Suzy, one of my bosses, calls me this morning as I’m eating breakfast and reading an article about the Detroit Lions’ loss yesterday that made them the first NFL team to go 0-16 in a season (and therefore the worst pro football team – worst pro sports team – ever), and she says not to come in, because the building has no power.

It’s nice to have an extra day off, but there is a significant problem with it – I’m a part-time employee and I am paid hourly, therefore I won’t get paid for today.  Also, I do not have vacation days/personal days, so I can’t say, “I’ll just take a personal day.”  After missing two days over the last two weeks because of the crappy weather and with Christmas last week and New Year’s this week, my next paycheck is going to be really, seriously small.  As in, less than one weeks’ pay.  It’s at times like these that I am glad I paid cash for all the Christmas gifts I bought.

It’s also at times like these I wish I had a full-time job with bennies.  But, as I live in the Detroit area, I am grateful to have any job right now.  Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know the economy in this country sucks the big one.  Imagine it being about three times worse – that’s Michigan at the moment.

So what am I going to do with this extra day off?  I’m going to go to my chiropractor this afternoon, then head to Michael’s to get some craft supplies.

I just heard there’s a high wind warning for my area.  As long as I don’t lose power, I’m cool.  Of course, I’m hoping the power comes back at work – I’d like my paycheck to be for more than one day’s work.

I spent today at Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi with my friend Lori, for one of our shopping marathons.  We used to do a whole day at the mall a few times a year, but because of our work schedules (I work Monday through Friday, whereas she works Saturday through Wednesday), we haven’t been able to do one in probably a year.

We generally get to the mall when it opens and are often there when it closes…then we head across the street to Border’s, which is open until 11 PM!!  Nothing like 9-10 solid hours of shopping!!  Okay, well, more like 7-8 hours, because we do eat lunch and sometimes dinner.  Today, though, being Sunday, the mall was only open 11-6, and with Lori’s bad knee and my bad back, seven hours was fine.

It’s not like we really buy a lot of stuff when we do these marathons – for example, today I bought two pairs of yoga pants, a t-shirt and a 2009 calendar in addition to lunch; Lori bought a couple pairs of earrings,  lunch and a snack.  It’s really  just a female-bonding type of experience.  As I mentioned, our work schedules don’t jive, so we don’t really have many opportunities to get together much anymore.  A day spent walking around the mall is really just another way of catching up with the goings-on in each other’s lives.

It’s not quite time to put away the Christmas decorations yet – I  don’t do that until after the New Year – but it is time for the post-mortem on Christmas 2008.

As has been usual for the last several years, we had Christmas Eve at my house and Christmas Day at my sister’s.  When my sister first got married, she and her husband would spend Christmas Eve night at my house, then we’d all get up in the morning on Christmas Day to open gifts.  The change was made because of my nephew – he has to be home Christmas morning to see what Santa brought him!

Christmas Eve dinner was supposed to include candied sweet potatoes, but they turned out to be a disaster.  I guess the lesson here is, don’t try a new recipe when you’re having people over for dinner!  I followed the recipe – which was a 5-star recipe from AllRecipes.com – exactly, yet they were very liquid when I put them in the oven.  They came out the same way.  They were so greasy, when I put a little on a dish to taste, the grease started to separate and the tablespoon of sweet potatoes was surrounded by a ring of yellow oil.  Thankfully I had white potatoes and stuffing, so it’s not like the sweet potatoes were missed, but I so wanted to do something different.

Dinner at my sister’s is always an interesting affair – she overplans and does everything at the last minute.  She bought a WHOLE Honeybaked Ham and a prime rib roast.  She made sweet potatoes, asparagus, white potatoes, rolls, bread.  She also made homemade stock for the au jus for the prime rib.  Oh yeah, she made a traditional English custard trifle for desert (yes, homemade custard).  For six adults.  WAY too much food!!  And because she waits until the last minute to start cooking anything, the kitchen is total chaos for about an hour and a half before we finally sit down to eat, surrounded by her scrapbooking supplies that ring the room after hastily being removed from the dining room table just prior to setting it.

As for gifts, I knew what I was getting from my parents becuase I ordered the stuff for my mom – a handbag, some really yummy-scented bath gels, terrycloth hair wraps for post-shower.  My sister always throws a nice surprise or two in the mix, and this year she got me a really nice wooden box filled with a mix of herbal, black and flavored teas.  She also got me one of my favorite-scented bath gels (I’m really going to be clean and smelling good in the new year!) and my lone Red Wing gift – the 2008 Stanley Cup DVD.

So now thoughts turn to the new year – what amazing adventures await in 2009?  For me, personally, the biggest thing has to be my weight – I can’t afford to procrastinate any longer.  This excess weight has got to come off.  I really don’t have a choice in the matter any longer.  Well, actually I do – we all do, really – but if I want to live a healthy life, I don’t have a choice.  I’m not going to get into this too much here, because I have a blog for my weight loss efforts (http://flab2firm.blogspot.com/), but I have to do this.