Back 'home'

I loved Christmas this year. My only regret is that I booked my ticket while drunk. Okay, I wasn't drunk, but that's the only way I can explain why I would have myself fly back so that I could work on the slowest work day of the year, December 28, instead of enjoying a few more days with the family, relaxing, watching football games, taking advantage of super-cheap US-dollar sales...oh well. I get to relax and watch football here, too, it's just on a four-inch screen on my laptop instead of Mom and Alan's 50" TV with surround sound. But that's just numbers. Right.

Anyway, back to the good stuff! Matt and I drove up to the mountain house Sunday morning, arrived in time for lunch. We started putting together a puzzle, pretty much a tradition in my family now, this one I had brought with me from London. And the four days pretty much went like that. It's almost like going into retirement for a test drive, or back in time about 20 years. No internet, no cell phone, no cable - we read, puzzled, went for long walks, watched the extended version of The Return of the King, and pretty much forgot the rest of the world. We went down to my aunt and uncle's house for the day on Christmas Eve, which was awesome, because as my aunt said, I get to see them more now than before I moved to London! It has been a pretty frequent set of trips lately, I'm getting spoiled. Also getting a bit worn out, the traveling wipes me out more than I realize sometimes. I slept 13 hours Friday night and 11 hours last night!

I've made some fairly ambitious New Year's Resolutions. I don't usually do resolutions, but the year is ending as I'm already in a very introspective evaluation-of-my-life phase, so it just fits. One is the guitar, another the piano. I brought back my guitar, so that's been fun to pluck away at, I re-taught myself the one song I learned to play years ago - Time in a Bottle. Random song to learn, but I like playing it. Need to find some other songs so I can learn one a week (that was the resolution). The piano comes Thursday! I don't have a specific goal for it, just to play as much as possible. Once I see how often I get to play, I'll figure out a realistic goal.