I’m suffering from a severe case of Christmas Cheer deficit that playing Santa four times this week could not overcome. I think it will continue until I get out of town next weekend. Let’s see if there was still good to find.

1. Despite some parking frustrations delaying our arrival, we went to Zoo Lights and the National Zoo Sunday night with the kids and then went out to dinner.
2. Old work friends came back to the library Monday to see Santa.
3. My Thursday at work was play Santa and then go to the work holiday party. Every workday should be that fun.
4. I had Friday off and was able to finally buy my wife’s Christmas gifts.
5. The rain held off on Friday long enough for me to finish shopping and take the dog for a walk.
6. We had 11 straight days with no precipitation. That doesn’t sound like much, but this year it is. I’m so tired of rain.
7. My time as Santa is over for the year. It was nice to do something different at work and away from the public service desk, but I’m not jolly enough to be Santa.
8. Kentucky basketball won yesterday. Winning is more fun than losing.
9. My daughter comes home from college for winter break today.
10. I only have four more days of work until I’m off until January 2.

This will likely be the last one for the year. My next two Sundays will be in Kentucky. I probably won’t post at all(except maybe a short Merry Christmas post) while I’m away. I will do my year in review sometime next week and I’ m sure there will be a couple of other random posts.  My year in reading and my year in blogging will come around January 1.

It’s not even 9am on a weekend day and I’m already slightly annoyed by something. Let’s see if I can find the good while in this type of mood.

1. Free bagels! I have a month of free bagels at Panera. It’s nice to have a reason to leave the house and read somewhere besides my couch. I need to leave the house more.
2. My reading has picked up. I don’t know what changed, but I’m not having as much trouble focusing on a book this week. I might make my goal for the year.
3. I had something stressful on my schedule this week and it’s done. I’m not sure it was worth the stress, but I’m glad it’s over.
4. All of my outside work is officially done until I have snow to shovel.
5. The Ravens have won three games in a row and have a decent shot at the playoffs.
6. Use or lose personal leave made it possible for me to leave work early on Thursday. It was nice to get home before dark.
7. Dry weather! We’ve had so much rain here lately. It was nice to have a stretch of dry weather. I wish the snowstorm was going to make it into our area, but at least it isn’t raining.
8. I was pleasantly surprised to see three friends of mine at work on Friday. They all brought their kids to a class at the library. It had been a long time since I had seen them and it was nice to spend some time with them.
9. I was supposed to work today, but someone asked if they could take my Sunday, so I have the day off instead.
10. Two weeks from today I will wake up in Kentucky with a week of relaxation ahead of me.

The next two weeks will be a mix of “getting ready for Christmas” stress and some fun things. Hopefully, the fun will outweigh the stress.

It wasn’t a terrible week, but it wasn’t necessarily a great one either. Let’s see if I can find the good.

1. My son came back home on Sunday and went to church and the Ravens game with me.
2. The Ravens won and the trains actually ran consistently and got us to and from the game in a timely manner. That doesn’t always happen.
3. I covered the desk at another branch on Wednesday. It’s always nice to get a break from the norm and go somewhere new. They also gave me food.
4. I received a call on Wednesday that tells me that at least one other place might view me as a desirable employee. I don’t know if there will be a job offer or if I would accept said job offer, but the interest is nice.
5. A new person came to my book club at work Wednesday night and it was someone I know. A double bonus.
6. I’m not a fan of meetings in general, but my meeting on Thursday got me out of the branch, had some good information and got me home earlier than normal so I will take it.
7. Panera has once again given me a free daily bagel for the month of December. I won’t go every day, but I will get a few days of relaxing with a free bagel and coffee and reading a book before work.
8. I received a very nice email from someone that shows me that my efforts at work have not gone unnoticed by everyone who matters.
9. I finally had a dry window of time Saturday morning to rake and bag my leaves. I finished just in time. The rain started less than an hour after I finished.
10. I enjoy going to the Ravens games, but it’s nice to have a day today to stay at home and relax and watch the game on TV.

The next week does not look to be one full of good, but Christmas and a nice break to visit family are coming.

Also coming soon – my year in review posts. I will wait until January for my year in reading post, but I might do my year in general, year in blogging and likely a “best and worst in TV” post in the next couple of weeks.

It should be easy to find god things from this past week. It was a pleasant interlude in what has been some challenging weeks. Let’s get to the good.

1. My wife attended another Ravens game with me. I think it might be the last one this season, but it was nice not going alone as I have in the past.
2. It was a holiday week, so I only had to work four days this week and we closed at 5 on the day I work until 9 so I had no night shifts this week.
3. I took 2 hours of personal leave on Tuesday to drive to campus to pick up my daughter. This should count as two – more time way from work and my daughter coming home.
4. My daughter has been home since Tuesday and even though it means my control of the TV is not absolute anymore, it is nice to have her here.
5. My son was home when I got home from work on Wednesday and he and my wife had put up the outside lights.
6. He spent the night Wednesday night and Thursday night – the longest he’s stayed home in a while/
7. He’s coming back today to go to the football game with me.
8. We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving with just the four of us. No travel, no stress over company coming over. Just good food and family time.
9. The rain yesterday gave me an excuse to ignore the leaves I need to rake and instead get a nice rest day instead.
10. Kentucky won big against Louisville last night. It was nice to see them win big against a bad team and that  bad team being Louisville made it even nicer.

Back to a full week of work tomorrow. Hopefully, the holiday season will help the good continue to be easy to find.

I don’t know if getting to ten will be easy, but it won’t be as hard as normal to get started with good things. That’s a nice change.

1. Instead of spending my Monday off never leaving the house, we actually left the house and went to hang out with friends of mine from work.
2. We didn’t stay long because my wife had been sick and wanted to get home early to rest, but others left first so I didn’t feel like the boring old guy.
3. I didn’t expect food at our staff meeting on Wednesday, but there were surprise croissant sandwiches and cookies.
4. Kentucky basketball and football both won this week. Basketball won easily as they should have. It was a good sports week.
5. I woke up Thursday morning with no snow and expected to go to work on time, but got a text that we were opening at noon.
6. The snow got heavier as the day went on and right as I was heading out to clean off my car and go to work I got the surprise announcement that we were closed and I didn’t have to leave the house.
7. I got to spend a surprise snow day on the couch watching TV. After a year of no snow days last year, a November one this year was a nice surprise.
8. Treated myself to breakfast out Friday morning(because I had a free item on my app) and spent some time relaxing and reading a book while finishing my coffee before I came home and scrubbed toilets.
9. A surprise visit from my son on Friday when he came home to use our oven(and ingredients) to make broccoli casserole to a Friendsgiving thing he was attending and then back again the next day for dinner.
10. Friday night with friends at book club(even though they were all sleepy by 9)

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Here I am once again trying to remember good things that happened this week. I’m old. I barely remember this week.

1. Monday afternoon I took a step toward taking action toward change in my life instead of just talking about it.
2. Leftover Halloween candy at work since I had none at home.
3. I was able to actually sleep in a little on my morning off instead of waking up way too early.
4. I used to be one of the “too early” people, but I’m happy to have Christmas music as on option on my drive to work.
5. It hasn’t been the best start to a season, but I now will have at least one Kentucky basketball game on TV each week.
6. Readily available coffee both at home and work.
7. I’ve been able to avoid the illness going around work and my house.
8. The time change sucks, but it is nice to wake up to daylight and the early dark gives me an excuse to be lazy when I get home from work.
9. My daughter is home for the weekend and my son came home for several hours yesterday.
10. We put up the Christmas tree while they were her, so I have a little bit of festive in my house now.