My Week in Review: Dec 11 - 17 - A Surprise Party!

As I sit here and write, it's been a busy weekend. Usually I get my blog ready to go sometime on Saturday so I can easily do a quick read through and publish on Sunday. Yeah, not this weekend. ;) Too busy - too close to Christmas - too many other things to do. Life, right?

But there are a few things I am thankful for.

• A back and forth email with my critique partner, where the focus hasn't been all Lucas & Aurora but rather a real in depth of getting to know you. I think if we were to ever meet, we'd have so much to talk about, time would slip away quickly. I'm sure she'd agree. :) 
  
• Outdoor recess. Seems like such a trivial thing, but with the temperatures being so ridiculously cold, the kids have been cooped up inside. Bless the teachers, though, as there are only so many times you can play Simon Says, or put on a dance video to get them moving. They may have only gone out once when the temperature rose to -17C, but it was something. Hopefully the upcoming week, where the temps are going to be warm, there will be a lot more outdoor play! 
• For a surprise party for a dear friend. This had been planned for a while, and I am blessed and humbled that we were chosen to be guests at this party. Having texted back and forth with the host, we had a lot of fun preparing (well, he prepared, I sat on my hands and tried to contain my excitement.) The Guest of Honour was starting to catch on (I swear I hope it wasn't because of me) so I tweeted out some misleading tweets to throw him off.  I LOVED being a part of something so fun! Yeah - this is me... 

• For the "SPEAK" part of Word. I've only recently discovered this. You highlight a certain amount of text in your doc, and you can hear your computer read it out to you. It's exceptional because it reads EXACTLY what you've written, so you hear anything out of the ordinary. As it ran through the first few chapters of my forthcoming MS, I heard some missing words. Words I swore were there, but they weren't. The eyes gloss over and the brain fills in, but SPEAK catches it all. :) I'm almost done listening to my novel read to me. I have to admit, it makes me giggle to hear it swear. LOL. 
• Santa's Anonymous - As a family, we got to be a part of the delivery team. We loaded up our sleigh the night before, and took off for the depot early Saturday morning. The outdoor temperature hovered around the -27C point, and the wind pushed it cooler. The kids were decked out head to toe in winter warmth while we braved the nippy conditions. Forms filled, we loaded up the sleigh with donated presents for our city's less fortunate. It's always eye-opening and heart-filling to do this. I hope it has an impact on my kids. Some of the places we visited, their homes weren't much bigger than our master bedroom, and yet, the residents are so warm and welcoming. It makes you step back and look at your life, and realise how good you have it. 
  

Christmas is fast approaching! I won't likely post anything on Christmas Day or New Years, but I will try on Christmas Eve and the day after New Year's. :)
As always, thanks for reading - and have an amazing week.