The last week in bullet points.

•  I finished my Christmas shopping on Monday evening.  What a nice feeling to have everything wrapped and under the tree so that I can enjoy the coming month stress-free.  Last year, I finished the semester about ten days before Christmas and hadn't done any of my shopping.  I came down with shingles (yes, only old people get that) a few days before Christmas.  I didn't know what it was until after Christmas, but I just did not feel good!  It was my first Christmas with the Sweeney side, meaning that I had a lot more gifts to pick out than usual, and didn't know some of my in-laws well enough to confidently pick out a gift.  I was so thankful for a sister-in-law who asked us to split a couple of bigger gifts.
• We took our Christmas card pictures last Saturday.  I know we haven't really changed since last year, but it's so fun to send them out.  It's practically the only snail-mail I send, besides bills, all year.  Plus, I had a $10.00 coupon for Shutterfly and a free shipping code, which helped me to save over $20!
• We babysat our 10-month-old nephew, Benjamin on Sunday afternoon while my sister had an orchestra concert.  He is the happiest baby!  He was content to snuggle with Nathan on the couch watching football, but after a few minutes, he was all about crawling around, checking out the Christmas tree, and scooting along the furniture.   He moves fast though, so we created our own baby gates using an ottoman and two of our upholstered chairs.  Yes, we were very proud of our contraption!
• When I went through graduation ceremonies in May, I still had one class to finish- a music history course.  I've been writing my final paper for my final class this week.  Even though I don't really like writing papers, it's so much better when I know it's my last one ever.  My class is on the music of the Black Caucasus which is a particularly interesting region because of the diversity of influences in that region.  The region's Northern border is with Russia; Turkey and Iran are neighboring countries.  The region is sandwiched between Europe and Asia.  All of these influences add up to a very interesting musical sound coming from this region!  My paper is a comparison of duduki dasta and sazandari ensembles in Georgia.  If you've gotten to this point in my paragraph without falling asleep, congratulations!  Now, time to move on to other things...
• I did a little Christmas decorating last weekend.  I turned my clothes budget into my decorating budget this month, and I was pretty pleased with what I could do with $50.00  I bought stockings and stocking holders, three ornaments to represent this year, garland for the fireplace mantle, six springs of this silver sparkly stuff to fill out the garland that was $5 for 8 feet (read: sparse!), and a pack of 20 snowflake ornaments.  I made a garland out of some of the ornaments for our downstairs bathroom mirror while watching the news Saturday morning.  I just tied them together with fishing line.   I also hung the same snowflakes from my kitchen window, also with fishing line.  Then, of course, we have our tree, which has turned out really well, considering that I did not spend a single penny on it!