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No entries since December 4?  There’s a reason. 

Numerous reasons, actually.  The last month of the year seemed to be a non-stop sequence of commitments. 

Such as going to the minister’s open house on the first Sunday of December; Little Geoana having church Christmas musical practice thrice weekly until their performance on the 11th; Little Geoana’s traveling girl’s basketball team continuing their practices and Saturday schedule of games topped off with a day-long tourney last Sat. in which her team won the first game but was then defeated by Hoxie yet the child’s team did win the consolation bracket which netted them third place overall; Geogal hollering at the officials in the Hoxie game in which I am still surprised our team didn’t get hit with a technical foul; yes there were tears after the loss to Hoxie but that’s a great opportunity for all of us parents to teach the girls how to deal with defeat and also the importance of demonstrating good sportsmanship; Geogal getting sick with some sort of a cold during the better part of the month and since she had already completed her schoolwork for the semester she spent nearly every day at the elementary school subbing in one area or another and we all know how much germs and bacteria thrive in the schoolhouse given the number of kids therein; Geogal finally going to see the medical practitioner and being diagnosed with bronchitis, she is now on a slew of medications which prevent her from enjoying dairy and alcohol for the present; by the way the obligations continue such as the elementary kids’ Christmas musical performance last Monday night in which Little Geoana sang her heart out even if she didn’t get seated near any of her friends (but then again maybe that was a positive thing); during the time Geogal was down with the crud I had the task of shuttling the kiddo to her practices/rehearsals/events and me saying how time-consuming it is and Geogal giving me a look that could wither the most hardy cactus and saying: “Welcome to my world;” the ongoing Sunday night small group Bible study which culminated with a party a few nights ago in which we found out who’s good at games and who steers clear of such things and Little Geoana was the life of the party despite being the only child there (all of the other couples have grown children) and we also heard of folks who always equate egg nog with ingesting alcohol (not me, I just remember it being a delicious drink and didn’t know grownups put adult beverage in theirs until I was a teenager); the normal ongoing events including Little Geoana’s BB gun practice, AWANA, and American Heritage Girls; me learning at the last minute that we had a commitment this past Wednesday evening which the child I and fulfilled given Geogal was too run-down to participate in such a thing; despite all of the goings-on that I’ve just detailed I actually did something smart and got on the computer a couple of Wednesdays ago, hit a few web sites and did all of my big Christmas gift shopping from the comfort of my downstairs study; took a vacation day yesterday and Geogal and I traipsed to Kearney and in doing so I knocked out the stocking stuffers so by 12:30 yesterday afternoon I was OFFICIALLY DONE with the shopping (like most men I dread any sort of retail experience that doesn’t involve something related to home improvement or sporting goods); last night I also got smart and decided to do the wrapping since neither Geogal nor Geoana seemed inclined to leave the comfort of the Laz-E-Boy recliners and what a wonderful feeling it is to have all of the gift-work out of the way unlike other members of my family of origin who shall remain nameless but who were known to wait until coming home AFTER midnight mass and then take care of the gift-wrapping and yet their gifts were still wrapped more pristinely than the ones I did since I wrap presents as most guys do but I’ve also noticed no one ever rejected or returned one of my gifts just because the wrapping was below acceptable standards. 

And there you have it in excess of 700 words why I haven’t exactly found time to sit down and blog.