It's Like I'm Going Home

I will be in Chicago tomorrow. I fly out at 9 a.m. and will spend 52 glorious hours with my friends in my favorite city before I head home Monday afternoon to my current city, which I also love, even though it FREAKS OUT at the mere possibility of a few snow flurries. (It is actually snowing outside my office window and it's making me very happy.)

This month is starting to look borderline stressful. I'm not stressed yet, and don't plan to be, but it has all the makings of it. I'm out of town this Sat-Mon. Then I'm in Houston for work next Friday. Landon is coming with me on the business trip so we can stay over with grandma and grandpa for the weekend. Which means the first weekend I'll be in my own house this month is Dec. 19th, and my in-laws arrive on the 22nd and stay for EIGHT DAYS. I haven't decorated the house yet, we don't have a Christmas tree, and JP hasn't put up the lights. We also have about 65 Christmas parties to attend and for the first time ever I don't have our Christmas cards ready to go by now. We don't even have a decent picture of the three of us to put on it. We still have to work around JP's freaking swim lesson schedule (lessons we will now never be paid for- I have soooo much to say about that, but none of it good, so silent I will try to remain) and work is very busy. I don't usually get caught up in holiday stress- I have modest expectations for Christmas and just enjoy the bonus family time, but there are certain things that need to be done and working full-time with two trips in the first half of the month is making it challenging. Oh, and I'm pregnant, so accomplishing anything at night- beyond activating my DVR- is relatively impossible.

On the upside, I have finished all my Christmas shopping (yay internet! I didn't buy a single thing in an actual store) and I'm hatching a plan to leave work early today to take Landon out to buy our tree. And I'm going to be in CHICAGO tomorrow- it's been 18 months and I miss the city so much. Especially now when it'll be all chilly and snow dusted and lit up for Christmas. I plan to walk miles and miles around State St. and Michigan Ave., eat gallons of Garrett's Chicago Mix popcorn (something that shouldn't be delicious but absolutely is; it's one of life's little miracles), and stay up late talking girl talk. It will be full of fabulousness and shopping.

P.S. I'm not sure if you can really add a post script to a blog post, but I just realized I wrote this post at almost the same time last year when I was missing Chicago like crazy and it suddenly snowed. Maybe Austin is trying to help ease my into Southern, smaller-city life.