So, I’ve apparently gone from not writing weekly updates to only writing weekly updates. Is that an improvement?

My big achievement this week was to redesign my consulting website. The previous one was a placeholder. It held the place for about 6 months. Otherwise it was another week of not even putting on shoes M-F since all I did was work. It was sunny and comfortable today so we spent the afternoon in Carytown, where I had a truly fabulous cup of tea (a hot buttered rum flavored herbal tea) as we wandered in and out of the shops. The shops were very busy on this last weekend before Christmas, so I guess that is a good sign for the local economy.

I’m looking forward to taking it easier the next couple of weeks. I’m working Monday and Tuesday this week, although probably not the full day, and 1 or 2 days the following week.

Today was my book club’s annual celebration of Jolabokaflod, the Icelandic tradition of giving gifts of books and chocolate on Christmas Eve. We do it as a white elephant gift exchange, at a brewery. It’s always a lot of fun. I came home with The Worst of All Possible Worlds by Alex White. I acquired it via steal because the back cover blurb starts with, “If you miss Firefly…”

Also, I’ve been using Waterfox as my primary browser, and so far I’m impressed. It seems nice and speedy and the default settings just seem to work.

Watching

We watched another heartwarming and romantic Christmas movie - Gremlins. We also watched Stand By Me, as a tribute to Rob Reiner. I had forgotten that Wil Wheaton was the star of that movie. I remembered that he was in it, obviously, but I remembered it more as 4 co-stars. But nope, the story really revolves around Wheaton’s character.

Reading

Reading has been slow. I’m reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It was kind of a slog for the first half of the book, but now that the murder has occurred the pace of the story has picked up and I’m enjoying it much more. I’m probably going to have several new additions to the TBR pile after Thursday morning, so I need to break this reading slump that I am in.

Links

One of my favorite bloggers with some thoughts on the true meaning of Christmas.

Thin desires are eating your life.

The writers at Pencilstorm have some thoughts on Kiss kissing up to Trump.

Is Christmas Vacation actually an anti-capitalism movie?

And with that, this is likely my last weekly-ish updae for 2025. However, I still need to write my favorite books of the year post, and my annual year-end posts on 12/31, which is this website’s birthday. The site will be 30 years old. I will have much more to say on that later.

I wish you a joyful and peaceful holiday season, whatever you may be celebrating. Or if you are not celebrating anything at this time of year, I hope the last days of 2025 are good for you, for whatever definition of good you choose.

And that is it for this week. Remember, in a world where you can choose to be anything, you can choose to be kind.

Posted on December 20, 2025   #Weekend_Update