And if you can't get all of your shopping done, there are always gift cards.

I really only have my nieces to finish shopping for, so it should be something I can accomplish on Thursday.

Deep breaths. Whiskey. Try to write at least 100 new words. Reasonable goals.

That is a good plan, shrift.

Glad you are home, Laura! Continuing the ~ma.

We have our White Elephant gift exchange tomorrow. I have very little idea what to expect. I'm giving [link] because it came up in a search for white elephant gifts and I have no idea what I'm doing. I always thought from the name that you were supposed to bring a gift you had received elsewhere and didn't want, but we have a $10 price limit so I guess not. On top of all that, we are apparently "playing the right/left game" for the exchange, which no one (including the person who told us we are doing it) had heard of before tomorrow. So who knows how that will go.

Meanwhile, finally having lunch. It went from being too early for lunch to being way late really fast.

I despise the gift games that involve taking things from other people. There's always someone who gets something they actually like that someone else takes away from them, but you're just supposed to laugh because "it's just a game, why are you a spoilsport?" But I also go out of my way to sabotage practical jokes, so I guess I'm just a killjoy.

I'm with you on that, Connie, 100%. I hate games and jokes that are really just mean but you're supposed to laugh.

Much belly~ma, Laura! Glad you're okay.

I am unclear if that is what this is or not!

I feel everyone with the stress. I've been a bundle of it for a bit now. It's all good stuff, but it's just a lot. My business is now a corporation, which is great, but keeps triggering more paperwork things like two trips to city hall yesterday as well and one to the bank, lots of changes in employee healthcare for my staff, and now worrying about all of my staff. I have 5 full time people who are depending on me to keep them working and paid.

A very large RFP just landed in our lap on Friday which is very good, but it has a due date of January 4th, which means we have our work cut out for us putting it all together over the holidays, when a lot of us are out on various vacations. I'm also finalizing scope of work on two more projects, which are again, very good, but it's a lot of negotiating, and it's starting to wear me down.

So yeah, stress, lots of it.

I'm also trying to lease new office/warehouse space for my business and that's difficult in Los Angeles. I have a place I'm interested in, but getting the landlord to be organized to get an offer together is like pulling teeth.

Timelies all!

Health~ma to Laura.

Oh dear. I bought a case of matza I don't know how many Pssovers ago and stuck it in the cabinet above my stove and mostly forgot about it. Some mice or shrews or something appear to have discoverd it and, er, moved in.

I don't quite know how to deal with that. I mean, they gotta go but I don't know how I'm going to evict them in practical terms.

I don't know if it's better or worse that they look healthy and are, I'm fact, pretty cute.

Got the frets on friends miscarriage. Apparently the baby had been dead in the womb for two weeks.

Warning for gore.

She essentially birthed it into the toilet and she and her husband had to deal with the blood and gore, him snipping the umbilical cord and tying it off so she wouldn't bleed out in the early AM hours. I can't even imagine the horror of it. This fully shaped person no bigger than her hand.