Nine more days

No, not days until Christmas; days until my annual two week Christmas break.

Yesterday afternoon I handed my "must finish" project (state 990 return) to my boss for review. Based on previous experience, it will languish on his desk until the last possible minute, causing me to lose my mind running to get clean copies and the two signatures the form requires, prior to posting it before my vacation starts.

He likes to work that way; I don't.

Having that off my desk not only provides the time to catch up on other work, but to realize that in nine short days, I can hang up the pantyhose for a couple of weeks, turn off the alarm clock and let the days take a more natural course.

Between now and then, in addition to the final project flurry, are a few other events:
 - A pre-holiday hair appointment, time to hide the roots and put in some red and gold highlights.
- A visit to dear friends' new-ish condo, taking lunch and a casserole for the freezer for gifts.
- A cookie exchange, for which I have zero cookies baked...if I can't bake them until the morning of the exchange, at least they will be very fresh, right?
- The office potluck, to which I am bringing...the eight dozen cookies from the exchange. Hey, I'll take shortcuts where I can this time of year.
- The departmental Christmas party. Last year, the planning committee put together a murder mystery for us to solve; who knows what they are up to this year.

I think that's it. Not included on the list: Putting away fall décor, putting up some Christmas stuff, purchasing the remaining couple of gifts.

Then there will be the List - the list of things I want to do over the break. This year, I intend to write down only the fun things, rather than everything. I'm pretty good at consulting the list to choose things to work on, so the theory is that I will do more of the fun things than otherwise if only the fun things are listed.

Only nine days.