I guess even with the "ergonomic" hooks, I am going to have to carefully limit how long I crochet at one time...I have a sore spot on the outside of my right wrist this morning that I can only trace to having spent several hours (solidly) crocheting this weekend. Ugh. It hurts a bit to type but at least I can play piano without noticeable impairment.

(I did most of my practice for today after getting up extra-early - I've been waking around 4:30 of late - and doing my workout. I have an evening meeting today and I find that I have a hard time concentrating on practicing if I have one eye on the clock, in the sense of "If I finish this in the next 20 minutes, then I can maybe get the grading done for tomorrow before I have to leave).

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Bought my train tickets for Christmas break today. I had been holding off as I am trying (still) to get out and arrange for new windows for the house, and at this point, the only time when I have a couple days I can be at home (for the installers) is at the end of exam week. I still haven't gotten out to look at windows - part of that is just (grr) my life is so busy now, but part of it is (a) it's a big huge decision and (b) it involves spending a LOT of money. Money I have saved up, but still.

I keep telling myself I will be grateful for them when gas prices spike up and it's more expensive to heat my house in the winter, and if I can get some better insulated ones that may help block out the barking of all the dang dogs in the neighborhood. But I tend to be avoidant of things that scare me, and this scares me a little bit.

Also there's the issue of having to have my ENTIRE house clean at one time for the installers. I can usually manage 2/3 of the rooms at once, and then wind up using either my bedroom or the guest room as "boxrooms" to stow the stuff I need to keep but that I don't have a good place for...and my bedroom and the guest room will be places that need new windows, in fact, I would like my bedroom to be done first for the noise-reduction.

And then there's just the disruption of having to move stuff to clear a path for the installers, like, my sofa is right under two of the windows. So I've kind of put off ordering the windows, but have come to the conclusion that I can't put off ordering tickets any longer, or they might not have space for me.

Amtrak has changed its user interface. It's, I guess, more "intuitive," but being used to the old interface, it took me a few moments to figure it out.

And I am surprised to find our classes do not re-start until 13 January. (And then we get MLK day off the next week). For a while, they'd gone to a Monday start, which most people hated. I don't know, I guess I should be used to things changing somewhat unpredictably.

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I will note with some relief that this is the first day in a while I didn't open my campus e-mail to find at least one frantic student e-mail needing help. I'm hoping that means things have settled down.