vacation, all I ever wanted

Just a forewarning...it's going to be quiet around here for the rest of the month. The rest of my life has swallowed me whole.

Without getting into too many work-related details, there is a major thing coming up the first week of January that's going to require a lot of prep work and some travel. To make things even more stressful, my flight for that leaves the day after our return flight from the Wisconsin trip, so all the prep work needs to be done before I leave for vacation next week. Add Christmas shopping, hosting an 8-guest Christmas dinner this Sunday (and now with no table, since the one I ordered 4 MONTHS AGO just now arrived with a huge gouge in the tabletop and they can't replace it till next week at the earliest...more on that once I know whether there will be a satisfactory resolution), some sort of allergy-related ailment that makes it impossible to take a deep breath without contortions and extreme concentration, and the usual day-to-day crap, and the stress level? It is high.

Weight loss and its associated tasks are very low on my list of priorities right now. That said, I'm holding steady at 180ish, after ballooning up to 184 last week during December Puffiness Season (recurring monthly). I'm also trying to keep up at least 60 miles/week on the bike, even when it was freezing-ass cold last weekend. I also plan to hit the 5:30 am cycling class at the gym tomorrow morning, provided I can make myself get up that early.

So, in summary...I've got a lot of stuff going on, so posting will be light through the end of the year. I plan to return with a renewed passion somewhere around this site's 3rd anniversary (1/8/06). In the meantime, that picture I mentioned a few posts ago:

I still like it better than the official pose, but it looked better on the little LCD screen on the back of the camera. There's a bit more cleavage than I remember, and I totally was as drunk as I look. You can credit that dazed expression to the magical refilling wine glass in the lower left corner of the shot. :)

Merry Christmas!