All my Christmas shopping is done, how about that? Plus, it was ALL online. I broke down and agreed to split the digital camera with my mom for my sister. Amazingly, we spent less than $100 on a 6 megapixel Sony at Walmart. This is actually less $$ than i spent on an Olympus digital camera at Walmart several years ago.

Got a nice trio of prep knives for my mother, and in fact got another set for me, they looked so nice. They're those japanese knives, soboku or something like that, and come in a nice wooden box that doubles as a cutting board. $30 on HSN.

It's been such a cold, wintry weekend i haven't wanted to venture outside much.

Friday was my office moving day and my last day there. I hired a guy i know in town to move all our stuff, mostly files, to another location. The leased copier was picked up by a trucking company. Said my goodbyes to ex-boss and others in the office. My job there is done, and I did it all with a smile, to the end. Course, having another job lined up sure makes a layoff easier to bear.

So it was a bit of a bittersweet day, a mix of sadness to be saying goodbye to some people and places I've grown very comfortable with, but also some relief to finally close up this chapter of my life after what seemed like a prolonged ending.

Sometime in December i'll be getting my severance pay and my 401k rolled over into a new IRA. And a few loose ends more in the form of reimbursements they owe me for $ spent out of pocket for the office move.

Now begins my 5-week hiatus, aka VACATION, before i begin my new job. I am quite sure i will become bored with all this time off and will be ready to go at that new job when the time comes, but right now the way i feel about this break in the routine is how a 10 year old feels about summer vacation.

Friday night went to our town's tree lighting with friend H. Cold, cold, but we listened to the kids sing a few carols and waited for the big 'lights on' the evergreen. It was nice, but then we walked back quickly to H.'s house to warm up, and i spent another hour chatting with H. in her kitchen over tea. She's a diabetic and she put chocolate and cookies out on the table, so to keep her healthy i was forced to eat everything.

Today i ventured out to check out the library holiday book sale. Nothing for me, though i did earlier buy a used book there all about America's trash and where it really ends up.

I've been an environmentalist all my life, but have kept it somewhat undercover with many people i know since many seemed in the past to view it as a somewhat kooky, post-hippie thing to do. Now, thanks to Al Gore and others, environmentalism has 'come back into fashion,' so lately i've been getting into it more. After the book sale, swung by the grocery store to pick some things up, then returned home and started my dinner, a Moroccan style chicken with prunes, in the slow cooker. Pretty good, and smelled amazing.

Tomorrow a.m. i'll be bringing the car to the dealer to get the snows on, the oil changed, fuel/air filters replaced, fix that annoying scraping noise in front. Neither the regular tires or the snows seem to have a great deal of tread left, tho the snows have more. I'll have to ask them how many miles of wear they think they have left. I feel like i've had so many big expenses, and more coming, that new tires are really the last thing i want to think about.

For instance, i'm debating whether i should plunk down $279 for a Toro snow thrower. I've gotten by 11 years with my 150 foot long driveway and just me and my shovel, but i can't say it's been easy when there's a major overnight storm and i have to get to work. If i were still working in town, i wouldn't worry about it, cus they were easygoing and i could always walk. But with the new job, i don't think i can assume anything like that, and who wants to show up in a sweat? So despite not wanting to accumulate any more home-related purchass when i may be selling in a few years, this one may really be needed. I was reading customer reviews on the Toro 1800 and it seems to work pretty well.

Before i start the new job, it sure would feel great to be brave and get an enitrely new haircut, eg, something shorter than my usual longer than shoulder-length hair and maybe something more professional and befitting a 40-something woman. It's just that once i got a cut that is anything but a basic trim, then i'd have to 'maintain' it every month or so, and that means spending more $$$. Maybe i'll hold off on that and just have mom trim it a few inches.

Waiting for Prairie Home Companion to come on the radio. I used to listen to that religiously, for years. I love those little monologues that Garrison Keilor does about German Lutherans in the midwest. I'm one of them, and it cracks me up since no one else 'discusses' my ethnic group they way they do others.