With all the activity we've been up to over the last while -- work continues to be busy, and the new house is keeping us hopping -- it's been easy to ignore the holiday looming up on the horizon. No cards have yet been written, and few gifts have been purchased. The Christmas muzak in the stores and the decorations all over the office buildings haven't even made an effect this year. I think it's because most of them went up at the beginning of November, when thinking about Christmas was clearly ridiculous. It being December 4th, it's no longer ridiculous, but now starting to get a bit scary -- there's not a lot of time to get ready!

On the plus side a lot of things have been falling into place in the last week. At work we finally have the go-ahead for the next phase of work, which is a huge relief. Now we're in the fun "design" phase of the project, which is where we have the most opportunity for creativity and to come up with workable -- or maybe unworkable -- designs which will carry us through the next few months. I'm building a new project plan which is complicated but actually kinda fun as well in a perverse kind of way.

At home things are good as well. Anne turns out to be a total expert at the whole installation-of-blinds thing. My skill lying in other areas -- setting up the home theatre being the point in question at the moment -- I've pretty much abandoned the blinds stuff to her, and with minimal fuss though some muscle pain she's come through in spades. We are now able to change clothes without flashing the neighbours, which makes a nice change, for them as well as us.

We knocked a couple of other tasks off the list last weekend as well. First, we made the decision to keep the slightly oversized fridge we'd purchased for the basement. With a restocking fee of 20-30% (depending on who you spoke to at Home Despot) it was going to be expensive to get another anyway, and a kind friend pointed out that all we needed to do was switch around the hinges on the cupboard door (or remove the door altogether) and the not-being-able-to-open-the-cupboard-because-the-fridge-is-in-the-way problem would magically disappear. Big win. Second, we also drove out to Georgetown as planned and ordered us a dining room set. It should arrive sometime in January, which will be great!

'Tis the season to be frazzled....
posted by Tom at 5:50 PM | link |