Olivia visits Grandpa!

Wednesday morning came around quickly. I was up and out of bed on time – roughly 5:30am. I woke already feeling stressed over the fast approaching holiday and the seemingly endless stream of social events. I reminded myself to drink it all in rather than stress/worry about it. Why do it if it’s not fun? I felt a lot better after my up close and personal pep talk. Ykraps and I did our walk on another unusually warm pre-winter morning. The moon, a bit less than half, was high in the sky and extremely bright due to the clear skies. I packed lunches and made our breakfast just as I always do. Nothing out of the ordinary this morning. I did make time to play the saxophone again this morning before leaving for work. Work was steady. We had a staff meeting this morning where we reviewed holiday staffing for on-call and such. Unfortunately, even though I am on vacation, I will be on-call over Xmas weekend. The luck of the draw, I guess. We also planned a Mngmt staff Xmas outing for next Wednesday evening at a venue to be named later. I left for my run near 1pm – a bit latter than usual. Things got dicey leading up to run time. The weather was nice with temperatures hovering around 55 and the sun shining rather brightly. But as is often the case, there was a stiff & chilly breeze blowing out of the SW. That’ll pretty much be a permanent fixture all winter. The only variant will be whether it’s out of the NW or the SW. The NW version is most often accompanied by much colder temps. I worked up quite a sweat on my run. It felt good to get out of my sweat soaked clothes and get in the shower. I was back in my office just after 2pm. The afternoon was as busy as the mid-morning. I talked with Mindy after she got out of school. We agreed that I would be going Xmas shopping immediately after work. She would be running errands. Later she called to see if I wanted to meet her for dinner since it was a Mindy Wednesday, but I declined for wanting/needing to Xmas shop. We can go to dinner anytime. As 5pm approached, I made a quick exit from the office. I was determined to make several key Xmas shopping stops. I called Mindy once again and she informed me that she made arrangements for Ashley to come visit with Olivia and that she was going to forego choir practice. That made me happy. That meant I didn’t need to worry about a deadline that would be difficult to meet. That helped frame my evening in a more positive light. I was able to knock several gifts off my list. Come 7:30pm I was headed for home. I stopped at no less than six places, not including Minelli’s where I picked up a pizza just before heading home. At home I first secured the gifts I purchased then went in to visit with Ashley and Olivia. I woofed down several pieces of pizza at the same time. I was awfully hungry. While Mindy prepared the kids for bed, I took some Xmas pictures of Ashley and Olivia by the Xmas tree. They turned out nicely. Ashley departed somewhere near 9pm. I noted how quickly her body has bounced back in shape after only having a baby 7 weeks ago. She has only a little bit of tummy left over and that’s it. Mindy and I took the opportunity before she left to discuss her future plans with her – a subject we’ve avoided till now. We’ve avoided it so that she could focus her full attention on Olivia, but it is time to begin thinking seriously about her own career and future. After Ashley left, we talked about the coming events and everything we each need to do. It doesn’t seem like much until you realize there’s hardly anytime to rest and relax – something both of us like to do. We went to bed around 10pm ET.