Five things you do when you don't have homework

Yesterday was my first day rejoining the living. I felt adrift at sea, unable to recall what I once did with myself when I did not have academic concepts with which to wrestle. What is there to do?

I found five things:

1. Wake up thinking about finance, as I did before. This was short-lived; soon, I hushed myself and calmed my mind with motherly assurances that Everything will be OK ... Sssshhh ... It'll be all right now ... It'll be all right now ...

2. Vacuum in more than a cursory manner. With a little elbow grease, I got the carpet looking as good as new, which wasn't that good really, but it's the best I can do.

3. Do laundry, and consider ways to gruesomely murder the person who took my clothes out of the washers and put them in a wrinkly pile on the table.

4. Bake oatmeal raisin cookies. Batch one, pictured above, was a disaster, because I misread the recipe and put in only 1/3 of the required flour. Batch two turned out spendidly.

5. Attend a holiday party, pictured at left. Lovely company and lovely drinks -- hot mulled cider and vodka stingers (vodka + creme de menthe).

In unrelated news, after we had our first significant snow, a little over a week ago, I realized I was unprepared for the winter and ordered some boots and one of those ice brush scraper things for the car. They have arrived, and not a moment too soon -- meteorologists are predicting a 100 percent chance of snow, with accumulation of 10 to 15 inches total. Sounds like an absolute delight, although it better not keep me from going to Florida on Monday, or I will freak.