Frenetic, Frazzled, and Undecorated

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Show me the decorations! Yes, time to pimp your seasonal decorating bug, folks. Show us what you got. Take the picture, post it on your Journal/Blog, and then come back to leave a link. Easy!

Okay, I'm going to show you ALL of the Christmas decorations I've put on display so far this year. Ready?



Yes, I know this is a bad picture. The flash whited out the little snowman card holder or napkin holder or whatever it is, but I didn't check the picture before leaving work. The snowman does have eyes, I'm pretty sure. He was a gift from someone in the office.



This mini-stocking was also handed 'round by someone at work. Once the candy was gone, I wrote my name on it and tacked it up.

What about Christmas decorations at home? The sad truth is that we haven't put any up yet. None. John has expressed interest in doing it, but we haven't actually gotten out any of the boxes. I think this is due to three factors:

1. My being really busy
2. John being in the middle of a project of reorganizing all the stuff that was in storage
3. Our impending trip to Disneyland, sometime in the next week or two.

See, I haven't have time to deal with it, and the house is full of boxes right now, and it hardly seems worth it if we're going to be gone part of the holiday season.

But just so there's something pretty to look at here, I've got the pictures I promised of my favorite neighborhood light display:



(Most of) the big picture. Right click to see it a bit larger.



Part of the same house, a little more close-up.

******

I have now sent out everything but three cards I missed, plus the stuff I'm doing online. Everyone: if you get a largish envelope from me, be advised that I didn't wrap anything. That's because I really didn't have time, and I knew you would forgive me. If you want to open the envelope early, be my guest, but if you do, you won't have anything from me to open at Christmas.

Then again, maybe they'll all arrive after Christmas anyway.

When I have to do the snail mail thing, I try to always go to the main post office on Cherrybell Strav (Strav apparently means "Street-Avenue" - in other words, a thoroughfare that's diagonal to the city grid.) It's at least 15 minutes out of my way, but it's open until 7 PM, the people there are friendly and competent, and (unlike other branches) they've never lost my outgoing mail.

Here's how Cherrybell Station looked at 7:30 PM tonight:





Pretty impressive, I think, for that late in the evening. There was even a line to use the automated system. That's a neat thing, though. It weighs packages and envelopes, and dispenses postage, stamps, zip code info, and takes a credit or debit card in payment. Beats the heck out of waiting for #53 to be called, when they're currently up to number 26! My only quibble is that I had to swipe my card again and again for each individual package.

After the post office, I bought dinner, a party tray for the office pot luck, three kinds of candy to reciprocate the little gifts people are distributing at work, and, in a separate trip, a B&N gift card for the office gift exchange. Plus I helped a Safeway customer who wanted to know if I worked there. She saw my security pass still hanging around my neck at 8 PM tonight, and somehow thought that might mean I was still on the clock.

Sometime tonight, a store clerk asked how I was doing. I said, "Frenetic, frazzled, and other F-words." She laughed. Well, I'm still frenetic and frazzled, and frustrated that I still haven't gotten to my church obligations. But I'm not "effed." Not yet. Not entirely. I'm doing okay, I think.

Even if I don't have any decorations up.

Karen