SNOW! It's already 60 degrees here, no chance of snow anytime soon.

1. I woke up with a start at 4 am. That means I am pretty much done with my work already for the day. I imagine I'll crash by noon, and spend the afternoon watching trashy television.

2. I sent off my mecha Christmas cards on Monday, hopefully they'll be arriving today or tomorrow at their destinations. I sent one across The Pond yesterday, I wonder how long that one will take to arrive? I also sent off my Secret Quonsar gift last week, and I've been watching it's progress north to Canada. I hope my Quonsee likes her present!

3. Back to the beach on Friday. My husband's aunt passed away last weekend, and her church is holding a memorial service on Saturday morning. I have to be back in Chapel Hill Saturday night for our annual Bitch & Swap, although I daresay I am not going to feel much like partying.

Just walked Mrs Agogo to the car and sent her off to work, so now it's time to go for a walk and then start getting shit done.

1. Resume resume resume! I took a month "off" after getting let go, but now I need to get cracking on updating my resume and start looking for work. That month went by reeeeeeeeaaaal fast!

2. I started posting my 2012 Favorite albums list yesterday, so today I hope to have 4 more "reviews" done and posted. Shooting to be done with the whole thing by the weekend. Then I hope to listen to lots of real old music since for the past month almost everything I've listened to has been from 2012.

3. Need to look into a continuing education class or two to sign up for. I'd like to take advantage of this new found unemployed free time by taking classes. Also want to see what kind of options there are for online classes. Basically I'd like to make sure I balance the job search with something fun and beneficial.

1. I am moping all over the place today. It's been extremely hard to get out of bed in the morning, to get out of the car to go into work, and to make and eat food. I know that it is just this time of year, but ugh, it still sucks.

2. There are many things going on this weekend. I have a dance performance tomorrow night (holiday show!), a concert to go to on Friday, dance class on Saturday where we have to turn in music for the recital in June and will be discussing costuming options that have to be turned in by the end of the month, as well as any other assorted and sundry tasks that need to be done. I am determined to schedule a bubble bath and kitty snuggles somewhere in this weekend though, along with some veggies.

3. Today is Anubis' adoption anniversary! A year has gone by so fast! (Seriously, 2012 has flown on by for me. Eesh.)

1. I got a nasty cold on Thanksgiving. The cold is finally gone but I am still coughing horribly and exhausted, mostly because the horrible cough syrup only lasts four hours, so I'm getting maximum four hours sleep at a time before I wake up hacking.

2. An appointment downtown this afternoon --- and nothing scheduled after it --- means I will get a chance to walk along the holiday-decorated streets, pop into some shops, visit the library, and maybe even buy a Christmas present or two. I will take the horrible cough syrup so I don't frighten shopkeepers with my retching cough.

3. I'm catering my mother's annual holiday party again. It's on Saturday, so the next few days will be busy with preparation. Asparagus in prosciutto! Savory spinach pastries! Caramelized onion dip! I can't remember what else! That's not a great sign! (But I have a list somewhere.) I will also take the horrible cough syrup so I don't cough over the food.

To sum up, I will be taking the horrible cough syrup forever. It tastes like melted slurpee and sorbital. But DANG does it work.

00. Pretty actively hating my job. Not just the commute anymore. Which is too bad, because I think this bullshit is endemic to the (American?) workplace and I am going to have to face it wherever I go without totally flipping out and killing everyone who refuses to learn from their mistakes.

01. I've actually kind of made peace with temporary unemployment. I'm pretty sure I could pick up some freelance/contract work if I had to. Though I don't relish diminishing my meager savings (but at least I've been able to save for the past few months).

10. I'm considering a career change. It's probably totally spoiled/entitled/whatever of me to want to do something I enjoy, something that challenges me, and something that has a point/improves someone's life other than a shareholder. How Gen-Y(?) of me! Whatevs. If I had the money, I'd go back to (I keep saying "back to"? I've never been in the first place) grad school in a heartbeat. At least I feel like less of a fuck-up these days than I had in the past few years/decades. Or at least recognize everyone is a just as big or bigger fuck-up.

Fuck.

Uno: After being seriously pre-scared about my doctor's appointment last week (because of various ailments, I get a mini-checkup every 3-4 months) but he regaled me with mostly good news... 15 pound weight loss since August! Blood work shows improvement on all metrics! Uh, oh, blood pressure is up (but I knew that from my personal BP wrist autogadget... which I brought with me to see if it calibrated with the doctor's... it does) A change in heart medicines that he says may also assist with my biggest complaint: getting tired/dizzy after relatively short periods of physical activity.

