and what we can actually bear. I hate the challenge this has presented, but I am thankful for the strength I am able to find. It's terrifying yet interesting to explore the boundaries of what one can handle and still be able to function. I thank God every day for the strength and the blessings He provides. He is the only reason I am still here and halfway sane, given some of the events of the last 18 months that I do not ever speak of here.
• I must remember to pick up my dry cleaning tomorrow. Note to self.
• My brother and his wife are in Europe for Christmas -- Germany at the moment. It's odd turnabout. I am usually the jetsetter, and he's the one at home. But not right now. Not this year.
• Tomorrow is Monday, the start of a holiday week, and I hope enough people have already started their vacation that it starts to lighten the workload for the rest of us who haven't. Please let the emails slow down!!

And with that....I must sign off for now.