Sobering was taking a close look at my finances. Student loans have started coming due, and for the next five years, unless I manage to pay it faster, I'm going to owe an extra $381 a month. Oof. Was Mills worth it? I can't tell right now -- ask me in five years. If I had full-time tech writing work, no problem. If I have full-time secretarial work, I can manage okay, as long as I'm not extravagant. If I'm not working full-time, I'm probably in trouble. Which means that unless I'm lucky enough to get a gig where I can work at home for at least $12/hr full-time, I'm going to need to go get an office job. Which means no more bopping back and forth to Utah. Which is depressing. Guess Kev and I will be doing some long weekends for a while.
But I refuse to sit around and mope about it, because it's the holidays. That's the exhilarating part -- wrapping presents and making lists (shopping list, cooking list, Christmas card list, random other lists), listening to Christmas music (mostly old medieval stuff, recorders and such-like), planning the menu for the party we're throwing next Sunday. El's been cleaning like a fiend all morning, huzzah. The living room is gorgeous. And hopefully Ian will bring home a tree soon, and some greeny boughs, so we can go nuts with the decorating.
You'll be hearing more about party prep as the week goes on, I'm sure, so I won't bore you with that for now. The weather continues beautiful (it apparently rained much of the time I was gone, but I missed it. I also missed a real earthquake, darn it!), which is cheering, and my bags are finally unpacked and my clothes put away (except for the ones in the dryer). It's so good to be home.
I even enjoyed doing dishes this morning. :-)