This has been a fantastic evening.

After several weeks of REALLY long work-days (mostly ten or more hours) and working on many weekends, and this week in particular we had four days (since our Monday is on Sunday, so we only have tomorrow off and Friday is our normal weekend) and all of them were 11 to 14 hours at work... and we just have the three day weekend because we'll be working again on Sunday and I need to put in probably ten hours on Saturday as well and maybe I'll go in tomorrow after our little department Thanksgiving meal... so my point is that it's been a rediculously long week following a rediculously long month, and it seems it won't let up as we had hoped it would next week, but instead might go well into December...

So anyway, tonight when we were supposed to be getting off early as people often do the day before Thanksgiving, and we were cut loose by our boss at about 3:30pm (ok, an hour and a half instead of the half-day most people get, but it's something), but that's when the REAL work started. So by 6:30pm when I was finally so ready to fall over that I sent a few "I'm not ignoring your pay issue, I just wouldn't fix it correctly if I tried to do so right now" e-mails and then left for the evening.... I went and grabbed my friend Jen who was also still in her office for who-knows-what reason, and kidnapped her back here so that we could try to relax for one evening and recover from a crazy week.

(She, like myself, has also had some crazy stuff going on in her personal life that makes the out of work time that much less relaxing as well...)

It's Thanksgiving Eve, and we know all the rules about not starting with Christmas music, decorations, or anything else until after Thanksgiving... but we bucked the system and had an evening of eggnog and chatter, and then I popped in Andrew Peterson's Behold the Lamb of God DVD, and as she cried at some of the songs and I reminisced inside my head about the old days before I joined when I used to actually see this concert live and even went to Nashville to be with the community I used to be a part of (and miss terribly) and see the musicians I used to see in concert, this beautiful music kept weaving through the story behind the coming of Christ.

If you don't have this DVD or at least the CD already, I cannot recommend it highly enough. Seriously, let me know, and I will buy you one. Seriously. (It's a tax refund. Your taxes pay me, of course.) Just give me your address and I will get it ordered and mailed off to you right away.

This was the most perfect way to kick off the Christmas season that I could have found while here, and I am really Thankful for Jen, eggnog, and the BtLoG DVD.

I am Thankful for so much this year, and I am so much looking forward to where next year will find me. Perhaps in Nashville again whenever they do the BtLoG concert there, and perhaps with many new and wonderful things to be thankful for, as well as the return of some familiar old faces and hobbies/activities.

Four and a half years in, 16 months here so far. It's been a Long, Long journey. The next eight months are going to fly right by!