We had all these grand plans of how to get things done this morning; plans which mainly involved getting ourselves out the door and off to Costco to pick up stuff for the food drive at church and at my office, and also get breakfast, before zipping back to the church for the two hour practice with the instrumentalists. However, when we got to Starbucks we managed to get in line behind a woman who ordered a few million drinks, and then also proceeded, I am pretty sure, to take drinks that were not hers (this included my drink, naturally) when she was collecting her huge order. We also ran into a few other choir members, who noted that Costco would not even be open that early, even if we could manage to get there and back, and so instead of zipping off to do a quick power shopping trip, we instead sat in Starbucks and ate our breakfast in a leisurely manner, and chatted with our friends.

The rehearsal with instrumentalists (5 string players) went surprisingly well. These rehearsals are usually optional for the choir, but most of us have caught on that if we would like to have any hope of figuring out how to get our notes from those accompanying us before we actually perform, it's best to give up a Saturday morning, show up for rehearsal, and use it as one extra day to see if we can finally nail the pieces down.

It was two hours, but it did not feel as if we'd been there very long at all before suddenly we were done and it was time to eat lunch and rehearse a few extra little bits just because we were there, and finally, head out. Richard and I swung through Costco on the way out of town because I knew this was the only chance we were going to get all weekend, and then we were finally on the road down to his parents' house for the yearly trimming of the tree.

It was a nice, cheerful afternoon. We managed, somehow, to get every single ornament on the tree (and they have a *lot* of ornaments). I took advantage of any non-trimming time I had (including the drive there and back) to work on knitting, because tomorrow is the last day of the food fight at church where I have to have scarves to measure the progress of my team, and I am still woefully behind. Richard's mom fed us dinner and also experimental pie, and my sister-in-law showed off her latest knitting accomplishments, which include a purple penguin, a snowman which inexplicably has buttocks, and a pre-felted messenger bag.

We are home now and I am determined to finish off this final scarf and then toss everything into the washing machine because I suspect that the people to whom these scarves will be donated might appreciate them more if they were a wee bit more cat hair free.

Happy Holiadilies