It's going to be a crazy, crazy week

The end of the year is always the busiest time for me at work. I'm in charge of a number of end of year social activities such as our Thanksgiving Potluck and - the big one - our holiday party. On top of all that I have to close out everything for the year and finalize everything before our holiday break.

I'm also very lucky to work for a company that closes -with pay - for the time period between Christmas and New Year's. This year, because of the way the holidays fall, it is a "short" break of only a week and a half. We close early on Wednesday, December 24th and won't re-open until Monday, January 4th. However, I also have a number of vacation days that I have to burn off before the end of the year so that adds to my holiday break.

When you add in all of our time off and my leftover vacation time that means I worked two days last week, five days this week, four the next, and three the following week before starting my holiday break on Thursday, December 17th. While it's absolutely wonderful that I have all that paid time off that means that my busiest time of year is condensed into a number of very short work weeks. What is already a busy time gets even busier when I'm not at work to actually do all the stuff that is keeping me busy.

So this week is my only full week between now and the end of the year. On top of all that it's also the week right before the holiday party which is always insane. Add into the mix Jake's birthday party this weekend, his actually birthday next Tuesday, and my parents coming to town for a week starting Wednesday and things start to get a wee bit overwhelming.

The good news is that my parents come often enough - and know me well enough - that they don't expect perfection when they come to visit. My house won't be 100% clean. The fridge won't be stocked with food. And I'll have a list of "chores" for them to do while they're here. As horrible of a vacation as that sounds to everyone else, they keep coming back. Thank God.