Miss Geneva thought I deserved a break this weekend.

Miss Geneva says “Rub my belly, human”

In-between catching up on addressing Christmas card envelopes and writing short, meaningful messages, I turned my attention to a different task.

I have been a volunteer with a professional conference the past two years. Due to my introverted tendencies, I prefer to use my talents in organizing things and making sense out of jumbled numbers.  I don’t like being in the middle of all the action, especially if it’s loud and chaotic.

Ironically, I volunteered to organize the post-conference social event – for the second year in a row.  That went very well with plenty of finger food, liquid refreshments and conversation opportunities.

Over the next few weeks, in-between demands from festivities and social events,  I will be in a happy place of working with Excel, transposing ranking numbers and nearly illegible handwriting from dozens more evaluation forms.

My cats provide me…

This time of year – a time of peace and goodwill – can be one of the most stressful for us, particularly when it comes to buying presents. We often feel an enormous amount of pressure to get it all ‘right’.  To help ease some of the strain, I’ve come up with a few suggestions.

How do I decide?

Generally we give presents because it feels nice to make others happy, right? Therefore the key thing is to give our purchases some thought. Even a little goes a long way.

“Sure”, I hear you say, “but where do I start?”

Start by making a short list of some of the things you know about the recipient – even as few as five things will give you ideas (and if you don’t know five things about them, do you really need to give them a present?). For instance, a list…