I'm not going to work tomorrow. And these are the things I am not doing tonight:

• Christmas shopping
• baking
• wrapping presents
• grocery shopping
• laundry of any kind
• going to bed at my usual time (although it's been challenging to make that happen anyway, lately)
• scrapbooking
• anything related to work, including Secret Santa, planning, and preparing gifts for others

What I may do tonight:

• watch a movie
• eat junk food (what a shock! I never do this!)
• wash dishes (only because it's bugging me that the sink is full)
• write my Christmas letter (I so love doing this--seriously I do--wait til you see my cute photo card this year)
• relax

We had our Secret Santa party after school today. It was pretty fun--it seemed liked everyone enjoyed the whole week of SS. What I enjoy about it is it's so non-"business" related. It's just a time to sit around, eat cookies and whatever, and have a fun time. We never get to do that as a group. And this was a fun group.

Before the SS party I spent almost the entire day at an emergency response training. It was held at an exhibit hall at the county fairgrounds-- at least 200-300 people. And this is the 6th one they've held. it was required for the people on the response team at each school--my team went in Nov but I didn't go because of the book fair. It was somewhat interesting, but too much. Too much information about what "could" happen, what to look for, what not to do that may cause fire problems, it was just too too much for a person to take in one day, eight hours straight, with a working lunch (which means they provided lunches so we'd have to stay and hear more talk during lunch). And I so disagreed about how they started the day. "Welcome, we're glad you're here, we'd like to start with a slide show of all the victims who died in school-related violence in the last year in the U.S. and Canada. This is to show you why we do these trainings". Lights out-completely dark- Sarah MacLachlan singing "I Will Remember You" and pictures and names of kids and adults killed in shootings, etc.. You have got to be kidding me. They start out like this? I don't have a problem with the slide show--it did make an impact. And I wouldn't have objected to seeing it after the training part of the day that dealt with kids smuggling in guns, etc.. (gah--that sounds so awful) But to start off the day with it? Completely wrong. I saw the first photo, my eyes welled up and I spent the whole rest of the slide show staring at the clock.

And now...I'm off to meet CP at SB for something ridiculously expensive to drink. What a treat. The meeting, that is, not the drink. When you drink one at least four days a week, it's not that special anymore.