well, here it is.

thirty minutes to christmas, and with nothing to keep me occupied i'm starting to feel it.

i've made almond mint fudge, and split it for keeping and sharing. i've made white chocolate cranberry fudge, and split it for keeping and sharing. i've packed up the ingredients for straight chocolate fudge and they're waiting by the door to be taken to X's house tomorrow, where i will teach X to make it after we have dinner.

my office is nearly spotless. (well, there is this one spot, you know how it goes, around the desk area... a biggish spot. but it's a biggish office, and the shelves and sitting area are nice. just this spot left, really. a pile almost. mound of stuff is probably an accurate description.)

my bathroom is lovely. so lovely i want to take a long hot bath in it, but that would lead to uti of doom, and so i have abstained. i even spent an hour sitting in the tub going over the cauking with a toothbrush and some baking soda/vinegar cleaner.

my bedroom is completely rearranged, and therefore, currently clean and tidy. there's this spot in there, though. a little hairy, four-legged spot that refuses to be cleaned up. and so there's always cat hair involved. but aside from that, the bedroom is nice.

my kitchen is even looking pretty slick. in the good way. i bought a little turkey and roasted it. and then picked the meat off and boiled the bones. i added turnips, potatoes, yams, carrots, onions, celery, lots of different squashes, some hot peppers, a tomato, and several handsful of chopped turkey. it was and is and will be delicious. and the kitchen is clean after all that. and after the fudges.

and now there's only thirty minutes left in the day and i've run out of things i can do that won't also be all-night projects. (like, say, making the living room match the other rooms, or designing this drama syllabus.)

here's to a first christmas eve without living, breathing, two-legged company in the place. and to the first christmas morning without family, too, since that's coming up in a few hours.

it's been nice to not have the silly and largely pointless pageant to attend. it's been nice to be able to stay in and not wander around shopping for stuff. it's been nice that i didn't have to pay to board my cats.

but i do miss the cookies with mom, the really loud christmas music while chopping nuts and making bread, the hurried and secretive wrapping of gifts, the walking my brother through the wrapping process again, the long sits after a meal where dad and i just talk. there's a lot of hassle that goes into christmas, but i think i might rather put up with the hassle in order to get the good things.

at the very least, i did get three days at home this season, and a lot of those good things came with it.

merry christmas, everyone.

love and peace