Two weeks until Thanksgiving...

What??? Seriously? Only two weeks until Santa makes his way to New York City for the Thanksgiving Day Parade and officially kicks off the Christmas season? Only two weeks?!?

I reeeeeaaaaaally need to start thinking about starting my Christmas shopping...

I've been feeling a bit extra-frazzled this week (even though I had the day off yesterday for Veteran's Day) because I made the loony decision to take on some freelance work. So even though I WAS able to sleep in yesterday (Oh, blissful sleep! Oh, slumber of the gods! How do I love thee? With fluffy pillow and cozy duvet... thou art precious, bestowed by heaven... yet much too elusive... Yeah, I like my sleep, okay? :)), um, where was I? Oh yeah -- so even though I slept in yesterday, I ended up spending the entire day working in one way or another. I not only knocked out most of my freelance job, but I also tackled some laundry, cleaned the kitchen, made lunch and dinner, wrote down a list of Christmas gift recipients (and that's as far as my Christmas shopping has gone so far...), and ran interference on a couple cats who kept trying to sneak out the front door while a guy was repainting it (a post-hail-storm repair).

Actually, Allegro DID manage to make a break for it at one point -- I noticed that she wasn't in her usual spot in her bed on the floor, and I couldn't find her anywhere downstairs. And she doesn't go upstairs a LOT, but she does occasionally, so I ran up to ask Rick if she was hanging out with him in his study. But nope, no Allegro. And then we walked out to the landing at the top of the stairs, and we could see her OUTSIDE on the sidewalk just past our front porch. Just exploring. Sniffing the grass. Checking out the rarely-seen natural world. Rick ran downstairs and herded her back inside, and then she and Piva spent the next couple hours trying to stealthily sneak back toward the open door. (What's funny is that when she was younger, Allegro probably would've been hiding under the bed because a stranger was in the house. But now that she's going on 18 years old, that cat will do ANYTHING... :))

Needless to say, sometime around 7:00 last night I realized that I'd had an entire day off, and I hadn't spent ANY time just sitting around relaxing. Which made me momentarily burst into tears... and THAT prompted Rick to suggest that we make some hot chocolate and hang out watching one of our Tivoed episodes of "House." He even stuck around and watched one of my recorded episodes of "Monk" with me (which is akin to me watching one of HIS episodes of Stargate, or Babylon 5, or Farscape, or some other sci-fi-type show... in other words, a bit of a sacrifice, and, therefore, much appreciated). Great idea, Rick -- thanks!! :)

Fortunately, I should only have about an hour of my freelance work to finish, which I'll take care of when I get home so I can FedEx the work back to Chicago. And then I just have to get through tomorrow and the weekend will finally be here (Oh, glorious weekend! Oh-- what? Too much adulation? Okay, I'll stop... for now... :))

And maybe I'll work on that Christmas shopping this weekend...