Can't seem to catch up

There is so much to blog about, but I barely have time to breathe these days. I'm exhausted and I'm trying to enjoy the season, which leaves little time to blog about the things I'm doing that are trying to maintain a sense of normalcy this holiday season. With that said, I'll try to get some pictures up of the following things one of these days, but for now, here is a rambling post full of bullet-points:

* We hosted our annual party for some of our good friends last weekend. I made a bunch of appetizers, which meant I was cooking half of Friday and all day Saturday, but they turned out great and it was fun living in my kitchen for awhile. The highlight for me was making mini pumpkin cheesecakes (so yummy!) and Gingerbread Snowflakes from Miss Martha. If I do say so myself, they turned out adorable!

* I've done the vast majority of our Christmas shopping this year online. I've found good deals, lots of free shipping and I haven't had to run around all over the place looking for stuff. With only 2 gifts left to purchase, my holiday shopping is almost complete. Thank God!

* I was in charge of our office holiday party for the second year in a row, after swearing that I wouldn't do it after last year's craziness. Well, now I've officially had it. I'm out for next year. It's frankly not worth the bitching and moaning from folks and the work involved in putting it all together. On the upside, I provided the holiday music and two of my worker bee co-workers who helped put the party together liked it so much that they've asked for a copy of it. :) They said it was a great mix of all those songs you hear out in the malls, but can never remember once you get home. It's such a silly thing to be proud of, but oh well. Ha!

* As of today, I know of 9, count 'em n-i-n-e people who are having babies sometime in 2009. And about half of them are close family and friends. I'm so happy for everyone, but no joke, I'm buying stock in Babies R Us! Oh, and we keep telling my mother-in-law about the babies and she finally replied with "Okay, I don't want to hear anymore about your friends babies." Implying, of course, that she'd like to hear about our babies! Hahahahahaha! Yeah, not for a loooong time, if ever.

* Instead of real babies, hubs and I are starting to consider a baby of the furry variety, namely a puppy. We have a short list of breeds we're considering and will likely head to a dog show after the first of the year to see the breeds in person, talk to the breeders, etc. Once we finally decide on a breed that would be good for us, we'll get more information from AKC breeders and local breed-specific rescue groups. Most of the dogs on our list are also known for being good therapy dogs with proper training and this is something I'm really interested in. Not only would we be giving back to the community, but we'd be ensuring we'd have a well-behaved dog in general. We're not exactly sure of the timeline yet, but 2009 will likely see us adding a furry friend to our home. Very exciting!

* Lastly, I chopped my hair. This was sort of inadvertant as I asked the stylist for a "long bob", but she didn't so much hear the "long" part. I'd been toying with the idea of going short for some time, but I didn't have the guts to go for it. It was much easier for the stylist to accidently goof, at least for me. Super easy to style and such in the morning and it's just fun to have a very different look.

And that's the long, somewhat convoluted version of what's been going on these days. Things with my dad are still sticky, but I'm trying to leave most of the crazy to the lawyer and only get involved when absolutely necessary. So far, so good. And I seem to be having more good days than bad, but I'm not sure how much of that is due to accepting what happened vs. being too busy to really take it all in. Time will tell.

Hope everyone is having a happy holiday season!