Winding Down

It's a chilly winter morning and I'm getting ready for the road trip home. I've completed my last day of work at the KK for 2007, and what a day it was. More on that in a moment. Tomorrow marks the annual road trip home. I drive every year b/c dad does maintenance stuff on my car. His preference is that no one touches it - ever - because auto maintenance is his love language. He's a bit concerned this year b/c I have a power steering fluid leak happening right now and he's afraid the whole thing will bust out on the road. That would suck, so here's hoping that doesn't happen. The sucky thing is that I have to drive it straight through after church on Sunday, so that will put me there about 3 AM on Christmas Eve. Awesome.

We do our Christmas on Christmas Eve, and have the great tradition of attending an early service, home for a supper of chili and tamales, a birthday cake for Jesus, and then gifts. Dad grew up opening gifts on Christmas Eve and is unable to open gifts in daylight. He feels it's wrong somehow and I'm inclined to agree. Then on Christmas Day, we pretty much do nothing. I got to a movie, usually, b/c a lot of stuff is released that day. This year, I'm feeling Charlie Wilson's War.

I'm very excited for New Years' Eve. I usually don't do much, because I think it's a crap holiday, but this year I'm going to be in San Diego with a dear college friend whom I've not seen in about 7 years. She lives in Alabama, but will be out west visiting family so I'm going to drive up on the 31st and spend the night with her there and then mosey on back to the Bay Area on the 1st. Then, it's back to work on the 2nd...

Work. We received some news yesterday at the KK that our department would be relocating from down the peninsula to the main offices in downtown SF. Obviously, that's brilliant for me. I have a ton of friends from my neighborhood who work down there and we can commute together, work out at lunch together, hang out after work - it's all good. The vibe down there is a lot of fun, high energy, lots to do, very cool. However, this was not good news for a lot of folks there and the day was filled with drama and emotion. Many of my co-workers live near work or farther south and this will add hours to their daily commute, not to mention the child care issues involved. The leadership has said that they will be creative and flexible in addressing people's needs and I believe that they will. My personal challenge is to let people be angry about it in the short term and not go on about how good it is for me so as to appear that I'm minimizing their legitimate complaints. They've set the move for the end of January.

When I get home, there will be family stuff to do, friends to see, dinners to attend. Mom is having surgery on her hand, and I'll be taking care of her as well, but before that, we'll be hitting the after-Christmas sales pretty hard. It will go quickly, but it will be fun. My January is already a whirlwind of activity with friends in town, the aforementioned office move and church stuff. The year is already promising to be one of significant movement, and, as always, change.

Today I have decided to have a day of preparation - getting ready for my trip, ready to preach on the 6th, ready for worship tomorrow, etc. This year I've been getting from activity to activity and not really in the Advent frame of mind, and so I'm taking today as a focused Advent day to read some of the devotions I've stockpiled, read scripture and focus on the season. And then I'll watch the Cowboys beat Carolina.