(this is my profile pic on Facebook at this moment)

It seems weird, even to me, that I can’t seem to get in the holiday spirit this year. I actually LOVE this time of the year, and the whole get-ready-for-Christmas thing, but this year, unless I make a REALLY BIG EFFORT, might be the first year we don’t get any decorations up. Never mind the yearly card/letter. That already fell by the wayside last year, when I conceded to time, and ended up writing a holiday email. Sigh.

One thing that’s not helping is that Will and I are taking another expensive test this week, and for a variety of reasons, it’s super hard. It’s what’s called an “adaptive” test, which means that every question you get right, the next one is harder. Will took it yesterday (I made him schedule his test before mine so I could rake in all the info I could ahead of time ;-) ) and then recounted questions so hard that even the nurse in our office had no idea what the answers were! I know it’s because he’s a walking encyclopedia, but still. Crapola. And it’s only 50 questions, yet pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about Western medicine is fair game — pharmacology, blood chemistry, diseases of all types (including ones like polio — who sees that anymore!) , orthopedics, emergency medicine, as well as some ethics, and legality, and whatever else they deem acceptable to throw in the pot. All in 50 questions. Charming.  I need to aim low on this one, I suspect.

And then Will and I thought we’d tighten our belts a bit, since the entire financial industry is freaking out over the recession and making our lives just a BIT harder, and really — we don’t need anything. We have rich, full lives, AND we live in 600 square feet — we’re only allowed to bring something in if we take something out, so I told my mom that all I want is books for my Kindle. Escapist literature saves me every time.

And it’s nice to be busy at work, but I’ve noticed that it’s increased somewhat exponentially without any of us noticing. That is, until our office manager called us up in tears, overwhelmed with too much to do, so we hired someone else, who immediately said to her, (and rightly so) “How did you get this all done by yourself?” And when Will and I go home, there’s still stuff to do, and tests to study for, and things to write, and deadlines, and it makes me want to move to France. You know, where they take lunch and actually CLOSE the office, and everyone leaves at 5. EVERYONE, meaning also the owners.

Will’s not that into the holidays (although I’ve noticed that he enjoys it if I MAKE him participate) so really, I’m the only one driving the bus here.

Perhaps the bus driver should put an Out Of Service sign up, along with a couple of strings of lights, and that all might help.

But I DID buy another turkey to roast, just to refine my technique ;-) And because I haven’t had quite enough turkey paté yet.

** Update: I passed. But it was REALLY HARD. The nurse in my office didn’t even know the answers to some of the questions! But that’s OK — I’m done!