It's been very busy at work and I've been on mandatory overtime for a few weeks.  I think I'll get a bit of a break now, but then January & February will be very busy - year end in an accounting department - can't imagine why we'd be busy.  Plus our boss retired and they'll hire a replacement - probaby about February or so.  You never know how things might change.  I've been there for almost 19 years and a new person from the outside could be good or could be bad - we'll find out. Grandson busy with sports, so when I'm not working I'm driving to practices or games.  His mother came home for Thanksgiving and it went well.  She's taking meds for bi-polar disorder and seems to be doing very well now.   I won't get my hopes up too high because I've heard this before and it fell through, but she said that she is going to start college.  She's been accepted at an art institute and is looking at either fashion design or marketing.  I really hope she does follow through this time. We're getting together at a water park hotel half-way between where she and we live.  Our other daughter and her family are going also.  We're meeting the weekend before Christmas and coming back Christmas Eve morning.  Then we're all going to oldest daughter's house for Christmas Eve gathering.  We'll take my dad with us there.  It's good that we're doing something very different for the holidays this year.  It's the first Christmas since my mother died in February and doing something different might help ease the pain a bit, at least I hope so.  I've found myself thinking about her a lot lately - every cookie I make reiminds me of her because she so loved baking.  And, I have to keep reminding myself that I won't be buying her a gift this year.  I was thinking about buying a small gift and giving it to someone in a nursing home in her memory.  I'm sure there are a people who do not have any family and even a small gift might make someone's holiday brighter. Also been thinking and praying for grandson's friend's family.  His friend's father was in a terrible accident, spine was crushed. and he might never regain the use of his arms or legs.  The family is about the nicest and most Christian people you could ever meet, and I believe that prayers are what they need most as it meams so much to them all. Well, I'm about done shopping, baked and froze a lot of cookies already, decorating is done, so I just need to wrap and finish baking.  I have two weekends left.  Weeknights are too busy and I'm not usually home.  The two evenings that I've been home, my dad has stopped in to visit so I couldn't do anything.  For a few seconds I was annoyed because I could not get things done.  But then I realized that spending time with my 81-year-old father was much more important than anything else I could think of doing.  He's lonely again since my brother who was staying with him was in a car accident, shattered his knee and leg, and he had surgery.  He can't bear any weight on his leg for six weeks so he's in a nursing home until he can walk again.  We'll need to visit him on Christmas Day so he won't be so lonely. Well, it's almost time to leave for basketball practice (grandson's, not mine!) so got to run.