BerthaBlog

This morning was my last day of class—technically an exam day, although for this class we had a presentation instead. Personally, I would rather have the exam. Spent the weekend dreading it. But I’d signed up to go second so I could get it over with quickly, which meant I was only freaking out for the first half hour of class and then it was behind me.

I also checked WebAdvisor to see if my Business Income Tax grade was posted yet. To my great surprise, I got an A. I never managed higher than a B on the tests, so I figured I’d be getting a B. The homework must have pulled it up.

Now I can get to work full-time on Christmas cards and presents. And hunting through the job boards. And looking around at the new touch phones. I like the new touch phones, but not enough to pay $600 for one. For that kind of money it should do my laundry and mow my lawn. But they sure are shiny.

If it weren’t for my kids (in particular, my youngest son), I probably wouldn’t get the Christmas decorations up until New Year’s Eve. Except of course for the Christmas Witch.

Fortunately my son is not only very enthusiastic about decorating for Christmas, he’s also a control freak—a very energetic one. All I have to do is drag the decorations down from the attic. After that I go hide in the basement for a few hours, and when I come back upstairs everything’s decorated.

This year we have a new tree. Our old artificial tree has a broken leg on its base, and it was not the best tree to begin with, so it seemed like a good excuse to get a new one. So sayeth my son, who is in charge of these things.

“The base on this is broken. I think it’s about time for a new tree anyway,” he declared.

I was holding up a wall nearby. Sometimes just watching that kid makes me tired; no one should have this much energy. “I guess after Christmas we should give it to the Thrift Shoppe, and they can fix it up and sell it.”

“Yeah, we should do that.”

“Or,” I considered, “we could go ahead and get a new tree now, so we could donate the old tree in time for someone to actually get use out of it this year.”

That appealed to him. He’s a control freak, but he’s also one of the kindest, most generous people you’ll ever meet. “Would we be able to get it by Christmas?”

“We can go look at trees right now, if you want.”

In that little pause denoted by a comma, he disappeared and returned with his coat on. His “Okay!” overlapped my last few words.

So now we’ve got a somewhat nicer artificial tree—we debated even getting a live one this year, but weren’t sure how we’d transport it home—and the old one is all boxed up and ready to take to the Thrift Shoppe.

It’s beginning to look a bit like Christmas.