monique

Cookie Baking

I spent the morning baking our favorite Christmas cookies
--Santa's whiskers, butter cookies, snowballs, and little
mincemeat turnovers. I also baked two pumpkin pies. My
lists are still long. I need to make the candies, the
gumdrop cookies, M&M cookies, chocolate crinkles, peppermint
cookies and orange cookies. The tree still isn't up and I
don't know when that's going to happen as John was
unexpectedly scheduled to work twelve hour shifts both today
and tomorrow. The company is being required to install some
equipment and have it working by the end of the year and, as
usual, they waited until the last minute so everyone over
there is now scurrying around trying to get it done. It'll
probably take most of the week but John is on vacation
beginning Monday and it's protected so I know tomorrow is
the last day he'll be working before Christmas.

On Monday we'll put up the tree if we haven't already and
get it decorated, finish up the shopping and baking and try
to start getting ready for our trip. I'll have a few extra
hours on Tuesday as that's the first day John can go pick up
his ham, a Christmas gift from the company and we won't be
leaving until the afternoon. I'll do the packing and give
last minute instructions to Hugh, who will be home by
himself. What he can do and what he can't have been clearly
spelled out and he's a responsible guy so I'm sure
everything will be fine. This doesn't mean, of course, that
I don't have nightmares of returning to find a big hole in
the ground where our house once was but there are plenty of
neighbors and friends he can ask for help if he needs to and
he'll have our cell phone number.

Our trip? John and I are going to the Oregon Coast to
celebrate our silver wedding anniversary. It's been a long
time since we've been on any kind of vacation, even just an
overnight one, so we're both looking forward to it.