I hate winter. The cold. The wet. Yuck. And Jeremy hopes we can move north for even more winter. Well, we'll deal with that when we get accepted somewhere fabulous. Or we'll go somewhere less fabulous down here. If anybody happens to have a famous professor uncle in a great doctoral program in English and you're okay with my pimping out your connection, just let me know. So there's that. An the house is a mess and my inlaws are visiting right after Christmas and there's. Just. No. Time. But Jeremy is off of work (thank you academia!) until next year, so maybe we can get it done. We've been going through the house today getting rid of books a) so I can have my own shelf of crafty and cooky books right next to the bed where I can use them and b) so we can take them to this fabulous bookstore in Chattanooga called McKay for credit. Also, we are trying to wean Lily as she now has four teeth and is something of a biter. Ouch for Mama. But we have a high chair and are making more a production out of meals and trying to set up a better schedule. Striving hard to move forward into the grown up world. But it's cold and it's wet and it's winter and I get discouraged. My nipples hurt and my clothes don't fit right and it's almost Christmas and I was going to make everything but there's not enough time. Waaaah, Ricky, I wanna be in the show. On the good news, we're going to visit my parents in two weeks for an entire weekend of cookie making for the holidays. I'm getting more hours at work and getting better as a knitting teacher, though each day seems to have it's own humiliations. But I am improving and my wonderful boss seems to have confidence in me. And the extra money is unarguably nice to have around. Lily has repeatedly said a word that sounds like "kitty" when the cat is around, so I'm putting it down as her first word, whatever they all say about me. So there's good stuff and there's bad stuff. Most days the good outweighs the bad, or at least makes me not mind the bad so much. Merry Effing Christmas.