Happy Thanksgiving to all my US-ian friends! I had great fun reading Facebook earlier and seeing how many status messages had something to do with making pie. (My pumpkin pie is cooling on the counter as I type.)

I have an awful lot to be thankful for, most notably that I am loved, deeply, by multiple people in many different ways. That is priceless. I have a nice home, a decent job, good health, and a great deal of freedom. It's easy to take those things for granted when the boss hands me a stupid assignment or the water heater breaks down, but I really am grateful.

I love the holidays more than anything, but man, the next month is going to be crazy! (And no, I really wouldn't want it any other way, but I WILL be a stress case). Potluck lunch at work tomorrow. A's 30th birthday party Saturday night. Thanksgiving next week--I thought it was just going to be us 4, which bummed me out, but now it looks like we may get some guests after all! Glogg party Dec. 5. And then I think I'll have Nick's birthday party the following weekend. Then the weekend after that is MY birthday, and you'd can be damn sure I won't be enjoying a quiet, solitary evening at home. Plenty of time for that when I'm dead. Also Rob and I talked about getting dolled up and going out some night since there's no football banquet this year--maybe to the luminarias at the botanical gardens. Then of course there's Christmas itself, with Nick's actual birthday on Christmas Eve. We usually do a small family celebration on the day.

There's a lot to do, but I have to say that just thinking about the holidays makes me feel the way Snoopy looks in my icon above. I love all this shit. :-) Especially Christmas Eve when Rob and I snuggle down with a bottle of champagne for our annual watching of "Love, Actually."

I'm interested to see who ends up showing up for glogg night (and if you're local and I haven't invited you already, comment here with your email address). I always treat parties like chemistry experiments, or cooking when you just pull everything out of your cabinet and throw it together and see what you get. I invite people from all different segments of my life, see who shows up, and watch how they mix together. Sometimes it's awesome, sometimes it's a disaster, but it's always a fun gamble.

This is for architectgirl43 because we were just talking about Halloween weddings.

solar_diablo would probably get a kick out of it too.

http://community.livejournal.com/halloweddings/

Subject: Merger Bulletin From The Wailing Wall Street Daily

MERGER

Continuing the current trend of large-scale mergers and acquisitions, it was announced today at a press conference that Christmas and Hanukkah will merge. An industry source said that the deal had been in the works about 1300 years.

Read on...