The beginning of December

The first ten days of this month have been absolutely crazy, and definitely exhausting.  Last weekend, Thomas came home because he had purchased tickets to a concert for Christmas for his girlfriend...held on his campus.  She doesn't drive, and I didn't love the thought of him driving them both that far and on the interstate, so I picked him up Friday, took them back up on Saturday, waited around for the concert, and then I was very grateful when Andrew agreed to take him back to school Sunday.  I actually enjoyed my Saturday checking out a few relatively empty stores.

Sunday at church was my morning to "introduce" myself to the congregation.  It's an initiative for our church council, and while I thought the church often hears far too much from me, I was out voted.  I also made an announcement about getting the gifts still remaining on our Giving Tree, and since many people decided to make a monetary donation, I got to spend lots of time shopping this week.  It was also a really crazy week at work as we had about 20% absent all week, and that included students that needed to be going home during the day.  It made for some very crazy days.

Wednesday we got a phone call from Catherine.  While everything is going to be okay in the long run, she needed some help to deal with some financial things and it involved me having to drive to her that evening after I had worked at the basketball game for three hours.  Getting home at nearly 10:00 that night was not only physically exhausting, but dealing with her choices was also mentally exhausting.  Again, she is fine, but things needed to be handled.

Thursday, Thomas finished his first semester of college!  He had originally thought he would be done Friday, then earlier in the week realized it would be Thursday, and it turned out it was actually Wednesday but we couldn't get him home until Thursday.  We had hoped to both get him, but there was an emergency Board of Education meeting due to our levy failure in November, and Andrew needed to attend that very unpleasant meeting (his second of the week).  That meant making the trip to get Thomas by myself.  And of course, him coming home means his cat comes home as well...and his fish too.  Oh my goodness, the chaos.

Andrew and I have realized that having four humans, four cats, a dog, and a fish is a lot of activity when our lives have become very quiet.  It's absolutely crazy, and it seems as though Andrew and I have become very accustomed to the quiet.  When we all got home last evening, I was so relieved we'd made it through the week...and only one more week until our break!  I went to bed at 11:00 last night, and truly slept better than I have in quite some time, and I slept blissfully until 10:00 this morning!  I clearly needed all that sleep!  

Today Andrew and Thomas left to go east for two nights.  I was finally able to get some gifts wrapped and the Christmas cards are almost finished, and I actually feel like I am getting some things accomplished.  Although we aren't doing anything special, I'm enjoying my evening with just Catherine and I sitting here.  And in six days we will be starting break!