There’s no shortage of days in November, no lack of days that I could have been writing, but didn’t. November days all seem to blur together in one gray, cloud-covered, drizzly blur. Today was no exception.
A few weeks ago, we had so much work we were drowning in it (not waving, but drowning), and I sent out an email to all the marketing people both in Corporate and out in the regions to give them a heads-up that we were really slammed and could they please 1) give us more than 1-2 days deadline on their requests and 2) be patient, we’re going as fast as we can. I send out these emails at least a few times a year when we start feeling really overwhelmed with work and usually it helps for a week or so. But since I sent out the last one, the number of job requests we’ve had in our ticket system has literally slowed to a crawl. I think we had less than 50 tickets all WEEK, when 50 tickets is usually a ho-hum afternoon’s worth. One of my teammates actually asked me this morning if we should maybe send out a follow-up email to say it was okay to send in jobs, whereat all the rest of us went, “Noooooooooo, no, it’s fine.” I suspect it’s the calm before the (holiday) storm. Typically, we get slammed right before the end of the year with everyone wanting all their stuff done before THEY go on vacation. You do realize there are only 32 days left until Christmas, don’t you?
Our closet was almost officially finished on Tuesday this week with the arrival of one last piece of Elfa shelving (a clothes rod holder). The closet is AWESOME now. I know, I know, it’s a closet. But it’s beautiful! It’s only almost officially finished because Anders is still building a wooden box cover to hide all the pipes that stick out of the floor against one wall (they’re for the floor-heating system). He’s got it built, but still has to paint it. Last week, when he was putting up the shelving, I kept coming in and geeking out. That’s how you know you’ve officially passed into never-going-back adulthood, I think: geeking out about your closet system.
We used an Elfa planner online that let us figure out what pieces we needed to set up our closet sides exactly as we wanted them. I have 2 sets of pants hangers on the left with 2 shelfs above them; 2 rods for hanging clothes, one above the other, in the middle section and then a long section with a rod for hanging dresses and longer things on the right, all topped by one high shelf. Anders has a 2-section hanging area, one pants hanger section and a couple of shelves. We still have space for storage of the things that we don’t want to put in the garage storage room, plus the other 2 closed-door closets, all inside our beautifully painted, brightly lit walk-in. *geek!*
Karin informed me today that she is probably going to move into an apartment in Lund with a friend until end of March. I think it’s a dumb decision because it’s quite expensive and she has a free place to live at home. She says she can use her government study subsidy, but some of that is a loan and I think it’s stupid to take out unnecessary loans. She says I’m not supporting her. I said I support HER, I just don’t support what I think it s bad idea.
We had to make the hard decision not to get a ticket for Martin to come home for Christmas. Ticket prices were just insane to and from Detroit. And we really think he needs to be concentrating on job-hunting there, instead of being here for several weeks doing nothing. He’s still having no luck and it’s very discouraging. Hope isn’t given up yet, though! Fingers crossed, everyone!
I can’t believe that the holidays are leaping at me so quickly. Next week is already our AWC holiday cookie exchange (I’m making cranberry pistachio bark), and I’ve already ordered a few gifts. Next weekend is our Friends/Thanksgiving and then it’s only a couple of weeks before I’m on vacation and Christmas is upon us. Eek! The cookie exchange is taking place at our November monthly meeting, which is the last one of the year, and Karin is our guest speaker! She’s doing a reprise of a talk that she and Martin gave 10 or so years ago: Growing up bilingual in a dual-national household. I’m looking forward to it, but she told me today she’s nervous, because she always mispronounces “bilingual”. 😀
For those following along, her Halloween party went very well. I helped her decorate and Anders and I vacated the house at 6:30 to go to Malmö. We had a nice dinner at TGIFridays where we haven’t been since the kids were small, and then went to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. I’m not a huge Tarantino fan, and haven’t seen all that many of his movies, but it was 3 hours long which fit the bill of “stay away as long as you can, parents”. If you haven’t seen it, it was very good and full of good actors being interesting, but it turned out to be 2 hours and 45 minutes of lead-up to 15 minutes of total Tarantino batshit insanity. Whee! Then we wen to the Skybar to have a drink, since Anders’ nephew works there, and then we headed home.
We got there just after 12:30 which I thought was reasonable. The kids were dancing in the living room (Karin was the DJ at that point) and playing beer pong in the kitchen and outside chatting in the driveway, but the house was in one piece and everyone was having fun. We mingled for a few minutes, then got ready for bed and went into our bedroom. Karin came about half an hour after and I raised an eyebrow at her, since the music was still thumping away, and she said, “No worries, people are calling cabs now and everything will be shut down in about 20 minutes!” and she was right, so that was pleasant. They had played the Halloween games we’d set up: throw the spiders (at the web) and mummy-wrapping and she and a couple of friends made a decent dent in the clean-up job before they went to bed as well.
I’m alone tonight, after having had dinner with Karin. She’s out with friends and staying in Malmö tonight and Anders is at an after-work with colleagues. Not sure if he’s going to be on the last bus home or if I have to go pick him up. I’m about to head to the couch to either read or watch a movie, I haven’t decided which. I’ll decide when I get there. Exciting times! Have a lovely weekend, all!