Christmas was good. Kadie woke up entirely too early, but she didn't start tearing into packages until we were all downstairs (which still happened faster than I had planned). After ripping into a package, she would inspect the goods and then hand them to me to open while she very tidily picked up all the paper scraps and put them in the garbage … don't know where that came from, but it was nice to not have to declare my living room a disaster zone. After everything was opened, we sat down...

We've been busy, busy, busy here. I'm getting over a very nasty cold that, thankfully, did not turn into much else. Also, very thankfully, it hasn't spread to Jeff or Kadie. Both Jeff and I are racing against deadlines at work but I got good news yesterday...my company is allowing us to have the 24th off as a paid holiday! Yea! I'm looking forward to a couple of days off (besides the 24th, 25th and 1st, I'm taking the 31st off as well) and a week or so of quieter days in the office (with...