Where I've been...and Merry Christmas!

...well, here, really. But I've neglected the virtual world for several reasons.

1. I took the GRE (yes, after nearly a year of talking about it, I finally just buckled down and did it. It wasn't so terrible after all.)
2. Took a fabulous trip to Florida with the husband and mother - it was a mostly relaxing week with family spiced with one brief segment of fear-facing adventure, but more on that later.
3. Interviewed for and got a new position in training and development at work (yay!), and then did two jobs for a couple of weeks until my replacement could be trained (yeesh).
4. Family time at Thanksgiving - I love family. And cranberry sauce, I love that too.
5. Picked out and put up a Christmas tree. This year that meant me sawing off the bottom of the trunk with a hand saw in my kitchen and getting locked out of the house without shoes on when I went to empty the pine-needle-filled vacuum. (You know, that week it was 2 degrees in Utah? That's when I decided to lock myself out.)
   
6. Edited lots and lots of papers with Steve leading up to finals week.
7. Steve's laptop finally exploded (yes, an actual explosion, including smoke and mysterious black ooze), making us a one-computer family, and during finals week I went completely Internet free after work.
8. Threw a successful surprise party for Steve's graduation (thanks everyone who helped keep it a secret)!

I also stopped doing a lot of things since my last post - like exercising and eating sensibly. Which brings me to my next point - MERRY CHRISTMAS! To prove I have at least mostly found the holiday spirit, here's that tree I worked so hard on. It makes me happy.