Our party starts in less than 16 hours. A tree sits out in the entryway. The makings for party food are in the kitchen and a list for the farmers’ market has been formulated. Our stuff is starting to be bagged up to hide in the bedroom tomorrow. (No one peek in there, okay?)

I’m looking forward to tomorrow night, when we’ll be able to look back on a fun evening with friends.

Talk to you then!

It’s late at night or early in the morning, depending on your perspective. I’ve just given the cats more food, so they’re up prowling, but until recently, I was the only one up. Jer was in the bedroom making sure Rudi got some sleep so he’ll be awake during our drive out to the tree farm. Posey and Della would prefer it if I’d point out that they were keeping me company in the living room, eager to help out if they could. Posey, in particular, did periodically pop up to chase away an errant plastic milk ring or packing peanut that looked threatening.

I appreciate her efforts to keep me on task.

So far in the cleaning process, we have found:

• The keys to my car and my parents’ house, which I’ve been missing for a year
• The necklace I bought from Carli that’s been AWOL at least six months
• Rudi’s SmarTrip card, which we’d thought was gone forever
• A bunch more things we’d misplaced, including souvenirs from our trip to France last year

I’d say that’s quite the success, wouldn’t you? Although if we turn up Rudi’s old iPhone in a bag somewhere, I will cry…

The Burrow is still a mess, but the layers of mess are getting thinner and are moving away from the edges toward the center, which I think means we are making progress. I remarked to Rudi tonight that even if we got rid of nothing else from the apartment before the party that I thought we’d have done better than we did last year.

And the best news of all? The party is in 36 hours, so there is limited time left for me to write further about the cleaning process.

I knew you’d be excited.

Oh, I meant the apartment, not this post, but still…

• Our drive home was much more successful than our drive up. Well, technically both were successful because we did reach our destinations, but the return trip was five hours shorter… Rudi really trucked it on his portion of the driving, but I’m taking some credit because I drove a bit further so he could have a longer nap.
• Yes, we are still cleaning the apartment. Tonight we emptied two huge boxes of stuff, as well as dealing with some other stuff. Plus I found a book that I’ve been meaning to return to the friend who was kind enough to lend it to me last year and a couple tops I’d misplaced. There’s still a ways to go, but it does feel good to see bags of recycling walk out the door each night.
• Our tree-trimming party is in five days. Five!
• I’m not excited by any of the books I’m currently reading nor by any of my knitting. Probably that’s just as well, given the aforementioned two bullets.
• We’re going to the movies tomorrow night to see the new George Clooney airport movie. It’s done by the same guy who directed Juno, so I’m hoping for something equally lighthearted and sweet. I’ve seen the soundtrack, so it definitely has that going for it already.
• I’m taking part in the 2009 Virtual Advent Tour later this month. Each day, several bloggers from around the world will share something related to their holiday celebrations. It was such fun to read everyone’s contributions about their holidays last year, so I’m pleased to be able to be a participant this year.

  Now I just need to figure out what to write about when it’s my turn on the 22nd… Any ideas?

• Today marks 30 days of consecutive posting. I’m planning to keep it up through December, but I will stress less about it if I fall asleep without writing. This month when that happened, I forced myself to get up to blog. That’s just silly…

Yet another nice day of vacation!

When Rudi and I overslept this morning, rendering it impossible for us to head south for breakfast out, I thought the day was sunk. Instead, it turned out to be a lovely Saturday.

Not heading to Middletown meant that I could start the day with a warm shower and breakfast. Tunes cranked, I pointed the car eastward to meet Karen for lunch in Pomfret.

We spent the afternoon exploring Putnam, a mill town that offered us a nice book store and yarn shop, as well as a charity shop and comic book store. A wide footpath hugged the river, and we spent an hour walking beneath blue skies and through hat-stealing winds. Afterwards, we returned to Pomfret to the Vanilla Bean for a tasty lunch and a less blustery opportunity to chat. When the sun sat low on the horizon, we agreed that it was probably time to part ways.

Rolling hills accompanied my drive westward. The horizon offered a gorgeously changing panorama, with mauve clouds giving way to salmon. The last vestiges of sunset disappeared into twilight as I pulled into my folks’ driveway.

Mum and I spent the evening making Christmas cookies, the dough for which Mum had prepared while I was out. We make a good team, as I don’t mind the rather tedious job of decorating spritz cookies and Mum is a seasoned pro at getting the cookie shooter to give us recognizable shapes most of the time. It’s necessary to sample the wares along the way because, of course, we’d hate for anyone else to end up with inedible cookies!

The night concluded with pizza and a Christmas movie in front of the fire.

It might not have been a perfect day, but it was pretty darn close and one I’m not likely to remember forget for quite a while.

Today was another nice day, although the weather was typical New England November dreariness. Gramma and I ventured out today to shop for Christmas, but only she came home with a lighter wallet. I looked, but didn’t buy anything.

Did you venture out? Or did you stay inside where it was nice and cozy and play board games or watch Christmas movies?

The evening was quiet, a nice contrast to the blustery wind that had picked up as the rain ended. We ate leftovers (including more delicious pie!) and played pool and dozed early and often. You can’t argue that we aren’t getting adequate rest during this trip…

To balance, Rudi and I are planning to get up early and head out for breakfast together before parting ways so that Karen and I can meet for lunch. The evening may hold cookie baking or movie watching or something else equally festive and relaxing.

I hope your Saturday is equally as pleasant. Have a great one!

Rudi and I will be driving up to Connecticut in the morning. It’ll be nice to see friends and family, but I’d feel so much better if things here weren’t so … undone.

I meant to get more things taken care of this evening, but I just don’t know where the time went. I suppose when you don’t get home until after 8 and you don’t eat dinner until 10 there just isn’t that much night left, is there…?

Ah, well, there’s always the morning for me to be ultra-productive during. I’ll be asleep, but that shouldn’t stop me, should it?

Safe travels to all those headed to loved ones for the holidays…