Oh dear. What a long time away. This is the last day of my vacation, and boy, I do feel much better! Highlights:

1) Not being at work!

2) GSP (my pretend boyfriend, see below) beating Matt Hughes for the title

3) Spending two days with my brother, watching Buffy. We're halfway through season seven now. It really is much better watching it all the way through without a week in between.

4) Almost finishing Calvin's flame blanket. I've about four inches to go at the top, and then the edging, and then I'll be done. I'll be sure to post a picture. Next project will be something for the generic family gift exchange. I picked up some of Yarnbee's new Soft Delight yarn, and I think it will make for a cute hat and scarf set.

5) Seeing Emily. They were in Iowa for about a day before taking off for Disneyworld for Thanksgiving. They'll be back this week and spending some more time here before heading back to Alaska.

6) Two Thanksgivings! I got a call at about 11:45 on Tuesday from Em: "Where are you?" "In Iowa City." "Well, dinner's ready." "Go ahead and eat without me." "Mom says no, we'll wait." When I get there half an hour later, there's Thanksgiving dinner on the table. Seems someone had forgotten to tell me we were going to celebrate while Matt and Em where there, and since Dad had to work on Thursday. I reminded them all of the year they forgot to tell me where Thanksgiving was.

7) Playing with Calvin and Malea during Malea's birthday party (4!) Friday. There was hide and seek, and playing horsie with Malea while chasing Calvin in circles around the kitchen island. That boy sure does love to be chased, but my arms were so sore the next day from holding Malea on my back.

8) Running into high school classmate Mary and her family at Pizza Hut. We sat down next to them, and we all ended up talking to them almost as much as we did within our own party.

9) Somewhat bittersweet, but: picking out some of Grandma's glassware to take home. They haven't hardly even started settling her estate, and since Aunt Carol is still living in her house as she always did, there's no pressure to get the house cleaned out, either. They've started trying to give away some of her things, starting with the breakables. She had some really great things, and it was hard trying to decide on what I would like and what would make me remember her. I picked out a glass lemonade pitcher and bowl, a Bavarian plate, a glass cream and sugar set shaped like pears, a small crystal decantur and a green glass goblet. They were also going through pictures, dividing those up into ones that people could just take and those that we needed to get copied. There was one I'd never even seen before, taken of my dad when he was in Vietnam. I'd like to have that.

10) Hanging out with the family. I don't know how I lucked out having such a great group of people to be related to. More to come this week! Em and Matt will be back, and I volunteered to be a chaperone for Calvin's field trip on Friday to see Narnia at the Galvin Fine Arts Center in the Quad Cities.