Hi.

Happy Christmas Eve.

Keep meaning to write here because lots of wonderful, everyday things have been taking place. But then something shiny pops up in my peripheral vision and get distracted.

Not going to school and sleeping and reading things because I want to and baking and bopping around the ATX are fab.

Baked an incredibly cute three-layer German chocolate belated birthday cake for my Love.

Finished Christmas shopping, walked some miles, ranted about tacky yard displays.

Went to help some folk move and watched in horror at pieces of furniture being moved precariously over mismatched socks and kamikaze toddler toys and down a flight of stairs.

Decorated our little Norfolk Island Pine and hung newly made-by-mom-in-law stockings on the mantle.

Made a brief past my bedtime party appearance.

Refereed numerous bouts of feline ultimate fighting between Jinx and Cat (who will henceforth be known as Skids for reasons you don't really wanna hear about) and ate my weight in homemade by somebody grandmama tamales.

Now it's Christmas Eve which means Beef Bourguignon, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, and a fire from chunks of wood collected not-so-surreptitiously from various suburbanite curbs before lawn trimming collection day.

It's a pretty great little time we're having and a really sweet life we're carving out for ourselves.

Hope your holiday is merry and bright.