On the next five days of Sockmas, my true love lavished me with even more decadent goodies: toasty cartoon hand-snuggles, effulgent office trees and coruscating christmas boxes, smiles and yulebombs from across the oceans, and shiny new toenails after stolen moments with best friends.
And the next five days of Sockmas, my true love went wild with an office fort, gigantic pine post-decontructed unwreathing wreaths, Hawaiian laundry lines, and scads of family mementos.
And even still, there was more to come tra la la la la...
On the Sixteenth Day of Sockmas, My True Love Gave to Me...Professional swag, family photo deluge, Ornamental laundry, merry Medusoza, Dueling wreaths a wreathing, an office sleeping suite, happy hand toasters, office space aglowing, transatlantic sparkles, decked out toes a greening, huge Christmas boxes, bike part decor, midweek datenight fun, teeny tinsel tree, a delicata bake, and a polar bear in a pear tree
Lest I cavil and garumph about my duties on the IRB to heartily, damn do they do appreciation well. Last year, it was a straight up Starbucks card, which I admit preferring over the coffee I can't currently drink (but superlative regifting opportunity, no?). This year they upped the ante a bit. Sure there was coffee, but there was also a coffee mug (convenient, since another one just burst into flooded cracks a few days ago), and - oh the very very best part - chocolate truffles. Because I haven't really gotten my all-chocolate-diet off the ground entirely just yet.
This bittersweet sumptuary-buster is only the espresso bean on the top of the foamy latte of Christmas yule! Yesterday, one of our outgoing clients (as in her case is finalizing, phew) dropped arms laden in additional swag. My mom and Leslie got books, but the entire office got mini pecan pies. Kind of a divergence from her previous year's entry of full scale pecan pies. But really, since I hate the pecan pie innards, improving the ratio of pecan and crust to innards is a rather canny amendment in my world.
And in terms of Adella's gift to herself, I'm still loving the Galaxy 5. I haven't played with the bells and whistles, being fairly ambivalent about these things, but the battery life is truly inspirational. I haven't charged it since Sunday afternoon and it is still at 45%. Usually I'm madly compulsive about locating and attaching my phone to any available charger at any time. If my phone gets below 60%, it's the apocalypse. But this is largely because my S3 has this ability to drain rather exponentially and without warning. The S5 seems to have a nice slow depreciation even when I'm using it fairly frequently. I'm tempted to wait until the battery bottoms out just to see how long it takes. This is very uncharacteristic Adella behavior, but it amuses me at the moment to do so!
And in gifting news beyond myself, I'm nearly wrapped up (har har, ok no gift wrapping has occured) on the holiday binge. I just need one or two more friend gifts and... something for my dad. I was going to purchase a Massage Envy gift card for him, as I've previously done. But then on Sunday I got the news that Massage Assassin Nick will be leaving his post at the end of the month. Hard to imagine what my father will do in his absence! He's quite attached to Nick's take-no-prisoners-pummellings. Ah well, back to my first idea: a teenager orangutang name of Mikey! He looks adorable in his little zoot suit and gets along relatively well with child surrogate sphinx kitty, Prince Florimund! They play parcheesi together sometimes.
And well, maybe I do need some more chocolate for myself. I mean, a proper dinner requires several varieties of chocolate across the rainbow. Some fruits and nuts in there for fiber. A bit of zest. Some liquor. Peppers, cinnamon... all health foods after all...
On the Seventeenth Day of Sockmas, My True Love Gave to Me...Gong-a-long-a-ding-dong, professional swag, family photo deluge, Ornamental laundry, merry Medusoza, dueling wreaths a wreathing, an office sleeping suite, happy hand toasters, office space aglowing, transatlantic sparkles, decked out toes a greening, huge Christmas boxes, bike part decor, midweek datenight fun, teeny tinsel tree, a delicata bake, and a polar bear in a pear tree
Ok, this is hardly a new Christmas addition. Lore of the office gong has come and gone for years now. My mother bought it a little while back. The idea is that sometimes we get caught up in our stresses at work and forget to breath. Just pausing at times, focusing on our breath, and letting go of the hubbub, is a major mind-clearer (and efficiency booster). In this spirit, my mother bought this little gong. The original idea was that we would just sound the gong from time to time at random.
