rainy night on the high line, nyc
. . .

christmas season. my birthday season. get-it-all-done before you can rest season. deadlines-and-dreams season. despite the fact that i’m not really taking on any new work before the end of the month, everything seems to be multiplying. three sessions to finish editing/posting. one mega holiday card (mine!) to finish. extra masses and lessons+carols services to sing. oh, and gifts as yet unordered. tree undecorated (still unbought, actually. tomorrow is surely the day…). i don’t want to make more stress with deadlines, but i’m going to push hard through the next couple of days in hopes of relaxing for the rest of the week.

~ i didn’t get tickets for the school’s sunday breakfast with santa event (i missed the deadline and they sold out. bad mommy-moment), and although i’m pretty sure we really could’ve gotten in at least for a picture, i have instead decided that this will be the year we go see the real santa at macy’s. i anticipate that after braving the madness of macy’s holiday crowds, i’ll never be up for the spectacle again, so why not do it this year when the magic of the season has her really enthralled?

~ i’m ordering my birthday/christmas gift this week. a kindle. i had been holding out for a nook (my sweet friend Mighty J is a superstar employee of barnes & noble and i always like to support them. also, the nook looks so super-cool), but this review steered me toward the kindle instead. i’ve never been a fan of the combined birthday + christmas gift (we holiday-born babies are sensitive about such things), but this one seems like a good exception.

~ i’ve also got to get the business busy-ness finished soon so i can start working on holiday baked goods! after having a good laugh at the cost of marshmallows at a snooty local market ($6.50 for a regular bag, $10 for a much smaller bag of “gourmet” ones), i have a major bee in my bonnet to make marshmallows. and fudge. and caramel corn. and gingerbread cookies. hopefully this will prove to be the fun relaxing kind of chore, not another dreaded item on the holiday list. baking is so often my zen, so i’m thinking this will be good.

~ i sang a wedding on saturday with around 250 guests. i’m not exaggerating when i say that Every Person There (except the bride) was wearing black. welcome to nyc in winter. 70% of the women were wearing full-length fur coats as well (i had a lot of time to make up statistics; the wedding started nearly 40 minutes late), which isn’t really my thing but probably came in handy when it became clear the heat wasn’t working in the church.

~ i have a fun and fabulous new lensbaby sitting on the counter and haven’t had a second to use it yet. i can hardly wait for the moment when picture time + daylight + free time converge.

~ reluctantly must get some sleep now. as much as i’m keen to pull an all-nighter and finish some work, the mommy-job starts bright and early and emma never sleeps in…

happy monday, everybody. i may sound frantic, but i’m actually happily in the holiday spirit.
hope you’re feeling it too.
xoxo

. . .

[last week was parents' week at the dance school, so i got to sit in and take pictures. i think modern dance is her favorite, but she always says "i like them all so much!" when pressed on the issue. it's true that she's all smiles from start to finish of each class.]