We are now back from our vacation, which in itself is just us staying holed up at home with our children.  A break from life.  Oh, how I love that vacation.  We had the last two weeks of 2009 off and just hibernated from the cold, apart from the occassional holiday gathering.  Not much was accomplished during our time off, as it should be.  The kids played with their new toys and vegged out with cartoons and the computer games on pbskids.org.  Brian played his own computer games.   I read the Twilight series twice (including the author’s online draft of Midnight Sun), finished one book and started on another one. 

– We attended our niece’s civil cermony with her Army fiance.  They are now married and in FL.  That was a big change, for certain.

 – I didn’t get much sewing done.  My sewing room went unused for the most part.  I did make an apron for our niece and a baby outfit for my cousin’s little girl.  I forgot to take pictures, but here is a picture my sister-in-law took of my niece in her new apron.  Apparently she squealed when she opened it…so I think she liked it. 🙂  Other than that, many things went unmade and I am fine with that.  I did get some knitting done, so I will try to get some pictures of those items.

– No Christmas cards were sent out.  Again…I am fine with that.  We also didn’t get that gingerbread house made that I bought. *sigh*  Our tree came down on the 26th.  This holiday season made me rather weary for some reason.  I am glad to be back to a normal schedule, and I hope that next year it will more full of joyousness and not so subdued.

– We didn’t get Anya’s new pink room done.  Right now we have no room to put the furniture in the former-guest room anywhere.  The garage is still mostly full and the basement doesn’t have a place to put extra furniture.  We need to drop the box spring, dresser and table off to a charity place that takes that kind of thing.  They won’t fit in my Acadia, though.  Hopefully we can convince my parents to come over with the trailer so we can get started on her room.  I have the first step completed…I bought the paint.  She chose pink and dark pink.  Shocker.

– I didn’t get pictures taken of the basement yet.  I’m a bit depressed by the fact that we have a leak in the wall in our NEW bathroom.  It is coming from the bathroom upstairs, in which we replaced the floor.  So YAY.  We need to rip apart TWO walls and fix.  That wasn’t in the plan or the budget.

– I’m still working on my new camera.  Not completely sold on it, since it seems soft (focus not very clear).  The white balance seems off, too.  I’m not a fan of the colors that are coming out of it.  I need to play with it more, but right now I don’t really feel like picking it up very often.  It’s so much easier to take pictures when you have some actual sunshine to utilize.  Winter time tends to uninspire me in the photography department.

– Every year my work gives us a gift at our holiday lunch.  This year we all got nooks!  Much better than the Tiffany bracelet I got last year.  It will certainly see more use.  Of course, the nooks were back-ordered, so I didn’t get it until this week.  I’m really excited to have an easy to carry “book”.  It came with three books on it, one of which is my all-time favorite Jane Austen book, Pride and Prejudice.  It has Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Little Women, too.  I think I’ve read both of those, but it would have been years ago.  I’m sure I can force myself to read them again.  I don’t think I will ever go all digital for books, though.  This is certainly something that I would not have purchased for myself.  I love having all those hardcover books piled up in our library.  We have 4 bookshelves that are overflowing, plus one for the kids…which is also overflowing.  I’m not sure how many books we own at this point.  Several.

Now we are back to reality.  Work and the long winter stretches ahead of us.  January always seems like the longest month of the year.  The tempertures invariably plummet in the sub-zero ranges.  Going outside is painful with as cold as it is, and the lack of sunshine in our free time tends to wear us down. My work is so very busy with all the year-end accounting, audits and tax work monopolizing my time.  I’m sure it will go fast, though.  Time usually does these days.

I really hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years.  Celebrations with family and friends are always my favorite part of that time of year.  I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating over the holidays. 🙂

You will probably continue to see fewer updates here for the short term.  Work is very busy for me right now and I’d just rather read at night, if I’m not bringing work home that is.  I need a break.  Hope to catch up with you all soon, though.