Making a list

The holidays here in the Middle of Nowhere are generally pretty quiet. We're going to an open house on Christmas Eve day and will spend Christmas at my mother-in-law's. We're taking dinner in to her.

I'm leaving the next day to visit my son and his family, and the day after I get home my husband's son and children are coming here.

Little gifties ready for the grandchildren. We'll light the
fireplace candles after they open presents.

Leaving me not much time to get things ready for them, so I spent yesterday cleaning the house. And while I was at it, I rearranged the living room furniture. The couch now faces the [non-working but filled with white candles] fireplace. The outside view used to be lush and green, but now that it's just brown and bare, I thought it would be nice to change things up a bit.

Nothing like adding to the workload, right?

My mother-in-law finally got specific and requested homemade candy for her gift. Here's a tip: Do NOT substitute almond milk for cow's milk when making fudge. All you get is fudge sauce. I added a bag of leftover marshmallows to the mixture and ended up with a decidedly not gift-worthy batch of very soft fudge, which my husband loved so much he ate half the pan overnight.

So today I'll be heading to Kroger for real milk, along with a couple other must-have ingredients for candy-making. I also need to pick up a package of ribs for New Year's, since I won't have time for grocery shopping before we ring in 2015.

My list is getting longer and longer as I sit here and think about what I need to have on hand before, during and after Christmas.

Twenty-five miles to go to hit 1000. I think I'm going to come up a little short. I only managed two yesterday – I was so tired after the epic cleaning project – but coming close to 1000 is better than coming close to nothing, right?

As the young folk say, it is what it is. And for what it's worth, the bottom line is January 1 – the grand do-over – can't come soon enough.