This spontaneous gonging wasn't hugely successful. There's a load of implication in hitting the gong at the wrong time. Something akin to "YOU NEED TO CHILL OUT"... or so it may have been construed a few times. And fear of such implication paralyzed us from otherwise attempting it. Because somebody in the office is nearly always doing something where they might take umbrage from an unplanned gong.
So we developed a system. Each day of the working month, one of us is responsible for sounding the gong at a certain time. This is determined through a recondite game of laminated cards set in two piles. At the beginning of the month, the piles come out and we draw one from each until they are gone. One pile has numbers that correlate to the "working day" (which has to be sorted out on calendar, since weekends do not count) and the other pile has times.
Needless to say, this has not been a perfect system either. It's easy enough to shortcut the working days with the date, but even more likely is one will reference the calendar (with secret decoder numbers) and choose an entirely wrong date through overthinking.
At which point, inevitably some days no gong shall be chimed and other days, there will be an indignant "But it was my day!!" nearly accusatory moment or two when gongs are usurped.
But more often, it inspired a fairly random plangent gonging at some unexpected (thoroughly) points during the week.
I've taken to crossing my knees and sitting on the new sleeping bag in my office when a gong goes off. A nice deep ten deep breaths or so and I'm back to the kitchen, where I inevitably am when the gong goes off.
It's a particularly good little reminder around the holiday final-stretch when the urgency gets high and tensions outpace tinsel.
And it goes well with the dingaling of the sugar plum fairy!
Happy Humpday. We're a mere week out from the real yuletide feting! Panic and ponder accordingly, then take a nice deep breath and remember this is all very fun!
On the Eighteenth Day of Sockmas, My True Love Gave to Me Handy hand weights, gong-a-long-a-ding-dong, professional swag, family photo deluge, ornamental laundry, merry Medusoza, dueling wreaths a wreathing, an office sleeping suite, happy hand toasters, office space aglowing, transatlantic sparkles, decked out toes a greening, huge Christmas boxes, bike part decor, midweek datenight fun, teeny tinsel tree, a delicata bake, and a polar bear in a pear tree
In honor of making my office evermore anything but an office, my home-away-from-home office doesn't just stop at a treadmill desk and several locations for stretching. I've added weights from my mom's office. I can't recall if these were ones she purchased in some "it would be healthy to strength train" afflatus or if these are the ones she recovered from my grandmother's home after her passing. I believe they are the former. They've been hanging out at the office for a good year or two. Along with the magical back massage stick that lingers in mom-boss' office (and is heavily utilized by everyone but the mom-boss).
I use these handy (har har) little weights sporadically through the week. Mostly just when I have little breaks and am not feeling a full on yoga stretch. They're nice and lithe little things, so not contributing to my massive gordian knot of a back too much. Not nearly the same thing as going to pilates or the gym, but it helps in between. And it's something to distract myself with. Which is the main inspiration for 90% of any "fitnessey" type things I do.
This week has dragged on interminably. Not necessarily in a horrible way. There have been plenty of shining moments. It's just got a strange staggering pace, due to its proximity to the big X-Mas extravaganza. Possibly it too is a little weighted down with cute blue hand weights... who can say. But we're getting so close to the weekend, I can taste the peppermint fudge Saturday!
Just at the tip of my toes...
A few more... ok... several more hours to go... time to pump those reps out and coddle the clock a spell!
On the Nineteenth Day of Sockmas, My True Love Gave to Me....(Or to my husband's feminine alter-ago, really)... Yuletide business booty, handy hand weights, gong-a-long-a-ding-dong, professional swag, family photo deluge, ornamental laundry, merry Medusoza, dueling wreaths a wreathing, an office sleeping suite, happy hand toasters, office space aglowing, transatlantic sparkles, decked out toes a greening, huge Christmas boxes, bike part decor, midweek datenight fun, teeny tinsel tree, a delicata bake, and a polar bear in a pear tree
Friday!!! We've made it to Friday. No more full weeks for a wee while. Of course that means preparing for the final Christmas haul. By all reports of virtually every person we've talked to in passing, today is the day to finish up Christmas shopping. Expect anomie. Festive rufescent bloodshed and piney mulled tears.
