It's Beginning to Look a Lot...

Well, I have no specific topic today but I’ve reached the point, again, where I feel I have to say something lest my vast readership forget about me altogether. So I shall ramble.

First of all, I find myself astounded that it is December 1st. I have not purchased a single Christmas gift, and that is unprecedented. I have always made at least a start before December 1st, but this year that date suddenly came upon me without warning. Boom. 24 shopping days till Christmas.

But not really 24 days. This coming week I will be involved in a special work assignment that promises to keep me tied to my computer at least eight hours a day, so in fact I only have 17 shopping days till Christmas. But I won’t shop weekends or Christmas Eve, so that leaves me ten shopping days till Christmas. And out of any given ten days, I’m likely to have a migraine on at least one of them, so that leaves me at best nine shopping days till Christmas.

See how I can effortlessly work myself up into a complete frenzy?

Offsetting that negative freak-out, however, is a positive one. Scarcely seven weeks back from my last holiday and I already have my next cruise booked! Now, this is the lifestyle I have in mind! I’m off back to the warm Caribbean again at the end of February. There are endless itineraries for cruising the Caribbean area, and if one repeats some beautiful little tropic isles, well, who cares? It’s about the warm sun sparkling on aquamarine waters, the steel drum music, the flowers, the brightly-coloured fabrics, the brightly-coloured drinks o’ day…

This is what keeps me sitting at my computer working away. I work to cruise.

And in our neck of the woods, we have the first snowfall of the season today. Thank goodness we had the foresight to have our snow tires installed last week, just in the nick of time. RH always cleverly saves up a couple of routine things that need doing to our Accord, such as oil changes or mysterious tune-ups of one sort or another (I have no idea), because our Honda dealership will throw in a gratis tire change if you’re having something else done.

We’ve become very devoted Honda people. We have owned four (including VCCGirl’s), and we couldn’t be happier with the cars themselves, the organization in general and our dealership specifically. Shortly after we bought VCCGirl’s Fit with her recently, we got a call from the Honda head office surveying our purchase experience with the dealership. RH gave rave reviews in all areas but one: there had been a slight but annoying glitch in the filling out of the purchase papers. Some optional fee he had asked to have removed from the contract kept reappearing in the various versions of it and it was only due to his vigilance that VCCGirl didn’t end up paying it. The very next day, we got a call from the manager of our local dealership apologizing profusely for the inconvenience we had suffered. He had obviously received a blast from the head office almost immediately. It’s always a bit surprising when large corporations actually seem to take you seriously!

I guess that’s all the rambling I’ve got for today. It’s 3:30 p.m. and already starting to look like evening outside as the snow falls ever more thickly. It’s very pretty. It’s making me want to go crank up the Christmas tunes and start unpacking those boxes of decorations!