Catching my breath

My holiday season was super low-key this year. During Thanksgiving, my parents came to visit and we bought takeout from Whole Foods, and for Christmas I visit my parents and cooked a very simple meal - grilled steak for them, mushroom and goat tart for me. I didn't hold my annual Christmas party, and I minimized giving gifts. This was a well-needed break, because writing grant proposals used up all of my energy in October through December.

Now things are back to normal at work, and I'm doing a bunch of home projects. I'm working on three simultaneously, and they are all about 90% done. I seem to be following my father's example, where you complete one project to not-quite-done, then move on to the next. Maybe we have a fear of success? I jest, of course. For me, at least, the last tiny details are usually cosmetic and I'm always more interested in making things work than making the pretty. I love *having* pretty things, but I'm not very good at *constructing* pretty things. In any case, as soon as I complete any of the projects, they'll end up on the blog.

On a totally separate note, for the first time ever, an animal at my house received mail. I was so tickled I read the entire postcard  from Taiwan out loud to Wesley the cat.