Quick Catch Up

Only 11 (well, really only 10) days until Christmas! Augh. I've sent out a few Christmas cards...then I ran out of stamps. In fact, the last couple I sent out had some old stamps and some 2 cent stamps all glommed onto the envelopes...that's a sign one hasn't been to the post office for a while.

I've been having a hard time finding something to read after that Joe Abercrombie trilogy. Finally settled on an English mystery I picked up on a recent Daedalus visit. It's...okay. And I can't actually remember the title...something about a Chorister and an Abbey. And murder, of course. Oh, here you go...The Chorister at the Abbey. The Amazon reviews give it close to five stars, but I think I agree more with this:

"Slow pacing and unmemorable characters weigh down Howell's second Norbridge Chronicles mystery (after 2006's The Flower Arranger at All Saints), set in the north of England....The solution may strike some readers as a bit muddled, while others may find the police's near invisibility implausible."

I gave my coworkers their Christmas presents today (two cowls and a scarflet). I just couldn't wait and it is so cold here (and we were going out to lunch and it is so cold here I thought they might like to wear them). They seem to have been a hit. I think Elizabeth wore hers all afternoon. Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of them before I gave them away (although I thought I had...maybe I'll check my photo album again -- dang...no, definitely no pictures). Lunch was tasty. We went to the Candlelight Inn...it was so prettily decorated for the holidays. I had a scrumptious hamburger...why do my home-cooked hamburgers never measure up to a restaurant's? It was huge and made me completely uninterested in any form of dinner.

Rachel will be home this weekend! Hurrah! Only for a week, as we have to board poor Cooper while she is down here and that adds up fast. But oh, it will be good to see her!