Yesterday, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Wright received a package from the bonny climes of San Francisco. Whenever I see things addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Andrew etc. I find it so nice that my husband has a network of people who support him in all manifestations of gender identity. I'm pretty sure that he sticks with the masculine in a vergingly stereotypical way, but he has his delicious little moments from those days in stage craft. Oh honey, trust me, he can dish!
Anyways, then I realize that people just misunderstood the bargain. See, we took Andrew's last name, and naturally that means we took my first name. Henceforth, I shall list us as Ms. and Mr. Adella Wright. Ok, really I just call us A&A Wright and leave it be. That way nobody knows which A is coming first and individual preferences can vary.
Which is to say, although I have spent my entire life categorizing love interests into "people whose names I'd take in a heartbeat" (I think it's just the sound of my name that has made these largely fall into more Spanish or Italian sounding surnames, I don't think I put on that many airs and I'd happily go with Jones or Fitzgerald as evidenced by my grade school notebooks) and "people I would be feeling very feminist towards" (Adella Douchenbusey was always not happening) I don't get a particular kick out of seeing myself referred to as Mrs Andrew Wright. It just isn't me. I'm not even a Mrs. Adella Wright. I am Ms. (W)right, thanks much. Or Lady Adella of Wright.
But I digress. We gots ourselves some new swag. I was of course tempted to shuttle it away into the closet of mystery, where all the other gifts and presents hide pending a good thorough wrapping. But we decided that it was Hanukkah afterall, so it was appropriate to open this one gift. Or most of it. The wrapped part is something we saved. But we did get T-Shirts and socks related to architectural business and B-Corp (a certification for companies that wish to benefit society and use business as a tool for good beyond turning a profit) socks! I call that a Hanukkah miracle!
Andrew's staying down at work a spell longer today for something called "The Mac Lunch." It's basically an office Christmas party, but EI style. Held each year in a new (literally, newly-built-new) building, it features an enormous buffet of middling quality, families, and a giant speech by the owner and president. Not exactly my cup of tea from Andrew's reports about last year. Not liking people or lines or long drives, for instance. But it does sound like an interesting phenomenon and I enjoy hearing about it after the fact!
And it gives me more time to Christmas bomb the Englett domicile. Or watch tv there. One of those. We'll see how the day plays out.
On the Twentieth Day of Sockmas, My True Love Gave to Me Advent nummies nummies, yuletide business booty, handy hand weights, gong-a-long-a-ding-dong, professional swag, family photo deluge, ornamental laundry, merry Medusoza, dueling wreaths a wreathing, an office sleeping suite, happy hand toasters, office space aglowing, transatlantic sparkles, decked out toes a greening, huge Christmas boxes, bike part decor, midweek datenight fun, teeny tinsel tree, a delicata bake, and a polar bear in a pear tree
I discovered my Advent calendar last year. Finally something with chocolate that doesn't taste like stale anemic milk-cardboard. The original chocolates, courtesy of Seattle Chocolates, were an array of darkish to darker truffles. This year, of course, we'd depleted the original cache, so I made a run for emergency re-up at our grocery store. Still Seattle Chocolates, of course, but two variety packs of truffles: one riffing on dark chocolate (of course) and the other riffing on various cocktails. So far this seems to include jet black dark, dark salted almond, cosmopolitan, mimosa (with pop rocks to simulate the fizz fizz), lemon drop (white chocolate lemon), and margarita.
I usually bring it to the sofa at the end of the evening and let Andrew find the day of the month. He was originally fishing them out, but after the repeated wear and tear, it helps to have fingernails. So now I've been opening the little hatches. Then Andrew takes one big bite, exposing the tasty middle belly of the truffle for my little nip nip.
