So, what to say to summarize three weeks?

1. I arrived during the first of two sleet-storms. I had said I was intending to keep up with exercise? Not quite how I expected - the next day, I went out and scraped the melting ice out of the driveway and off the sidewalk in the hopes of making it safer and more possible for us to get out and do stuff. (We didn't anyway).

I still like snow. I just do not like sleet and ice. Of course, by the time I went back, it was back into the 40s.

2. One thing my town doesn't have, that I wish it did, was a Greek diner (well, actually a Greek diner currently run by Lebanese emigres). Any kind of breakfast you might want, good cheap sandwiches at lunch, a few specialties (flaming cheese!) held over from the days when the original Greek owner was there. And it's one of those places, where if you eat there fairly often (as my parents do), the owners come to regard you as friends.

3. I am heartily embarrassed for the politicians of my former home state. Apparently at least one of them is incapable of feeling embarrassment so I am feeling it on his behalf. And yes, it was all over the news.

Best line I saw quoted in the newspaper? Apparently some commentator declared (in regards to the "I will fight, fight, fight" phrase that Blagojevich used): "He was trying to sound like Churchill, but unfortunately he wound up sounding more like the Sham-Wow spokesperson." (Sham-wow has now become a running joke in my family, mainly because of Creepy Eyebrow Guy who promotes them).

4. I'm going to have to remember never to schedule dental work for the day after the end of break. (Yeah, I have another crown prep coming up tomorrow, ugh). I dreaded it as the vacation drew to its end. (On the other hand: the only times I could have scheduled it before would have meant traveling with a temporary, and given the bad experience with the failed temporary last time, and the thought of trying to find a dentist willing to work on an unfamiliar patient on (perhaps) Christmas Eve, perhaps putting it off was best).

5. As always, pictured of finished things will come later. I didn't finish as many things as I expected. I did complete three more "flowers" for the Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt (which is hand-pieced and therefore portable). It is kind of nice to have the time to sit down and do an entire flower at one go rather than having to hem a few patches, put it aside, hem a few more, put it aside, sew a few together...which is how it usually goes.

6. I tried knitting my first-ever pair of toe-up socks this break (They are not quite done). Suffice it to say that I am not a convert. I can see doing it if you wanted to use nearly every inch of a yarn and you weren't sure how much you'd have, and there are some stitch patterns that are non-reversible...but the cast-on end from the toe (I used the figure-8 and wound up re-doing it seven times for the second sock...and then discovered after getting it successfully started and several rows in that the ball had been wound in reverse of the other, so the stripes go in a different sequence) is very frustrating for me, and I'd rather kitchener at the end of a toe than try to do a stretchy-enough bind off at the top.

These were flapped-style toe-up socks, which I know is different from what most toe-up socks have (most toe-ups have what is sometimes called an "auto heel"). It was actually kind of interesting to see how it worked in reverse...but not quite interesting enough to get me to ditch the old traditional way I do socks. (And I think the top-down socks are just easier for me; as I said I have better Kitchenering skills than I have stretchy bind-off skills).

7. I find, as I get older, that the time Christmas "actually comes" has shifted more and more from the opening-of-presents on Christmas morning, to that moment the night before, in the big dark church, when everyone is singing Silent Night and holding their candles (which have been lit from the "Christ candle" in the center of the Advent wreath).

Funny how that changes. How exciting the presents are when you are seven, and how they seem almost a bit of an afterthought when you are nearly 40.