Zwei: After returning home and collapsing for two days, I felt somewhat energized. Had noticed that Enterprise Rent-A-Car (with whom I managed my transportation in my post-dad crisis last year) was offering serious reduced prices between Thanksgiving and Mid-December - but only on 2-day rentals. The number of tasks and errands I could not do via the SLOTransit (yes, that's what they call it) Bus had piled up, and with some confidence I elieved I could accomplish a lot in 48 hours without collapsing, saw the best price ($40/2days) for Saturday to Monday and reserved a subcompact. Of course, when the "we'll pick you up" guy picked me up, it had just started raining and was solidly rainy on three of the four outings with the car (and consistently NOT rainy when I was back inside, re-collapsing). Still, I got all my empty bottles and cans to the recycler, acquired a new supply of filled bottles and cans, delivered old unwearable clothes to Goodwill, acquired new wearable clothes, hit the "Launderosa" laundromat to wash everything else including bedding in a BIG washer, filled the freezer with good food to last most of the month, went out to eat junk food via various drive-thrus (In-N-Out, Del Taco, Carl's Jr WITH COUPONS and there's a burger place in my area with incredible Fried Zucchini), even sent some large trash items to the dumpster 100 yards from my front door by car (lazy? see tired/dizzy note above, who wants to lose consciousness midway back from taking out the trash?). After returning the car and getting a ride back (Enterprise does that too, thought they don't mention it in their ads), I resumed collapsed mode.

Trois: I had been doing diddly zilch with my own website (as well as various domain names I collected because I had big or silly ideas: NEWSLEEK.COM, OXYPEDIA.COM, TOONED.IN, FOOP.US, etc) but Namecheap, where I registed them all because GoDaddy sucks, is getting into the hosting business and made a 'Cyber Monday' offer I could not refuse. I'd had a multi-site host deal with HostGator for $9/month, but Namecheap would do an annual deal for $30 the first year, $75 thereafter. Yeah, lose that monthly payment. Now to transfer all my web-based assets to the new place... gee, I have a lot of stuff I'm doing nothing with... and why aren't my custom WordPress Themes acting the same on the new host? How much of this WordPress stuff have I forgotten over the last year? Well, it gives me something to do with the month of December while ignoring remaining physically inert and ignoring The Holidays (as I pledged to do in a previous 3-Point-Update).

Windows 3.1: I can often be found at the #bunnies irc, the new chat.metafilter and on Twitter as @someothercraig (saving the @oneswellfoop account for when my ONESWELLFOOP.NET site gets working again - if ever). Don't expect anything serious from me on Twitter; in fact, I have gotten some notice lately as a "joke hashtagger"... currently participating in #RightQuoteWrongFilm:
"Show me the money" - The Godfather,
"You're gonna need a bigger boat" - Life of Pi,
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" - Passion of the Christ,
"If you build it, he will come." - Bridge on the River Kwai,
"Nobody puts Baby in a corner." - Rosemary's Baby,
"A boy's best friend is his mother." - ParaNorman (too subtle?)

1. Sookie has fairly well learned by now that being my cat means getting a bathrobe dropped over your head while you're sleeping. Of course, a kitty snack will soon follow.

2. Trying to decide if I really need to go shopping today.

3. This could be a good day to drink beer at a pub all afternoon.

Ten eerste: I got to visit my 4 yr old daughter last weekend. We were playing with a large skippy ball sized ball. First handball. Then football. Then headball. That last one caused great delight. I got compliments for my bouncy deftness. Which is just the thing that makes a papa feel very paternal. Also I gave her a wooden marble-rail block set.

Ten tweede: I started at my new job. My first project is rather exciting. I'm working with some key people at the company. And so far the collaboration is enjoyable and energising. A lot of subjects to get into though.

Ten derde: it's Sinterklaas today. I'm not partaking in the doggerel rhime secret-sinterklaas surprise extravaganza. But it's still a vaguely significant date. Also: at the local supermarket they were already wielding the 'snow in a spray can'. Because Xmas decorations before Sinterklaas create widespread ire.

That's a great toy, jouke. I'm sure she'll get lots of pleasure from playing with that.

update: Perhaps predictably, none of this:

I will get a chance to walk along the holiday-decorated streets, pop into some shops, visit the library, and maybe even buy a Christmas present or two

happened. We made it to our appointment (to sign a new lease with our landlords), signed everything, and I stood up and almost fell over. The Fella gave me a ride home and now I'm sitting here doing sweet nothing and sweating all over. I thought the cold was gone, but either it isn't or the aftermath is almost as bad.

Oh, jouke, that marble-rail set looks irresistible!

Ha, Senyar & Elsa, I'm glad you noticed it. It's pretty cool eh?
It was fun to set up with her and her niece.

1. Whoa. The books I ordered from Amazon.ca on Monday were delivered today. That must be a new speed record for Amazon/UPS.

