The Holidays

I am officially done with Christmas shopping. I still have wrapping to do, and in my niece's present's case, some cutting and tying (yes, I opted for the hand-tied fleece throw), but I don't have to leave home to do any of those things. I was able to order the Lego kit my sister-in-law wanted online, and it should be arriving this week. But my nephew isn't getting cooking lessons. His mom called me at 6:30 Thursday morning, hoping I hadn't gotten the lessons confirmed (I hadn't), because her son was begging for a particular Lego kit, which they hadn't gotten for him. I tired to order that online, as well, but it was backordered, and wouldn't ship for 30 days. And I didn't want to put a picture of it in a box, along with a note saying it was coming soon. So, I called the nearest Lego store, and bought one over the phone, to pick up. This is how much I love my nephew ~ the Lego store is inside the Ontario Mills Mall, a nightmare mall, to me. It's got 8 entrances, and it's sort of circular, but with random angles, and there are stores along the outside wall, and stores forming an inside circle. The first time I ever set foot inside this mall was with a group of friends who thought it would be fun. Heh. We got so completely lost we had to get security to help us find our way out of the mall and back to our car.  I'm so not a mall kind of person.

So, I called my sister-in-law and told her she would have to go with me to get her son's desired gift. She's as much into Legos as he is, and I knew she'd know exactly where the store was, and what entrance to use, etc. And she did. We were in and out in no time!

I have tutoring two days this coming week, and my kids and I are performing Thursday night at the school's Christmas program. (It was the upper grades' turn to do the Christmas program) We're singing three songs, no religious ones, just fun ones. "Nothing Says Christmas Like a Pair of Socks", "We Need a Little Christmas", and "Deck the Halls". My kids really wanted the Deck the Halls song for some reason. Turns out some of my kids have decided that they really, really like We Need A Little Christmas, though. I got to hear them humming it all day on Friday while they worked on other things.

So, I've got 3 days of practice, two days of tutoring, two performances (one at night for parents, one on Friday morning for the school), one party, and then, at last, two weeks off! I still have Christmas cards to write for my colleagues, and two presents to wrap up for two of the teachers I'm really close to before the end of this week, but I'm putting off any wrapping, cutting, or tying for the family until this week is over. My students, like all students, are totally wired by now, and so ready to be on vacation. It's a struggle to get them to sit still even for 5 minutes. While this is understandable, and cute, even, it still makes this last week a very stressful one, especially with the added pressure of performing in the Christmas show. I'll be off early on Friday (it's a minimum day for both students and staff), and right now I'm planning on coming straight home and going to bed.

In other news, I had to take an early afternoon at work right after Thanksgiving to get down to my local courthouse to apologize for failing to show up for Jury duty. With the sprained ankle and all, I completely forgot to call and postpone it, and further forgot that I was supposed to report bright an early the Monday after Thanksgiving. I was on my way to the car at 4:30 Monday when it hit me that I'd just blown it off. They take jury duty very seriously here, and when you don't show up, they will often come out and arrest you for failure to appear. (We had a few years where it was hard to make up a jury because of a lack of jurors, so they got really deadly serious about it.) They also don't accept most excuses for getting out of it anymore, either. Self-employed? Tough. Going to graduate school? Tough. Have small children at home? Tough. I think the only folks who get excused are military, police, and lawyers. The rest of us have to serve.  And I don't really mind it that much, to be honest. (Although I do hate the fact that I can't take my knitting into the jury waiting room. Like I'd mess up my needles and yarn to stab someone with one of the needles!) Anyway, I got down to the courthouse, and they were very understanding. They rescheduled me for early April, during my spring break, and even gave me the paperwork to get a refund on the parking fee I'd paid to get into the courthouse.  I guess it didn't hurt that I was very apologetic and willing to serve.

The only thing not going well for me right now is my sprained ankle. It should be fine by now, but it isn't. It still swells up from time to time, and it goes from pretty much pain free to nearly cripplingly painful in 2 seconds flat. I guess I'm going to have to go see my doctor about it.

I actually had some pictures to post with this blog, but for some reason, when I click the Insert Picture icon I get a URL not found message, and I can't figure out how to get around that. Oh, well. That's Blogger for you.