Feeling: content
Listening to: movie
Reading/Watching: When Harry Met Sally

I usually love when things go according to plan. I write things in my little schedule, I keep them firmly locked in my mind, and if things change in the plan, I either get frazzled or greatly relieved (depending on exactly how slammed my schedule became).

Yesterday, I was supposed to be working seven hours, taking a one-hour break, and then spending three hours training on another aspect of my job, so I can deserve the (little) raise they're giving me. It would be eight a.m. to seven p.m., with a quick dinner afterward and the intent of writing Christmas cards until I was exhausted and ready for bed.

But instead, I wound up sitting in front of a fire, drinking egg nog and toasting one last marshmallow for a s'more.

It started with my manager being very sick, and wanting to go home early. So no training for me. I headed home at an inconceivably early hour (three p.m.? THREE? ridiculous), and got stuck in weird traffic, which had me sitting on the access road of I-10, staring at the fancy grocery store up the street from my work. Then I turned into the parking lot, and decided that since it was so cold, I would buy some wood (for the fireplace we loved when we got the apartment, but never used except to festoon with candle holders) and we could light a fire for once.

Once inside the grocery store, firewood went into the cart, and was followed by marshmallows. Then chocolate and graham crackers, because seriously, who just stops at marshmallows?

By the end of it, I found one of those grocery store buy-this-get-six-things-free sales, and I was walking up and down the aisles looking for egg nog, on my cell phone with a dying battery, begging my mom "Tell me how to cook roast beef."

So we had a roast, one of those suckers you rub with spices and stuff with garlic cloves, then cook for two hours minimum. I tossed in mushrooms and carrots near the end to stew in the juices, and we also had the loaf of multigrain bread and spinach salad I got for free.

I think my husband believes I was abducted by aliens, and then returned after they got sick of me. It's been at least four months since I cooked dinner like that (the last time I actually remember was his birthday dinner, the German extravaganza where I googled a recipe for spaetzel), and as nice as it is to eat dinner out, it's really nice to have something you put together (blindly and anxiously, like a science project) turn out perfectly. Turned out so well, in fact, that I could only get the boy to stop eating by packing up the leftovers before there wasn't enough left for lunch today.

I get so excited when it gets cold, because my subconscious links cold weather with footie pajamas, Christmas decorations, and roasting marshmallows in the fireplace until my knuckles are bright red from the heat. So making s'mores in a new home with my new family is pretty cool (although we've also discovered that soy egg nog is not worth it unless you mix it with Bailey's). It was a good time, a good meal, a good night. We even fell asleep before ten, an occurrence so rare that I sprang awake at three a.m. believing I was late for something, with the last of the firelog crumbling in the hearth.

Now I have until two to go to work, and I'm just thinking about how we're not doing anything amazing, we're not rich, we're not wildly successful or winning awards, we're not traveling the planet or bringing about world peace, but we're good. We're happy. And I think, as long as I remember to make time for such things, we can keep being happy. That'd be pretty amazing on its own.

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