I took it pretty easy today — filed grades and answered a few last-minute panicked student e-mails (one student managed to pull her grade up noticeably in the final hours by writing a very solid (if late) paper, so kudos to her for not giving up and for communicating with me even though it was embarrassing).
Drafted a scene for the garden romance story, and then went to garden club for a couple of hours, where I picked up a few botanical gifts for friends and enjoyed a talk from a florist from Mariano’s putting together an array of floral displays from grocery store flowers and talking about the tricks of the trade. I need to pick up some florist’s wire; it’d make various arrangements easier to manage.
Then came home, watched tv for a bit, then put on holiday music and decorated the tree with Kavi and Kevin (Anand opted for video games instead). Kev made dinner while I watched more tv. Followed by a quick hour of cookie baking and decorating with Kavi and Kevin (again, Anand opted out, though he did eat two cookies). It was all very Norman Rockwell, except for the fifteen minutes when Anand was FURIOUS that Kevin had beaten him in a video game and completely lost it. He calmed down eventually, though, and perhaps that’s a common part of the holiday season too.
I was mostly offline today, and it was good, so I’m going to do it again tomorrow. I have NOTHING scheduled tomorrow, which is so bewildering I am a little beside myself. But going to try to spend the day reading and writing, cooking and decorating. Need to make a final menu for Sunday’s tea party; the temptation to cook ALL THE THINGS should probably be restrained a little.
Although the good thing about making things like vattalappam and mango fluff now is that I can just leave them in the downstairs fridge, pull them out if we start running low, and if not, they’ll keep fine until our New Year’s open house. 🙂