I'm on Break!

Yesterday afternoon at 3:15 I officially went on Christmas Break. Well, the politically correct term is "Winter Break," but you know what I mean!

It took a couple of hours to pick up my kids, run errands, and then--once I got home--mess with the computer. (The weather's been wreaking havoc with everyone's Internet connection, says our ISP rep...afternoons and evenings we've been getting a weak signal to our desktop, and a weak-to-non-existent signal to our laptop.) So I didn't get a chance to really relax until after 5:00 PM.

I've got a long list of to-dos, which I'm actually looking forward to. I'm truly a homebody, and I like doing things around the house, as long as they're not being undone right behind me, or I'm not being constantly interrupted.

Besides the obvious plans of putting the finishing touches on Christmas and New Year's celebrations, I'm hoping to get quite a bit of writing and scanning done. My writing plans include lots of blogging, finishing up lesson plans and syllabuses for several classes I'm teaching in January, and catching up on e-mails. Scanning projects involve my ever-growing collections that need to be digitally preserved, recorded and analyzed, as well as stacks of borrowed family records and documents that need to be returned to their owners soon.

I also look forward to spending time with family. During the school year we four are all scattered at our individual schools and workplaces; it'll be nice, especially, for my husband to see us all before he goes to work, as his work hours are opposite ours. He'll also get some time off, although not as much as we do. I'm looking forward to seeing extended family members as well. My oldest nephew's birthday is this weekend, and we'll all gather once again at Chuck E. Cheese's. My brother is expected to be in town from the west side of the state; we usually only see him during the holidays. Everyone is coming over to my house for Christmas Day, and I'm looking forward to my favorite part: watching the nephews (ages 3, 5, and 9) open their gifts! We'll be spending time with Norm's brother's family as well; we usually meet at their place either Christmas Eve or the day after Christmas for dinner and then gather around in the family room to watch a movie.