It’s Monday again. And December – shut the front door. I feel it, too. After months of being on the go almost constantly (or it felt that way, anyhow) I feel like I’m limping to the finish line right now, which isn’t the best recipe for Christmas spirit, but there it is. Last week was another running around kind of week – running all the way across the country, as it happens. Almost no sooner had we gotten home and unpacked from our Thanksgiving trip to Colorado, I had to pack up and head to the airport again, this time to go back to Seattle for work. I was gone from Tuesday through Friday and I had a wonderful time working and socializing with my team and other colleagues, but I was wiped out when I got home on Friday evening. I tried not to over-program us for Saturday and Sunday, but ended up running around anyway. On Saturday, Steve and I had to attend an orientation for new divers – we’re working on getting our scuba certifications and have to knock out the e-learning and pool classes in time to do our certification dives in Costa Rica in February. I’m stoked, but it’s a lot to learn. I have fifteen hours of e-learning to do before I get in the pool next weekend, and I haven’t even started. Anyway – the rest of Saturday we intentionally kept very low-key, because in the afternoon the kids had their appointment for COVID-19 vax dose #2. They did amazingly well (TOUGH kids) and we picked up our Christmas tree on the way home, then spent the rest of the day relaxing.

On Sunday, we had a laid-back around-the-house day for everyone except Mom. After a middle-of-the-night visitor (Nugget, whose arm was hurting from the vaccine) I overslept and bolted out of bed eight minutes before my Girl Scout Cookie Manager training was scheduled to begin – oh, right, did I mention I got voluntold for that job? (I don’t mind at all – happy to help Peanut’s Brownie troop in any way I can – but I’m all tied in knots about not screwing it up.) Miraculously, I somehow made it to the training only three minutes late, and after ninety minutes of information overload, I tooled over to deliver cookie order forms to the troop leaders at the council’s Cookie Rally, which was going on at the same time. (Peanut didn’t attend – she was health-disqualified thanks to traveling less than ten days before.) I spent about a half hour chatting with the troop leaders at the Cookie Rally, then rushed home to dash around pulling out Christmas ornaments and baking lemon chiffon pie and cinnamon star bread (among other sundry things) for our evening Christmas tree decorating party. As usual, I was exhausted and out of sorts by the time the party rolled around, and I snapped at everyone except Peanut for not helping enough. Jingle, jingle. The couch felt good at the end of the night.

Reading. What with business travel and all the weekend activity, I didn’t do much reading last week. Over two flights (to and from Seattle) I did manage to finish Romola (for the Classics Club Challenge), so review of that coming at some point in the next several weeks. And then over the weekend I knocked out A Single Thread, which I had out from the library. Turning to Christmas reading this week, probably – I need to get a little bit more in the sparkle spirit.

Watching. One bonus to being out on the west coast this week was getting to watch Trevor Noah on regular TV! I never manage to stay up late enough for The Daily Show in regular life, but on Pacific time it’s on at a very reasonable 8:00 p.m. I watched several episodes last week, yay! Back home, we worked our way through a small backlog of The Great British Bake-Off (backlog from two weeks of travel) and The Great Festive Bake-Off.

Listening. I’ve been in a weird music mood lately. Spent my errands driving time singing loudly along to “The Joker” and “Escape: The Pina Colada Song” on repeat. Generation Z says that earth tones and macrame are in style again, so I took a trip in the music time machine too, apparently. Otherwise – I started a short Christmas audiobook, The Christmas Hirelings, by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Richard Armitage reads it and I will literally listen to him read the phone book. Not sure about the story (yet), but – Richard Armitage, people.

Making. Ugh, I’m still stuffed after our tree-decorating party/feast. We had: a meat and cheese platter (Peanut ate ALL of the olives); pierogi; artichoke dip; cinnamon star pull-apart bread; and lemon chiffon pie. Oof. Otherwise – I made lots of work product, and packets of Girl Scout cookie order forms to distribute to Peanut’s Brownie troop. Never let ’em see you sweat.

Moving. Well, I had a good hard workout in my hotel gym one morning out in Seattle, which felt good. Other than that – a couple of runs and a lot of walking, the usual.

Blogging. Review of Framley Parsonage coming atcha on Wednesday, and back to the travel recaps with another Shenandoah post on Friday. Check in with me then!

Loving. YAY, SCIENCE! I’m so excited that both of the anklebiters have their second vaccine dose done and dusted. (And Steve and I will be getting our boosters this week – yippee!) Can’t wait for that full immunity to kick in for the kids. We’ve tried to live our lives with good risk management for months now, but this will really help. I know Peanut in particular is excited to go to the theatre again. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to the scientific community for creating this vaccine in record time, and for the sage advice of my wise and compassionate pediatrician as I talked the kids’ vaccines through with her.

Asking. What are you reading this week?