fox | i can do this

Christmas concerts with the big chorus are done. Work is at a manageable dull roar for the moment. (I did just call a co-worker at home on a vacation day, because she's the only one who can post particular things to the particular part of the internet where we put them and was planning to do so with a specific thing today at 3pm, to tell her we'd had an e-mail from someone saying "Sorry for the last-minute notice but can we do it at 2pm instead." This publication, by the way, is a thing that we got at the beginning of the month and they said even though a publication this size would normally take at least six weeks and usually more like three months to get through editing and layout, this one has to has to has to be done by the 19th, i.e. less than three weeks. So I dropped everything else to work on it, and when I was done--had sent it back to the in-house project manager and the authors to review my edits and all that--one of our designers dropped everything to work on it, and by god we had it done in time to get it printed and coil-bound--not actually published-published, but it exists--on time. It went to the printer last Friday. Monday morning, we had an e-mail from the PM saying "Wait, has it gone to the printer yet?, because we might have some changes." /o\ Monday afternoon they said "We'll worry about those changes in the full-color published version, tell the printer to go ahead with this one." So we lost a day for no real reason. Our online-compliance-verification person made sure the whole digital thing was accessible and then in the middle of the day on Wednesday we got another e-mail from the PM saying the author had noticed a couple of things that needed changing. Nobody knows why the author didn't read it when I sent it for review last week. We made the @#$$#! changes so the digital looks just like the full-color will look. The printout they've got today is still what we sent last Friday. Madness.) I got my work Secret Santa present on time and my Secret Santee was very pleased with it, including my make-do wrapping job (masking tape inscribed with "THE SCOTCH TAPE IS HIDING" (block print, you see, so nobody could recognize my writing)--because our scotch tape must be in a box somewhere and there wasn't time to go out and buy more. I got presents for my side of the family ordered and shipped. We don't have presents yet for each other or for Himself's side of the family, but that's all a much less fraught prospect because my side is the only one with a four-year-old. I booked our hotel for New Year's, so a road trip is in our future.

My Yuletide is on 1069 words (yay over the max) and I ~~swear I will finish it this afternoon~~ JUST POSTED, WHOOP WHOOP.

I'm up in the Catholics' choir loft twice on Sunday, three times next Thursday (well - midnight Wednesday and then twice Thursday morning), twice next Sunday, and twice the Sunday after that, so that'll be a nice bundle of stipends. Mama's got to pay the contractor: our house addition plans have been approved ~~(although not yet issued)~~ (and just issued this afternoon, whoop whoop) and I am long past ready to roll. The place where a great deal of our stuff is in storage has been acquired and we're not sure we like the new ownership's terms of service, so we might be getting our stuff back and cramming it into the rooms we're not using ... which will make the building work more exciting, but hey, excitement's what it's all about, right? We'll see.

In any case: I'm this close to having made it through December. Bring on January.