Baking tally (Friday school run break): - candy canes - sugar cookies - gingerbread - buttercream (for sugar/gingerbread) Partial prep: - 4x chocolate cakes (for Nutella truffles) - cheese grated for cheese bites and micro-scones - flour measured for choc chip

Fair progress for a day that also had the school carols service, a shop run for the foil trays, and the work Christmas quiz.

I’m also barely hanging on mentally, so I’ll take what I can get at this point.

Possibly final day of baking. I don’t even know. Might end up doing more. Proper Zimtsterne done, though my star is actually a snowflake, so Zimtschneeflocken?

Also an utter fucktonne of chocolate chip cookies.

Need to go out and finish chocolate work. Then boxing once it’s all done.

Pretzel bark and rocky road done. Two fingers burnt, but that’s fine. Still have to dip truffles. Oh and probably roll some more truffles. And make some more cheese things.

Delivered a bunch of cookies, etc. Door to door in 4 hours, with a bonus stop at home halfway through to restock. Two more deliveries tomorrow.

Gifts wrapped, it’s time for a glass of Malbec and A Christmas Story, lest the kid forget he’s a dual citizen.

Made it through another Christmas. The kid is happy with a slight sugar buzz and I’m watching non-holiday TV with a Negroni.

So 24 years ago today, I had a call from the hospital to say that my mom had died. That was pretty shit. She was a few weeks off turning 52, and I was 21. I’ve flailed endlessly since.

Alarms set for the morning. Ugh.

No resolutions, just steely determination. Day off today, but back to everything tomorrow.

How the fuck am I meant to be going back to work like normal tomorrow. Just checked and nobody is off. Just a normal fucking Thursday. Gross.

Headed to Rome tomorrow for a family weekend away. We get to go to the Colosseum and the dogs get to have the dog sitter over who takes them for longer walks. Wins all around.

A weekend in Rome has been a very nice break. Flight and drive still ahead, though.

Today I didn’t fall down the stairs. Rather, I fell after the stairs. I fell as my foot hit the floor, or something on the floor, and went sliding. My knee and elbow are quite painful now, 2.5 hours after the incident. And you? How have you failed at existence today?

Survived my first day in the office this year. I was there for a solid 5 hours, so that’s pretty good going. (3 of those hours were in a meeting, but still…)

Sunday. Working on thesis stuff that needs to be done, but not actually writing. Realised that I need to get all the quant research in examinable shape, too.

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