Miscellaneous Updates on Life
Next week is going to be a busy week with lots of little extra things going on for the holidays. Next Sunday evening we have a Briarwood Dog Training Christmas Party. Gail the trainer is fixing dinner for us and the dogs have drawn names for gifts. I'm trying to imagine eating dinner with 25-30 dogs in the room. I can't.

Knitting
My Christmas shopping is almost done. Hope to have it finished by the end of this week so I can concentrate on other things like finishing up my Christmas knitting. This is the first year that I have ever knit gifts. With only one exception, everyone who is getting something handknit asked for what they are receiving. They just don't know if they're going to get it or what it's going to look like. The person who didn't ask for a handknit is getting a pair of socks as an add-on gift so if they don't like them it won't be a complete disappointment to them. This person has admired my handknit socks, so I'm hoping to please.

That's all I'm going to say for now. Pictures and descriptions after December 25.

Dumbbell Report
The dumbbell training is going very slow. Sunny will let me put the dumbbell in her mouth, but she doesn't understand that she's supposed to hold it herself after it's in. Our assignment for the week is to practice walking with the dumbbell in Sunny's mouth. I'm holding the dumbbell in place while she's walking. Somehow this seems a long way from the desired results but we will keep working on it.

Pappy is still making me pry his jaws apart to put the dumbbell in his mouth. He isn't afraid of it anymore and he's happy to let me hold it in his mouth once it's there. When I take it out of his mouth he gets all excited and twirls around because he knows he just earned a piece of turkey dog. I think he believes that prying his mouth open is part of the routine. He isn't trying to run under the furniture anymore so I guess we can say we're making progress.

Work
I have 14 more working days until I get Pfired. Last week I cleaned out one of my major file drawers. It all went in the wastebasket. There were a few files I had to think about before I tossed them. Hard as I tried I couldn't think of a reason to keep them. Pfizer is doing everything that I used to do and they're doing it their way and in their systems and there is no need for me or my obsolete files. Hope that didn't sound bitter. It's just truthful. And recognizing the truth of it makes cleaning out my office much easier. By the end of next week I plan to have my office down to the basics.

The days are very short now as we approach the winter solstice on December 21. When I take the dogs out for their morning walk at seven am we have to take the flashlight. No streetlights in our wooded swamp. By six pm it's dark again. I leave for work at dawn and get home at dusk. Last year I switched my work hours to start at 8:30 so I could drive the icy, snowy roads in the daylight. This year I haven't bothered and I'm hoping the morning ice and snow wait until after I'm Pfired.

Make Your Own Snowstorm
Turn on your sound and visit Snowglobe to play with a snow globe that you can cyber shake for a snowglobe snowstorm. Thanks to reader Sue for this fun link.