I got it! I got it!

I got the promotion that I've been trying for since, literally, May. It was May when my boss gave notice and, as of December 25 (Merry Christmas to me!), I've been promoted. Woo hoo!

Woo hum--oh, boy. Do I have the challenges in front of me, boy howdy. But I work with good people and I'm mostly excited. It's going to be a challenging, interesting, amazing time. If I don't wear out and die first.

Wish me luck!

Christmas is coming! Christmas is coming!

And now that I spent hours yesterday shopping and wrapping, I'm OK with that. I bought a bunch of gifts, including a couple for my husband that he is going to love (tee hee--he has to wait six more days). The stores were crowded, but not too bad.

The longest wait I had to check out was shopping with Greg on a Tuesday afternoon for the girls at Toys R Us--twenty minutes from when we got in line to when we walked out. On a Tuesday. That place must be insane on a Saturday.

I bought the gifts I owe my sister and dad for their birthdays from October (oops) and at work, open enrollment is finally over (we met with about 650 people, individually). There's only four days of work this week before a long, long weekend and I'm excited about that.

Life is good. Happy Holidays!

All of us in the Lee household made Christmas cookies yesterday. Flour everywhere. It was fun.

I used to make cutout cookies with my sisters and my mom every year when I was a little girl. We'd pull out the bag of cookie cutters and wonder why we never made cutout cookies at any other time of the year, so we could use the heart cutter and the clover cutter and the bunny cutter.

Then we'd make a double batch of Christmas cutouts and we'd remember why we didn't do them at any other time of the year--it took a really long time to roll and out bake that many cookies.

I don't have my mom's recipe (I should ask her for it), so when my family has made cutouts for the last three years, we've used a sugar cookie recipe from someone I used to work with. Here's a shoutout to Bev Gardner of Decatur, Illinois, who I unfortunately haven't talked to in at least five years.

It's so sad and so typical. You spend literally years of your life with people at work and then you leave or they do and you both vow to stay in touch and after, say, three years max, you don't talk to them anymore.

Well, Bev, your Eisenhower sugar cookie recipe is an integral part of my family's burgeoning history. Thank you! Onward to frosting!