2. It's fun spending money without leaving the house.

3. Oliver has discovered he adores raspberry yogurt. It's hard to eat it with him all over me trying to get into the container.

1. Things are getting busy at work. I am up for a promotion, which I want because I haven't had a raise for 5 years, but no way to tell if it will happen.

2. I had a small cleaning frenzy strike over the weekend, and cleared out the sideboard where I keep videos. I decided that I no longer really need the many movies that I taped off cable tv 25 years ago, so there are now 2 boxes of VHS tapes ready to be recycled.

3. There are PEOPLE COMING OVER TO MY HOUSE on Friday. Maybe as many as EIGHT. This is unprecedented -- I've lived there 8 years and the largest number of people ever there at one time has been 3, counting me -- and unlikely to happen again any time soon, so I'm making the most of it.

1. This week I'm seeing, just as an experiment, how long I can go without washing my hair before it starts to be kind of gross. (I am rinsing with water, though.) Day Three and it is a bit frizzy, but not oily and gross at all. This may be a good strategy for winter when my hair generally dries out and goes totally flat.

2. Trying to get into a Christmas mindset. My side of the family is rather large and other members insist on buying gifts for everyone. I am the most secure financially, so if I decline to do this, I will be pegged as the stingy one. Sigh. And to top that off, it is a blended family where sometimes family members are actually researching item prices online in a bid to make sure that dollars spent on kids' gifts are equal. (We're not talking high dollar amounts here.) Double sigh. I'm actually considering using a spreadsheet to chart costs this year to head off these questions. Triple sigh.

3. I am looking forward to my turns in the Musical Gifstravaganza and sending/receiving MeCha cards.

3. I have been meh all week. I really wanted to stay home and sleep and do things around the house.

2. And I am not looking forward to the 2-day training class I'm taking tomorrow & Friday. I hope it's not as horrid as it sounds.

1. Kidlet-to-be seems to think she's in a marching band today.

1. Basically finished my last large work project of the year today. There will be stuff to do for the next few weeks, of course, but nothing too mentally taxing. Yay.

2. Guinness the cat is not doing too great. He seems to have hit a plateau in his lymphoma treatment- not getting worse, but no longer improving. And he's starting to get frail, which makes me sad.

3. I ordered cards online for the MeCha exchange, and they're still not here! I think I should investigate, come to think of it. They should have arrived by now, I'd think.

jouke, that marble/rail set looks like SO much fun. I could probably play with that for hours, even with no kid around!

1. Work is a massive crunch right now. Trying to get this product release out the door before the holidays.

2. Christmas tour in my neighborhood this weekend and we're pretty much a sell-out this year. We lead tours of 25 people through houses in the neighborhood every 12 minutes from 5:00PM to 10PM on Friday and then 10 - 10 on Saturday. I'm getting out my three piece 1880s suit with bowler hat to lead my tour, hope it won't be too warm, all that wool is brutal.

3. Two parties this weekend: wife's office holiday party on Friday where they've rented out a big fancy 100 year old hall to have it in and then the volunteer party on Saturday night after the last tour is done and everyone will be really ready to booze.

1. Ran to Target after work. Got everything on my list- stocking stuffers, various food items for adults and babies, and a new $40 vacuum cleaner to replace the $40 vacuum I broke. Got home in one piece, although it somehow got 20 degrees colder between getting to Target and getting home.

2. Work is going well- I'm feeling busy, appreciated, important. I'm probably not actually important, but at least I'm busy & appreciated. Been a long time since I felt this good about work.

3. My little buddy has been sick and very fussy the past two days, but seems to be on the mend- he took a 3-hour nap at daycare, which is unheard of for him (he's more of a catnapper). Hopefully he'll sleep well tonight, too!

I'm getting out my three piece 1880s suit with bowler hat to lead my tour

We must have pics. Must.

1. Have been seeing a lot of music lately. This Friday, Sara Watkins at the WOW hall, a very intimate venue. Last Friday it was the Be Good Tanyas.

2. Was just home to be there for installation of two nice storm/screen doors on the back of the house. We have high hopes of being warmer back there now, without losing so much heat.

3. We have a no-gifts policy, but I went ahead and to them for my women anyway. For daughter, a biography of Typhoid Mary. She'll dig it, I have no doubt.

Link on the biography, danf?

1. Today is the first since Sunday around midnight where I haven't been ravaged by what I'm calling a neck spasm, but what I'm sure a neurologist on Saturday may say is something else. The last three days have been horrendous.

2. My S.O. was given the Christopher Slattery Young Professional Award for being an outstanding volunteer with the Brooklyn Volunteer Lawyers Project. In his short speech towards the end, he thanked me, his fiancee, for being supportive.

