I'm starting off the new year with a nasty cold that has me completely drained of energy. I felt perfectly fine on Tuesday - enough energy to get through the play (which was incredibly well done - if you're in the Davis area, go see Chorus Line. It's worth the money!), plus do a bit of dancing in the aisles afterward. Wednesday morning, however, I woke up feeling a bit draggy, and by the end of the day it was all I could do to keep myself standing upright.

The end of Richard's birthday festival came last night. I made the cake on Tuesday, while he was out at a doctor's appointment, and then dashed off to the grocery store to get frosting and ice cream on Wednesday while he was away from the house again. The cake has traveled around the house in various hiding places (a closet shelf, the top of a kitchen cupboard) and yesterday I cleverly had gingerbread pancakes cooking as he came home to mask the smell of the cake (which permeated the entire house!). Then last night his friends showed up (friends with whom I have been emailing back and forth for days to get this set up) and we surprised him with a cake full of candles and an impromptu birthday party. His friends took him off to dinner and I crawled upstairs and collapsed in bed in the hopes that sleeping might convince my throat and head to stop hurting.

Today I'm feeling a bit better. Of course I'm basing this on the fact that I've been up and moving around now for a few hours and am only mildly exhausted, but still, this *is* improvement. We dragged all the boxes downstairs and packed away all the Christmas decorations. There's still the tree to take down and the lights on the windows and outside as well, but this is a good first step.

It feels odd taking everything down so early this year, since my family has always left the tree up til after my Mom's birthday (mid-January). However, the possibility that Richard and I will be out of town once again for business is extremely high, and reluctantly we agreed that leaving a Christmas tree full of ornaments untended for a full week would be more temptation than even the most well-behaved of cats could resist.