The Extra Week

Thanksgiving was early.  Chanukah is late.  This is an extra week.

My holiday season revolves around the baking and distribution of dozens of boxes of brownies. The fact that I didn't bump into December this weekend means that this is an extra week, a week which has no assignments, a week in which can be used to compile and prepare.

It's a luxury I rarely experience.

This year, as always, I lost the Brownie List.  Not the hard copy I always print out, the list of names I can check off as cards are written, labels are printed, and boxes are packed.  No, the list that Little Cuter created for me a decade or so ago, the one with the addresses, the Official Brownie List.

I searched this PC and documents and Gmail messages and came up empty.  There were links to folders which had been deleted.  There was no Brownie List.  My girl attached it to the plaintive email I sent.  I realized that it was a Google Doc..... easily accessible from anywhere... as long as I was signed in.

I may save a Brownie List file with that information to help me next year when I forget and begin looking again.

With the list on the screen and 2015's hard copy on my desk, I began to update my USPS address book.  I created a Brownie List and checked to be sure that all the addresses were up to date.  I went back to the Google Doc and color coded the entries for Christmas and Chanukah and Both.  I sorted the ranges by columns, which made me inordinately happy.

I have a pantry filled with Bakers Unsweetened Chocolate and giant bags of walnut halves.  I have new 8" square pans, purchased this summer, on sale, in a moment of forethought and planning. There are a few last minute items - flour and sugar come immediately to mind - but I'm as well organized as I've ever been.

And, I have an extra week.  I think I'll go online and apply for Medicare.  I have the time.