We realized today that we don't have anywhere to be or anyone expecting us to be there until New Year's Eve (when we'll be hosting our annual New Years gathering).  I had no idea that would be such a nice feeling.  We hosted Christmas here, got to experience Santa from a whole new perspective and are now trying to figure out how to store and organize all of our Christmas goodies.

For now, we are just enjoying some down time, which at this point means I'm doing a lot of reading.  I joined Booksfree again recently after a consistent run of late returns to the library.  I decided for their sake, and mine, that we should probably not try library books again until the kiddo is old enough for me to take him to the library.  I got my first load of books on Monday and read Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  I LOVED it, as you can likely tell by the fact that I devoured it in four days, even in the midst of all of the Christmas festivities (I'm not a particularly fast reader and usually only read right before bed, making my progress slow.  Anyway, it is part history, part romance and part suspense, and it left me happy.

Just thought I'd emerge from the holiday fog and let you know I'm still alive.  Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!  Here's our Christmas card this year (ummm…some of them are still being mailed, slacker I know, so this may be a spoiler for some of you).