moving right along.

…and it’s already December 10. Only 15 days until Christmas. Who’s excited? Not prepared? Already going crazy?

A few weeks ago, I’d said I wasn’t going to decorate. That didn’t actually happen. I did decorate, although a LOT less than I have in the past. Aidan and I did the heavy lifting while he was here for Thanksgiving. I did all the heavy cleaning BEFORE Thanksgiving.

I’d wanted to hire a cleaning service, but the company I wanted didn’t have availability until December 1. We were having guests for Thanksgiving. So yeah, that wasn’t going to work. I cleaned so much that I was sore for three days. But the place is sooo much better. The bathroom is no longer frightening. Things are gleaming. It’s nice. Now it’s just dealing with clutter (like the big pile of unwrapped gifts I am looking at) and day-to-day living. No place I live will ever be a showcase unless I can get a big enough dwelling that part of it will be the “showplace” and the rest will be the “living place.” I also am not great a decorating unless it is for Christmas so there’s that.

Random things that have happened since I last updated:

Aidan came for Thanksgiving and we went to WGN to hang out with Patti Vasquez on her Pretty Late radio show. I love going there. It’s just a cool atmosphere, Patti is the COOLEST, and she even lets me get on the air sometimes. 🙂

hanging out at wgn

We didn’t shop on Black Friday–instead we went to see Big Hero 6. Such a cute but heartbreaking movie! I saw Baymax at Hollywood Studios when I was there but I had no idea who or what he was, and when Lola saw him she did four-year-old equivalent of “oh hell no” and get away from him fast! I wish I’d have met him but it’s OK that I didn’t. He’s adorable, though.

Aidan and I did go down to State Street to shop on Saturday and it was a MAD HOUSE. I knew it would be because the weather was beautiful–mid-50s! And there were a lot of tourists in town. It was crazy. So crowded. But Aidan and I got to see the Great Tree like we do whenever we can:

the great tree and aidan

My Christmas shopping is finally winding down. I went crazy this year like I always do even though I say I won’t EVERY SINGLE YEAR. I have a big pile of stuff to wrap. Some people will be spoiled and I am OK with that. I’d wanted to have the Selzer stuffed mailed out by um…today? But yeah, that’s probably not going to happen. So shooting for Friday. My absolute deadline is Monday, the 15.

I lose an entire planning day Thursday–I got booked to play a coffee shop patron on Chicago PD. Should be fun! I hope the day is not too long but it’ll probably be 12-13 hours as usual. Then Friday I have a workshop at Moksha with Tias Little. Very much looking forward to that. If I can find time, I might squeeze in a Dailey Method class.

I started going back to The Dailey Method on Sunday and it’s so great to be back. I got my butt sufficiently kicked on Sunday but Tuesday’s class was so so so good. Now I just need to get back to my yoga practice as well and maybe by summer I will be lean and toned!

The challenge is going to be January and February, when we’re in the deep freeze. I will NOT want to leave the house if I don’t have to, and I just realized that my Dailey Method class credits are good for a YEAR (not just the month like I’d thought) so I will probably only venture there to watch the kids in the kid’s room to earn my class credits until it warms up.

Ugh, winter.

I bought a sweater from Old Navy and didn’t even blink when it didn’t have a tag. Now I know better. I got it home, took it out of the bag and sniffed it. It smelled like Chinese food and BO. So amazingly gross. I was really worried they wouldn’t take it back because it didn’t have tags, but I had my receipt and they were totally cool about it. I exchanged it for a clean one!

Someone hacked into my Spotify account and ruined my music algorithms for the year. They listened to nothing but Turkish music and now Spotify thinks I like Turkish music? I knew something was weird when I’d be listening to it on my phone or iPad in my room and then the song would stop and a message would come up saying “your account is being used on another device.” I thought it was just bugging out–I do have it on an iPhone, two computers, and an iPad. But then I realized that a bunch of new playlists were being added, so I changed my password. Someone told me to check my authorized devices and sure enough, there was a Android device using my account. I don’t have Android devices. I use iOS, or Windows (on Aidan’s computer), or OSX (my computer). I signed out of all devices and haven’t had any problems since.

Except everyone who follows me now probably thinks I have some fascination with Turkish music. What I don’t get…Spotify is FREE as long as you want to deal with the ads. I do get premium, but still.

Ugh, so annoying. Buy your own shit.

Work for clients is winding down for the season, I think. Last week I had so many deadlines, and I had a deadline for today that I just uploaded. So now, I wait. To hear from clients. For checks to arrive. For call info. You know.

The Container Store had this amazing paper. It was this candy striped prismatic paper. Sold out. Some guy bought ten rolls of it in the store the other day. TEN ROLLS. WHO needs that much wrapping paper? Well, I went to a store and found a reasonable knock off today and it was 60% cheaper. So there, Container Store and your beautiful prismatic candy striped paper. Hmph.

Ugh. It’s time to go. One of the cats is expelling stuff from both ends and it’s about to get nasty up in here. Lucky me.

Here’s a photo of me from BEFORE all that nastiness. Good times.

i woke up like this

Till next time…