'cause baby you're a firework

I should have gone to bed ages ago; I didn't sleep particularly well last night, which is either a) a sign that I've finally overcome my longstanding sleep deficit and may start needing less than nine hours of sleep a night, or b) the result of having too much caffeine before bedtime and an eastern-facing bedroom window that bathes my bed in too much light. Either way, I went to bed at three and dragged myself out of bed around 10:15 so that I could make a lightning-fast trip to Des Moines to wrap up my Christmas shopping.

On the whole, I was v. successful -- I'm done shopping, and I even found Christmas cards that pleased me to a reasonable degree. But, I didn't get a chance to sit at Borders and write; my father suggested that I would likely want to make it home before dark, and since I had five deer cross my path in broad daylight on my way up to Des Moines, I thought perhaps his suggestion was a wise one. Since Des Moines (and particularly West Des Moines) is over an hour and a half away, that only left me a couple of hours in Des Moines itself before I had to head home.

But, when I got here, my mother had supper cooking (ham and bean soup with cornbread muffins -- v. midwestern), and so the four of us enjoyed a lovely meal. Then, my brother and I, in a display of both early action and relative cooperation that is nearly unheralded, wrapped all the presents that we had stockpiled. This is likely the earliest that I've ever wrapped the bulk of my presents, and the most equitable distribution of wrapping duties that I've seen in quite some time. We wrapped around sixteen packages and are almost done; I'm waiting for a couple more things to come in the mail tomorrow or Friday, and I need to wrap the stuff I got for Michael, but we're basically done -- yay. And to continue the festive holiday cheer, I wrote a bunch of Christmas cards tonight, even though no one will get them until after the actual holiday -- hopefully they will forgive me.

I suppose I should go to bed, though; I've got a lot to do tomorrow, and I need to squeeze in some writing time. Goodnight!