3. Oh yeah... I announced my engagement to my extended family and on Facebook this evening. So... yeah. :) I'm getting married next year.

Congrats, TrishaLynn!

1. This is one of those weeks that seems like it should have been over by now. Partly because I worked Sunday and late Monday night, I can't believe it's not Friday already. Tired! Done!

2. Enjoying the holidays. Second round in our new house and we are much more settled. The apartment looks beautiful! We got a gorgeous tree for just $25 from the local farm/park/fruitstand, we bought a couch and loveseat secondhand in November, and the whole place is just cozy and gorgeous now. It's a lot different from this time last year, recovering from the chaos of moving and just holding on for dear life. Tonight I finished all the holiday cards, have been enjoying the DMG, and planning some nice charity/swap type gifts too.

3. Looking forward to the weekend - town is doing a First Friday thing with businesses open late and lots of free wine and cheese and all that. Should be fun. Stturday we have a Birthda-Chrisma-Kkah party for a couple of friends, and Sunday some chores. Somewhere in there I have to keep working on my final paper for class.

Janetland, here you go.

1. Son's 21st birthday is Saturday. He's in West Virginia - working in a restaurant, oh gods keep your fingers crossed, he seems to be mostly okay. BUT he needed a certified birth certificate to get a new ID because his NC driver's license has a corner missing and apparently nobody will now honor it. Therefore, after much phoned hysteria I went online to get him a new birth certificate - and ended up at a scammy sleazoid website (it is called USbirthcerificate, I will not link to them but there are nasty reviews all over the internet) that stole $50 from me. Yay. That's a LOT of money for me these days so if you have any ideas on how to get it back, let me know. Tomorrow I am going to the bank to see if they have any ideas. I think I'm just fucked. Sigh. Anyway I did manage to get a card with a few family enclosures of cash to him so that's okay and he should get his $100 birth certificate, which I hope is printed on fucking 24 karat gold.

2. Tomorrow and Friday are my weekend. It is so kickass to have two days off in a row, you have no idea.

3. 20 days since my last cigarette ever and I still feel good and confident as hell about it. Yes I am done smoking forever, hurrah!

1. Work has been crazy.

2. The boy is doing well on his externship, and they've asked him to fill out an employment application.

3. Someone threw a rock through our dining room window today. Ugh.

Awesome news, TrishaLynn... a lifetime of happiness to you both.

1. It's 1am. Craig Ferguson is on (I love Craig). I've been working nonstop since noon last Thursday. Feels that way anyway. Got my grades in with 3 minutes to spare last night (they're entered online, and the cutoff was 11:55pm). I needed a small moving van to transport all the stacks of fucking papers to and from school. Jon says I should assign less. I'm beginning to see the wisdom of that suggestion.

2. Tonight I finally had time to write a College Recommendation letter for an AP student of mine from last year. Came out rather well, I think. Which is remarkable since I'm so tired I'm seeing double. I'm also hungry. Had a rather strange supper of pickled eggs, macadamia nuts, and red velvet cake (I really should've been drunk for that meal). Maybe I'm more nauseous than hungry.

3. There's a jar of pickled fiddleheads on the kitchen counter, sent (along with the aforementioned pickled eggs) by Jon's family up in Maine. I fear the fiddleheads.

Pips: That's so awesome about your AP student's college recommendation!

Yes I am done smoking forever, hurrah

Wow, congrats, mgl. That is wonderful and huge!

Trying to imagine what life would be like if I lived where someone might throw a rock through my window. Well, for one, here they'd have to aim well enough to get it through the window gates.

Congrats, mgl and TrishaLynn!

1. I am feeling good about Christmas gifts this year, mainly because I have decided to make all of them and I'm excited about the projects (as well as the spending limit I finally got my family to impose, because it was getting out of control, ESPECIALLY for a family with no minor-aged children).

2. The holiday lights in the neighborhood have begun to delight me rather than annoy me, as it is now past Thanksgiving and therefore the appropriate time to have Christmas decorations up.

3. Need to get a tree. I'm kind of not excited about the prospect, but whatever. It'll be nice when it's up.

1. It's been two weeks with a cold and I am so incredibly over it. Did I mention it's summer here? And we hit 39 degrees on Tuesday? I am DONE with the sniffles.

2. I did vacuuming and mopping galore yesterday, because it turns out my floors were filthy. So gross.

3. I now have this weird bruised pain just above my left hip. Like juuuuuust above where the bone ends. And I'm holding myself weird so I'm all achy in my abdomen now. It hurts to touch so I of course keep touching it to make sure it still hurts to touch...

And of course, thanks to said cold, I switched up my sides again. It's actually my right hip.

*sigh*