Let's December it up!

Dear readers, I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings full of laughter, transcendent food, and just enough family drama and awkwardness to keep things interesting. I am just now emerging from my binge eating-induced coma, and I cannot believe that it is December 1st already. Where did the year go?!? I'm wrapping up my time in Chicago, and with it these 6 months away from home. In less than 2 weeks, I'll be back in my Houston hometown with my CameraMan, my kitten, and the couch of my dreams. FOR TWO WHOLE MONTHS. I am so ready.

CM was just here for 5 days, and I got completely spoiled by having him around all the time. We Amtrak-ed it* to his hometown in Western Illinois for Thanksgiving with his family, complete with multiple turkey dinners, many many babies and toddlers of all sizes, and plenty of Midwestern staples like corn casserole and jello salad. (Okay, I just read back that sentence to myself, and it kind of sounds like we ate babies for dessert. I'm leaving it.) I had to be back in Chi-town for a show on Saturday night, and then CM moved his flight back a day, so we ended up with 2 1/2 great days all by ourselves in the big city. He saw the show, we Mercadito-ed it up*, we pajama-ed* for a whole day, and only emerged from the apartment to do fun things (like bowling!). It was heaven in vacation form.

But now he's gone and it's back to life (back to reality). There is a lot to be done in the next 12 days. Two scores cleaned up (and the Faust one is really really long, so it should count as two), paperwork finalized, my life packed up (how did I accumulate this much stuff?!?), and Tosca studied hard. Plus, there's the last-minute socializing, since the panic is setting in that I won't be seeing any of these people again for far too long. And the sending out of résumés, which sometimes feels like a full-time job in itself, although mostly because I spend so much time whining about it that by the time I get down to actually doing it I'm exhausted. And the Christmas shopping (lots of good ideas this year). I'm a busy girl.

There's something about the first of the month that always feels like a new chalk-free slate. It makes me want to start a project or a new routine. Maybe a gym routine, other than the one I have now which consists entirely of talking about going to the gym. Maybe a face washing routine, because the lady at Sephora was very judgey when I said I never do that. Maybe a blogging routine. Who knows?


*Sidebar: I've recently become overly enamored of creating new verbs out of words that are not verbs. For example, to sit in a booth is "boothing," or the informal, "boothing it." Or, to cook from a recipe is "to recipe," or "to recipe it up." Please help me in taking this thing viral—you'll be glad you did.