It's practically Christmas! Well, it feels that way at work. Honestly, does anything really get done this week? I have done a few things -- lots of emails and things getting put up on the web, but I still have a lot of major things to do.

But in more fun news, I have wrapped all my presents and given away a majority of the Christmas cookies that I baked last Friday.

I went out for dinner last night with Trip, Angela (a friend from church) and Mark (a new pastor who is dating Angela) for Ethiopian food. It was super delicious, and extra good because I got to eat with the injera bread. Yum! We got a big sampler platter and Ethiopian beer (which was good, even if it was a little pricy). I tried lamb, which was a little spicy, beef tibs, which was my favorite, two kinds of lentils, greens, tomatoes, which were fabulous, chicken, and yellow peas. Then we went over to Angela's apartment and had cookies and tea. I had this vanilla red tea -- it was Celestial Seasonings tea with the lion on the cover so we called it Aslan tea. Trip tried the blueberry tea which I didn't like as much. He didn't either.

My biggest excitement is that I will be going home for five days starting on Saturday. I'm really, really psyched to be off of work until next Wednesday. Not a super long holiday, but long enough. I don't really have any plans for my vacation -- just spending time with the family and maybe seeing Paul from high school. I've also got next weekend off as well -- so while I don't have any plans for the New Year's weekend, I will have it off!

Other big news is that I am going to Seattle in January! There is the ALA Midwinter Conference starting on the 19th. So I'll do meeting stuff for a few days -- through Monday -- and then I'll be spending time with my friend Kelly and her family. So I'll be on the West Coast for a week! Very exciting! I've never really been out there before -- we stopped at the Seattle airport when we flew to Alaska, but that doesn't count.

I feel like I need to look back and do another round up of the year like I did last year. It was fun and a good way to make me think about what I've been up to. Since I haven't been the most consistent of blogger....oh well!