Poor Miss Willa is home sick from school today, which is really cramping my blogging/holiday-planning style!  Sweet girl is lying on the couch, drinking orange juice, and watching a Spongebob marathon.

Here are some Tasties and Tediouses that are helping me get through the day.

Tasty

--This holiday greeting from the Weepies.

--Jeff Bridges.  Every day should have some Jeff Bridges in it.

--SAD lights.  Mine is from here, and worth every penny.

--Loving New Moon Magazine. (Haven't seen New Moon, so I can't judge.)

--Do yeux Teux Deux?  It's free, and very easy to use.  I feel more organized already.

--The Times Online list of 50 Great Design Blogs.  Congratulations to everyone who made the list--especially Sweet Paul and The City Sage!

--Michael Symon's new cookbook.  

--This post.

--In my next life, I'd like to be as brilliant as Alexander Stadler.  I'd settle for having the brilliance contained in his left pinky toe.

Tedious

--This is not good.  I don't want to be overrun by bugs!

--The boring selection of available Hanukkah songs.  How about some musical Jews getting together and making some Hanukkah classics?

--The fact that our lot size is too small for us to have chickens!

**I recommend things because I like them, not because anyone sends them to me for free.  Someone sent me a free book once, and I said that I liked it because I did.  Sadly, that did not encourage anyone else to send me free stuff.  I do like free stuff.  Really I do.  Now, you should know that if you happen to buy something from Amazon that you get to from a link on this blog, I may possibly receive an teensy percentage of the purchase price, or something like that.  Nobody has ever done it, so I don't really know how it works.

Hanukkah is a holiday full of joy and light and hope and gratitude, not to mention  latkes, donuts and gelt!  If you don't know the basic story of Hanukkah, here are two video versions of the story:

Each year, I'm surprised by December,

Its frenzy I never remember,

With festivities galore,

And cranky folks at the store,

My nerves, they are burnt to an ember.

Makes me feel like throwing my hands in the air and screaming, as Frank Costanza would, "Serenity Now!"

turned a dreary day into a fantastic evening!

Every other day, every other day,

The Mamas and The Papas 

Oh Monday morning, time of new beginning, time of crushing responsibilities.  

On the one hand, it's so great to send my kids off to the schools that they love and have the house to myself for a few hours.  On the other hand, I've got to get back to the business of taking care of said house, and the little family that lives within it.

Today, I plan to:

approach my home-keeping with good cheer and love

set up my Fly Lady  plan

organize my "command center" (a cabinet in the laundry room)

scrub

vacuum

mop

make a meal plan

bake healthy cookies

patch Willa's jeans

finish crocheting Bea's blanket

I'd better leave it at that for today--I wouldn't want to strain myself this early in the week, now would I?

I am thankful for the Muppets, for Bohemian Rhapsody, and for whoever thought to put them together!

 Muppet Bohemian Rhapsody

Isn't this picture a little too melancholy and creepy for Thanksgiving?  What on earth is in that cauldron?

I hope you all have a lovely day, and that your families behave themselves!