Speaking of Easy

This past week was my last week of work for a couple of weeks and I can’t be more excited about having some downtime (once I get my grading completed, which will realistically take a few days)! Doing these Friday Favorites make me realize how quickly these weeks fly by! I’m always shocked that it is time for another of these (and I’m usually late – but this week, at least it is Saturday and not Sunday). I’m joining Momfessionals and A Little Bit of Everything once again.

Absolute favorite: Cookie Exchange Party

When I was in Mother’s Club and my daughter was getting ready to age out, I went to my first Cookie Exchange. It was such a fun experience and even thought I was intimidated, I knew I wanted to make it a part of my own holiday celebrations. I tried to host one at our old house the year after, but it was far too small and difficult to navigate with more than a few people, so I didn’t host again for a long, long time. When we moved into our new house in 2021, I had more space, but less confidence. So, for a couple of years, I talked about hosting a cookie exchange, but never did so. Last year, I finally got the confidence up to invite people and…turns out, they actually really loved it.

So, this year, I threw another and it was so fun! Unfortunately, I had three people who were home sick and another who had their work party that night, so it was a smaller group. But, the cookies were ah-mazing and we played Holiday Trivia Bingo and tasted all the cookies and had a great time. The big winner cookies for the night were Dubai Chocolate Cookies and Dirty Chai Cookies, with the Everything Cookies that won last year coming close. My daughters Peppermint Chocolate cookies won most festive (Trader Joe box mix with a twist for crinkle cookies). I’m so happy I took the risk and decided to invite people last year and this is officially an annual tradition now!

Rain!

Well, this is both a favorite and a not-so-favorite. You may have heard about our elongated Tule Fog in California. Our area was socked in for days going into weeks and it makes visibility bad, but also just seems dreary. I much prefer the rain because (1) we need water in California and (2) it doesn’t reduce visibility unless it is really coming down, which is relatively rare. Well, this week, the fog moved on and the rain moved in (for what seems to be a long stay for our area – something like 10 days in a row with rain). Unfortunately, it came in with a vengeance and areas north of us are already seeing a lot of flooding and there is a lot more rain on the way. Luckily, we are in a relatively flood-free area (our town has small areas that flood with the overflowing of creeks, but they are mostly in parks and not around houses or streets). But, on the first day, the prediction was the rain wasn’t going to start until I was done with work, so I didn’t bring an umbrella and had to get back to my car after teaching:

But campus was beautiful:

A little Jane Austen celebration

I think I’ve said before that my FYE office is in the University Library (a little dream come true of mine since I’ve long thought I should have been a librarian instead of a Communication Studies instructor). They had this very cute little birthday celebration table for Jane Austen the last week of school. Along with a little fireplace (on a TV screen) nook with seating and a rug and Christmas/Winter themed books on a bookcase next to it – so cute and hygge! Love the library!

Alice the Cat

I posted that photo with the caption “#mood when I think it is Friday, but realize it is Thursday and I have to go to work tomorrow.” It felt like Friday all week last week. Having our department’s holiday party on Tuesday night really threw me off!

Hallmark Movies at the Auto Repair Place

I had to have my maintenance check done on my car this week and arrived in their waiting area to find my favorite channel waiting for me. It wasn’t a mystery, but I’ll take it anyways.

Merry Christmas – Let’s get this Jingle Jangle Jingling…

Loved this little graphic from Cottage Whimsy!