Oops. I did it again.

I blogged every day for thirty days and frankly, I can’t even remember what the hell I wrote about except that I knew when I started that November would be  a tough month and I wasn’t wrong so then to make up for having all of those stupid emotions I taught you how to make gougere.

We’re less than a month away from Christmas and we’re already eyeball deep in Elf on the Shelf posts on Facebook and my Christmas tree is up and there are presents underneath and you know, it’s finally hitting me that I’m in the home stretch of making it through 2013. I’m going to do it. I’ll get through.

I was trying to just get through November – to get through writing each day and trying not to get too many emotions on all of you and trying to not have a heart attack from stress and just get through it.

And now tomorrow is December.

Will I write daily in December?

No.

(You’re welcome.)

What IS on tap for December?

Well, the holidays. DUH.

Also, I’ll be taking part in Lucrecer’s CELEBRATE photo challenge – I’ll post challenge pics here.

The annual cookie decorating party. Pumpkin’s holiday Christmas concert. The Princess’s second gymnastics meet of the season. Monkey bread. Lots of coffee. Treating myself to a bottle of Philosophy’s Gingerbread Man bubble bath and then rationing it out over the year. Attempting to get my work outs back on track and feel a little bit better about myself. Countless hours of HGTV background noise. Time spent with the people I love – both celebrating the holidays and just being absolutely. lazy.

It’s amazing to think another month is nearly over. Another year is nearly over.

I just keep looking forward to what’s ahead.

I woke up shivering and in the dark in a home without power this morning. Apparently over a hundred thousand west Michigan residents did this morning, so we all had the same off-kilter sort of morning. Getting ready for work by candlelight and driving to a nearby coffee store for a big mug of caffeine and some kind of warm breakfast – before venturing into the office.

I arrived at work to a semi-dark parking garage, a mostly-dark lobby, and a building with some generator power and instructions to head home.

I did.

I arrived at my own house, after detours around closed roads (presumably because of downed trees) to functioning electricity, warmth, and a trampoline that thankfully didn’t fly out of my back yard with yesterday’s high winds (big big thanks to my brother-in-law who came over in the middle of the Lions game – not even at halftime! – to flip it upside down so the wind wouldn’t catch it and lift it away. Again.). I came home to a refrigerator keeping all my food cold and a freezer that’s keeping the frozen stuff frozen.

I’m kind of lucky.

Power was quickly restored at work but today I am working from home in comfortable pants, a thick sweatshirt and with fuzzy socks.

I have a strange guilt about not being in the office – which is silly, since y’know, I did show up in the first place and I am making progress on a project that needed to get done. (Work ethic – I have it. Also? I’m one of the few people who probably works harder when I’m working at home – feeling the need to prove myself to others, I guess. I worked at home for six years — and was insanely productive the whole time. It’s how I do).

I am grateful to have a warm house.

Hell, I am grateful to even have a house. I saw photos from areas hit hard by yesterday’s weather – the devastation makes you catch your breath. How a storm can whip through and change your whole life.

Make no mistake, I had it easy.

Though I look like I got dressed in the dark today (because I did! FINALLY! I have an excuse!), and even though I’m tired (do you know how exhausting it is to wake up to see if power has been restored?), I’m in my home. I’m sitting at my dining table doing work that I would be doing in my cubicle.

They’re estimating that some people will be without power until Thursday. Hopefully, for them, that’s a gross overestimation. By Thursday, most of those people will have to empty out the contents of their refrigerators and start anew. It’s getting too cold for those people to stay at home until Thursday so many will stay elsewhere. The nursing home where my grandmother lives is currently without power – she’s on portable oxygen. She can’t be the only one. Though, she has places she can stay until power is restored, it’s amazing when you start thinking about it, the impacts of a storm – a freakish autumn storm – on so many lives.

And here I sit at my dining table doing the work I’d have done in my office had there been power (there’s power there now; tomorrow will be back to normal). The sky is gray and it’s still very windy.

But I’m in my house and I’m feeling lucky.

I have issues with weather.

I don’t like when it’s too hot. I don’t like when it’s too cold. There’s a very narrow margin of perhaps three to seven weeks each year when I am happy with weather in West Michigan. Perhaps I’m spoiled from years of living in California – the Bay Area not the desert like temps you’d imagine, but a pretty solid and steady year round temperature that I could live with. Temps that didn’t involve snow or a longing for central air conditioning.

There are weather variances here from year to year and it’s hard to tell what a season will bring until you’re in the midst of it. I was grateful for a not-too-hot summer, given that I was making a concerted effort to not over use my AC.

This summer, more than any other in my adult life, I embraced the laziness of grilling on a summer night, sitting around a patio table in the glow of candles, slapping away mosquitos and talking until exhaustion moved in. We ate sriracha burgers at this table (twice!), skirt steak tacos, ribs, and various other things I can’t remember because there was a lot of cooking this summer. Listening to Fourth of July fireworks, sharing a bottle of wine, listening to people argue about politics (argue about politics? Me? NEVER). Dredging up old school music memories. Shielding plates from lurking dogs (my dog? King of snatching food from plates).

Yesterday, we raked his yard. Leaves blanketed the ground – made me grateful that my own small tree doesn’t make much mess, and my unfenced yard allows those leaves to blow away. The table was covered. The lantern filled with sand from a Lake Michigan beach nearly full with rain water. As we raked, my hands grew numb and I was eager to warm my hands on a mug of coffee.

While fall has already brought amazing meals (We ate a beef burgundy on Halloween that was delightfully delicious and rich and comforting). I know that we’ll still find a way to make and enjoy amazing meals together and with friends, I’ll miss the relaxed vibe of lingering around a table while the sky grows dark above.

I hated summer less this year, in the shade of the trees.

The days are getting shorter, and I think I saw snow yesterday.

I’m not ready. I don’t know that there will ever be a year that I welcome snow, but this year, I really dread it.