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Hey all!

Well a good start to the morning this morning as the office staff stood around the water cooler sipping coffee/tea with a shot of Bailey's in it, while munching on coffee cake. It'll be a slack day around here. We are all going out to lunch together and afterwards going bowling. Bowling? Yes Bowling. One of the young technicians here is a bowling geek (I say that in the nicest way and I am sure he would not disagree), and my boss and the data guy are really competitive at anything when there are bragging rigts at stake. They've already been on his case about how they are going to best him today. It should be a really amusing display of inappropriate non-sportsmen like behaviour. I can't wait. Unfortunately, circumstances added up today that prevent me from going to Lina's afternoon play. I will see the play tonight but I guess in the afternoon version she has a line she get's to say. This is where it sucks being the only administrative person in the office. I am the one who makes all the arrangements and makes the payments. My mom is going to Lina's afternoon performance, I am glad, I am going to ask for a play by play when I get home. I will be videotaping Lina tonight. I have 3 years of her preformances on tape. One of these days, I am going to have to put them all together and cry while I watch the progression of her acting career.

So Lina is getting a very special gift for Christmas this year. A couple of years ago, Lina started asking for a pet of her own. We made her start small. She has be diligently caring for beta fish and gold fish now for two years and I must say she is a pretty consciencious fish owner. It took a bit of convincing, but I managed to get my husband to grudgingly agree that sooner or later we would have to follow through with our promise to Lina. We had told her that if she could take care of the fish then we would consider something larger. Now I guess getting some mice or a rat or something would be the next logical progression but, seriously with us being gone so much in the summer to races, a rodent doesn't make too much sense.

So Hubby and I have conspired and we have adopted a kitten for Lina for Christmas this year. I can't wait to see the look on her face on Christmas morning when she receives the little critter. He is just eight weeks and is a little ball of orange fuzz. My brother is babysitting him right now. I adopted the kitten from the Humane Society. I had to have a long talk with the officials at the Humane Society, they don't allow pets to be adopted for Christmas here. However it was pretty obvious that the timing had nothing to do with a spontanious gift. My husband and I talked about it for weeks before I picked up the little guy. We better than many people know this is a lifetime commitment. We have an 11 year old siamese and a 10 year old golden retriever and our chocolate lab was 11 when he died last February. We have had more than our rightful share of medical problems, surgeries and conditions, we can't bring another animal into our home without really considering what the consequences are.

I have asked my niece to take a picture of the gapher and when she emails me, I'll post it up here. I can't wait for Christmas morning, the little critter really needs a name.

So our tree is up, but the rest of the house has not been decorated yet. I am taking Friday off and that is my mission for that day. My shopping is basically done, just two gifts left to pick up. It feels weird to have the shopping done. It must be a sick symtom of getting older. Normally I am in panic mode at this point. Something along the lines of having started way to many ambitious projects for gifts and staying up late into the evening on Christmas Eve and even as long as into Boxing Day working on stuff for people yet to visit. It has been so bad in the past that I have put off Christmas visits because I was still working on people's gifts. I figured out a month or two ago, that I wasn't going to be able to make gifts this year so I didn't try. Feels good and bad at the same time.

Things have somewhat setteled around the office, one of my co-workers was the successful applicant for the General Manager position and so after Christmas he will begin to take over the role. It feels good knowing who will be my boss, the not knowing was way to stressful.

Well, what a motormouth I am this morning. I suppose I better get back to finishing up some things around here. I certainly hope all of you have a wonderful holiday, whatever you celebrate and I'll try to post during my break. (Yay, I am taking two weeks off!)