Week 51 - Last Full Week

It was a busy week, both at work and at home, and the last full work week before break. Needless to say, it flew by.

I started the work week with 3 zoom meetings on Monday morning. Then I got the long overdue unemployment bill so that started a flurry of allocations, which take a chunk of time. I had zoom meetings on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday on top of our 3X/week team meetings. I think everyone was trying to finish things before Christmas and lots of people would be burning vacation time next week so this week was crammed full. And I jam packed my Wednesday on campus too.

We were having another party but this one was for our door decorating contest. Cindy, Lana and I were on deck for it all again. We were doing Christmas cookies and a hot chocolate bar for most of our building. I was in charge of cookies so had recruited bakers and made 2 kinds myself on Tuesday - brownies at lunch and Scandinavian almond bars after work. I loaded up the car for another busy day on campus.

We set up the conference room in the morning then I went to lunch with Dodie at our new place - Bison Witches. The door party, which started at 3:00, was a success and after we cleaned everything up, I had to bolt because I'd scheduled a shingles shot at CVS at 5:00. $215 and a sore arm later, I headed home for the 3 hour Survivor Finale. It wa a long but fun and productive day.

We had more weather but this week it was RAIN! We're 9" short on rain this year and I can count the rain we've had since May on 1 hand so it was wonderful to hear the rain on the roof when I woke up Tuesday. It rained most of the day and we got >1/2", which we desperately needed. I had book club Thursday night, which was rescheduled because of weather last week, and we had a great discussion. The next book is my pick - The Perfume Thief by Timoth Schaffert, who teaches at UNL. I've read most of his books and am looking forward to reading this one, which takes place in Paris.

I was busy right up until the end of the day Friday and when I zoomed with Cindy, she started working on me to go with her to a funeral. Our friend Nora's mother in law had died and since Cindy is related to her, she was going and wanted company. Betty had been to a couple of my July 4th cookouts back when I hosted them and Cindy laid the guilt on thick so by the end of the day, I'd agreed to go. It was in Cedar Bluffs (a small town 15 miles north of Wahoo) at 11:00 and the deal was that I'd go if we could go to Fremont afterwards for an Aldi run. 

After my Saturday morning chats with friends, I found some corduroys to wear and Cindy picked me up. Nora was happy to see us and we chatted with her during the lunch afterwards in the church hall then headed to Fremont. Before Aldi, we hit Thriftology and they were having a $5 bag sale so I filled a bag with all kinds of goodies, including a Christmas gift for my sister for Christmas 2023. Score! Then we did our Aldi run before Cindy dropped me back home. Despite her guilting me into going, I was glad that I did.

I didn't have many chores to do and did a quick clean up first thing in case Lorri stopped after church (she didn't) so had the entire afternoon to relax, a.k.a. stream and knit. The upcoming week was a short one and Lacey had made Wednesday on campus optional so I was in for the duration. We had some frigid weather coming so I was happy to be home with a fully stock larder ready for Christmas. Less than 4 days to go and before the ever blissful winter break. I'm so ready! Here's a picture of my little tinsel tree in my front window. Happy holidays!