Holiday from books

The only downside to having Thanksgiving with my husband's family is the lack of leftovers in our own refrigerator. To compensate for that, I started a tradition several years back of cooking a second Thanksgiving meal the weekend after for just the four of us. This year the meal was on Saturday instead of Sunday so my daughter could go back to school early to finish a project. And I invited my sister.

The downside to cooking a second Thanksgiving is that I wind up losing quite a bit of time that could have been spent reading to shopping for and preparing the meal. I thought that I would be able to finally settle in with a book late yesterday once the kitchen was cleaned and my sister--who'd showed up for lunch at 8:30 am and had talked nonstop for more than six hours-- had gone home, but I found that I did not have the mental wherewithal for print material by that point. My sister takes a lot out of me. I was in bed by 9.

The Time-Warner guy is supposed to come tomorrow morning to see if he can determine what is causing our internet problem. Since the entire month of December is to be devoted to the upstairs--painting, removing carpet and installing a hardwood floor in our bedroom, shuffling furniture and other items throughout the rest of the rooms in order to do the former--I resented having to expend the effort this late in the game to making it presentable to a stranger who may or may not need to inspect our modem and router; it certainly kept me from the books this afternoon.

And it's been busy at the library this evening. Between patrons I've been attempting to follow the latest round in the blog vs. print cat fight (complete background at the Saloon), but I intend to get in an hour or so of reading before I go to bed tonight. Margaret Atwood's convinced me I ought not put off The Echo Maker a day longer.