It's a nice dress rehearsal for our pending inundation in chocolatey goodness (judging by past holidays). And a little help in that weight gain project... very little. I'm maybe up a pound after dropping back down one so something of a wash. Probably the additional meal is a bit more effective, but the Christmas chocolate is nothing to sneer at. I may also have "sampled" from roughly six more bars this morning. Also holiday themed, mostly. Dark chocolate peppermint (ubiquitous), chai spice (weird, just weird, but in a compelling and repeatable way), pumpkin spice (mostly just dark chocolate), 90% dark chocolate (to symbolize the darkness of the night through which Advent spies the hope of light), and gingerbread.
I will get in the mood and into my bigger Santa pants by golly!
Ho ho ho, happy Saturday before Christmas! Dropped a holiday bomb on the Englett domicile yesterday as promised. The tree was my job and looks mostly like Christmas projectile vomited all over it. My mom took her life into her own hands to hang lights in various places. Naturally, we got them all stuck up before remembering that half of a string had never worked. Ah well. Adds atmosphere!
Lots of waiting and the end is drawing nigh. The excitement is palpable and chocolatey-good
But I digress. We gots ourselves some new swag. I was of course tempted to shuttle it away into the closet of mystery, where all the other gifts and presents hide pending a good thorough wrapping. But we decided that it was Hanukkah afterall, so it was appropriate to open this one gift. Or most of it. The wrapped part is something we saved. But we did get T-Shirts and socks related to architectural business and B-Corp (a certification for companies that wish to benefit society and use business as a tool for good beyond turning a profit) socks! I call that a Hanukkah miracle!
Andrew's staying down at work a spell longer today for something called "The Mac Lunch." It's basically an office Christmas party, but EI style. Held each year in a new (literally, newly-built-new) building, it features an enormous buffet of middling quality, families, and a giant speech by the owner and president. Not exactly my cup of tea from Andrew's reports about last year. Not liking people or lines or long drives, for instance. But it does sound like an interesting phenomenon and I enjoy hearing about it after the fact!
And it gives me more time to Christmas bomb the Englett domicile. Or watch tv there. One of those. We'll see how the day plays out.
On the Twentieth Day of Sockmas, My True Love Gave to Me Advent nummies nummies, yuletide business booty, handy hand weights, gong-a-long-a-ding-dong, professional swag, family photo deluge, ornamental laundry, merry Medusoza, dueling wreaths a wreathing, an office sleeping suite, happy hand toasters, office space aglowing, transatlantic sparkles, decked out toes a greening, huge Christmas boxes, bike part decor, midweek datenight fun, teeny tinsel tree, a delicata bake, and a polar bear in a pear tree
I usually bring it to the sofa at the end of the evening and let Andrew find the day of the month. He was originally fishing them out, but after the repeated wear and tear, it helps to have fingernails. So now I've been opening the little hatches. Then Andrew takes one big bite, exposing the tasty middle belly of the truffle for my little nip nip.
It's a nice dress rehearsal for our pending inundation in chocolatey goodness (judging by past holidays). And a little help in that weight gain project... very little. I'm maybe up a pound after dropping back down one so something of a wash. Probably the additional meal is a bit more effective, but the Christmas chocolate is nothing to sneer at. I may also have "sampled" from roughly six more bars this morning. Also holiday themed, mostly. Dark chocolate peppermint (ubiquitous), chai spice (weird, just weird, but in a compelling and repeatable way), pumpkin spice (mostly just dark chocolate), 90% dark chocolate (to symbolize the darkness of the night through which Advent spies the hope of light), and gingerbread.
I will get in the mood and into my bigger Santa pants by golly!
Ho ho ho, happy Saturday before Christmas! Dropped a holiday bomb on the Englett domicile yesterday as promised. The tree was my job and looks mostly like Christmas projectile vomited all over it. My mom took her life into her own hands to hang lights in various places. Naturally, we got them all stuck up before remembering that half of a string had never worked. Ah well. Adds atmosphere!
Lots of waiting and the end is drawing nigh. The excitement is palpable and chocolatey-good
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