27 November 2002

Happy Biiiiiiiirthday, dear Maaaaaatthew, Happy Birthday to you!

Everybody make sure to wish Matt a happy birthday!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.

There are so many things in my life that I am grateful for, listing them would take pages. Still, though it's a bit cliche, I'd like to touch on a few of the big ones.

I have a partner in my life who is attractive and intelligent and funny and caring.

I have friends who are loyal and helpful and forgiving.

I actually like my family. Most of the time, anyway.

I have a strong mind, and if my body isn't quite what it could be, it's sufficient to do everything I want it to do.

I'm employed, even if my job isn't the best.

I'm this close to finishing a novel rough draft, which I've never done before in my life. (Granted, I didn't do it by myself. But I've never finished with other peoples' help before, either.)

Last year didn't seem very festive. I suppose I could blame it on the lingering shock of 9/11, but I don't know for certain if that's truly it. At any rate, since we were going to be in Chicago for Christmas, and I wasn't feeling very festive anyway, I didn't put up the Christmas tree, and very few other decorations and lights.

This year, I'm ready to be festive again.

We have neighbors who have had Christmas lights up for over a week already. Ours will go up, or at least start going up, this weekend.

We'll fish out the tree and I'll get one of our billions of ropes of lights and cover over the bare patch. (We got a pre-lighted fake tree, only to discover that one of the strands woven into the the branches was dead. I'm not going through bulb-by-bulb to find the dead one. I'll just put a normal strand of lights on those branches and then turn them toward the corner.)

I need to hit Target or K-Mart - last year I saw icicle light specifically designed to go indoors, in windows. (Much easier and safer than trying to hang the outdoor variety off the roof.) I waffled on getting them then, but this year I want them. Naturally, the store I saw them in last year isn't carrying them this year, so I'll have to hope I can find them elsewhere.

I'll to get out my wooden Santa advent calendar, and put a nail in the wall for the chocolate one.

I'll take another two or three of our strands of lights (we have about six) and drape them over the bushes. Or maybe the tree will be strong enough to support lights this year.

Oh, and somewhere in there I need to sit down with the laptop and some credit cards and do some shopping. (Thank the gods for online shopping.)

Yeah. Christmas bug. Hard.

It feels good.

--Liz