Good morning

Yes, for those of you paying attention it is 5:33 am in the fucking morning. Pardon the harshness but as we all know I am NOT a morning person. What started as sneezing earlier this week turned into a head cold over the last two days and this morning around 3ish turned into a nice cough. Thanks a freakin' lot pharmacy lady who recommended whatever OTC pills I bought last night because not only didn't they clear up my shit they pushed it into a cough. Happy Friday!

So the much anticipated (by me at least) Christmas party went well I thought. It was much more sedate than some of our shindigs have been. Partly because the kids were here (yeah, Mom broke her foot two days before so she couldn't keep the kids but oddly enough my sister and her two kids--who are younger and require more actual babysitting than mine do--spent the night at her house that night and if I'm not mistaken she's babysat at least one of them since then--but hey, I'm not bitter) and partly because our friends Crusty and her hubby were'nt there. When her hubby, I'll call him Bob Villa because he can build the hell out of some stuff, and my hubby get together they instigate a lot of bad behavior.

As the hostess I didn't feel like I really got enough time to spend with each person individually--do you ever at a party? But I do think people had a good time. It still amazes me that despite the fact that we have a big den and a living room most everyone congregates in my kitchen. Is that a Southern thing or a party thing? This brings out my pie in the sky dream of knocking down the wall between the kitchen and the formal dining room (that just holds dining room furniture that we never use and that I now do not really like even though it's only a couple of years old)and making one big kitchen perhaps with an island seating area. The Hubs said he thinks it would decrease the value of the house because you'd lose a room but my thought is if we ever sold it (which I don't forsee) I can't be the only person that would rather have a big useable kitchen instead of a regular size kitchen and a formal, unused dining room. Thoughts?

On the work front I suppose things are ok. Out of nowhere about a week ago my boss had a talk with me because his boss is concerned about my performance. That's always nice. I think I've fixed that though. One thing that's really sticking in my crawl (gross huh?) is having to get input from a committee of sorts that doesn't really know what they want me to do they just want to criticize what I do. One person in particular is driving me nuts. I have to set an agenda for an annual meeting, something I've never done, they knew I'd never done when I took the job. I have to line up speakers and panels, topics, etc. and do it for as little money (like free) as possible. So we've been through several rounds of my showing them the agenda and this last time I really felt good about it. Had incorporated their ideas, followed the previous year's outline, etc. and damned if this one person didn't suggest changes again, changes that were the EXACT opposite of what she said two meetings ago! I'm like WTF! Initially I'd proposed one speaker that this person knocked down. Now that I have another speaker lined up this person is saying why not use X--the same person she originally knocked down! Anyhoo--today is our work Christmas party, which should be fun.

Last thought before I smoke a cigarette and hop in the shower. (Ya know, if I liked mornings it would actually be cool to get up a few hours before everyone else and get some stuff done. Of course the Hubs is already up and out today, but that's not the norm.) I was making small talk with a co-worker the other day about kids and Christmas. His kids are younger than mine but he's got a...strange? interesting? novel? (you decide) idea about Santa. His thought is that he doesn't want to lie to his kids about Santa, build up the myth, have them believe in him, only to find out at 9-10 he's not real because then they'd question if Jesus is real too. I've never ever thought about it that way but the idea seems kind of wacky to me. I've never heard of kids not being able to understand the difference.