The Night Before

We went to church this evening, part of the Night Before ritual. For the first time in years, my mother didn't come. She's been feeling a bit under the weather. Its possible that she won't come up to my wife's mother's house tomorrow, which would be unfortunate. In that case, it might just be my wife and daughter going up, as we're uncomfortable with the idea of leaving her alone. After church, we drove around a bit to look at light displays. Some houses go intensively out, lights everywhere. The likelihood of a lot of lights goes up with the value of the house.

I'm generally pleased with this new laptop. I think that getting the wider screen wasn't that great an idea, as it doesn't fit easily onto a bookshelf for storage, and it weighs a little bit more than the other one - just enough to make it noticeable when keying in bed, as I often do. On the other hand, its quiet, and the ability to display two apps at once is nice. The keyboard is good. One of the things I'd liked about the Thinkpad that'd I'd last had in IBM was the keyboard, which had a solid feeling to it. The Inspiron that this one is replacing had a keyboard with more of a plastic feeling. This one also has more vents, which keep it from getting hot, which means that the fan comes on less often. So, not the best choice, but over all not bad. I'm pleased.

Once again Christmas has come upon us with a bit of a surprise. Neither of us was emotionally ready. I think that we still retain the feeling of there being about six months between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Would have been better with snow, or even with cold (its about forty degrees out, right now.) We had some ferocious winds and rain the other night, but that died after about an hour. Even my daughter feels the lack of 'Christmas' as an event. She goes back to school a week from tomorrow, and she's already thinking about it. So am I, for that matter -- I see my mento the day after school starts. I am not really looking forward to that. I'd asked him to just look at one of the chapters of his book, but I doubt strongly he'll do it. All I can do is suggest, I guess. I did talk with the teacher he doesn't like, and while he's probably off base with the idea that she doesn't like him, he's probably not wildly off base.

Not doing much reading lately. Maybe on the way up to my MIL's home, assuming I go. I'm also about baked out, which surprises me a little, as I didn't really make all that much. Not that I wanted to make dozens, hundreds, thousands of cookies, but I think I made about three dozen in all, not counting one massive batch of about 50 that I made for my daughter to take in to school. (I asked her how they went; with a little smile, she said 'They're all gone'.) I'd have liked to make more. I also want to bake some bread this week, possibly Thursday. Am I weird that cookies and bread are all I can think of to bake?

Blood sugar's going berserk. I don't know why, and it bothers me a lot. I do what I can do. Not enough, apparently.