S is officially done with work for the holidays.  His company has a shutdown week between Christmas and New Years, so he doesn’t have to go back to the office until January 4th!  Rachel = jealous girlfriend.

So today, while I worked (only a half day… I took an afternoon vacation day) I had three sets of eyes on me.  S eyes, JB eyes, and Mendy eyes.

They watched me while I ate my breakfast.

Two clementines, and a bagel with cream cheese.

They watched me work all morning, and tried to distract me.  And it worked, so I stopped for a little while to watch the Survivor Reunion show with them on my laptop.  I snacked one some cucumber, too.

I love that show.  Does anybody else like it?  This season was really interesting.  I can’t decide whether I love or hate Russell.  I do know that I didn’t want Natalie to win.  I’m not saying she didnt’ deserve to win, because obviously she managed to get through the game to the end and then win all the votes.  But she wasn’t the one I would have chosen.

I wonder a lot what goes on behind the scenes, though, that also impacts those votes at tribal council.  Particularly the last vote, deciding the winner.  After all, they have hundreds of hours on that island, and they compress it into a relatively few number of short episodes.  So they cut much more than they show.  That makes me wonder how much of it is spun to sound like they want it to sound, or to hid who is going to be voted off, or who is going to be the winner.  Very interesting.  I would loooove to go on Survivor!

Somehow I was able to make myself get back to work.  I was actually getting a lot done this week because so many other people were out… there were no meetings or phone calls so I could catch up on a lot of stuff I had fallen behind on.

Lunch was a pizza that I split with S.  I also had a tea in my Steeler’s mug!  Psyching myself up for this weekend’s game, after last weekend’s WIN!

Mid-afternoon, I snacked on some pumpkin cheesecakes.

I also had some of another seasonal favorite that I just found at Safeway:

I have a ritual, I have to pick out and eat all the broken and deformed ones first   I do that with a lot of things.  Candies, bars, etc.  I always eat the broken or messed up ones first!

I may or may not have broken a few on purpose so that I had to eat them.

I was disappointed in the afternoon because even though he lazed around the whole day while I worked, S didn’t have the energy to go to the gym with me.  Translation:  He didn’t want to get off his ass.

So I went by myself and did 30 minutes on the stepper.

For dinner, I put my new blender to use again and made… pumpkin soup!  I took a shortcut and used canned pumpkin.  I didn’t really have a recipe… basically, I had almond milk to use up before it went bad.  So I blended about 2/3 a can of pumpkin, 1/2 can chicken broth, and 1/2 cup of almond milk in the blender.  I also added in a tiny bit of butter, some cinnamon, salt, pepper, and paprika.  I blended it all together, heated it on the stove, and voila!

Pumpkin soup.  I was pretty proud of myself, too – it was delicious!

Dessert was just as good, Ben and Jerry’s Half Baked fro yo.

Not a bad way to end a night.

On the exciting news front… S and I are planning to take a short trip (just one or two nights) this weekend for Christmas.  We have always talked about taking a short road trip together, but have never actually done it!  Exact place and details are still to be determined, but I can’t wait!!!