No time to think of a title, must go and assemble Cheese Ball

I really ought to be getting ready for a Christmas party we're having here in five hours. (In case anyone is reading it and didn't get invited, it's nothing personal, and only related to the size of our living room) The one at our house - you know, the house that needs to be cleaned. Within five hours. Oh, it's nothing drastic, but we should have done it yesterday, and somehow yesterday morning there was a burning need in our combined foursome of a nuclear family to spend quality time together playing free demos of Peggle and Bookworm Adventures 2. And then yesterday afternoon I was called to teach today's Relief Society lesson - which went well, thanks to the wonderful participation of the sisters I was teaching - and so I had to read the lesson. And then take a nap, because we all know how sacrosanct my naps are at this point in my life.

Then there was only time to get the family ready to go grocery shopping, run from the grocery store to a baptism at the Church, and immediately afterward segue-way from a baptism to our Ward Christmas Party. Getting home, and getting the girls to bed two hours late left no room for an evening sprucing.

Which brings us to today. To now. But I'm really on the computer for a legitimate reason - it was to get a recipe for the cheese ball I'm making. But recipezaar didn't have the specific type recipe I wanted, based on the ingredients I already have in my fridge, so I'm just going to fudge it anyway. There went my legitimate reason.

Oh, and did I mention that Avram was home for twenty minutes after church before he had to leave for Hometeaching, and that his companion is barely 16 and sans drivers license (it's those 50 hours of driving experience. He could drive me to Utah and back before he had enough hours to get a license), so Avram drove to the other end of the ward to pick him up, then back to our end for the appointment, then they're going to pick us all up in a half hour from now, when we go and drop the companion off, and then go to the ward building for Tithing Settlement.

Hmm, maybe we can just have the Christmas party outside. In the freezing rain.

At least we had a moment of inspiration in the Grocery Store. We had planned to make a Buche de Noel, or in English a cake roll made to look like the Yule Log, which is a tradition I inherited from my mother, who served her mission in Belgium and France. Then, we walked passed the frozed eclairs and cream puffs, and I had an epiphany that we could just buy the food, and avoid hours of cooking. Hallelujah, although I do love homemade food when I have time to prepare it. And instead of bringing my visiting teachee the homemade bread and pie I had previously promised to bring for her when I go to her house tomorrow morning for her birthday , I'm just going to bring her the left over cream puffs and eclairs (I already passed this by her), and so it saves us double cooking.

Just to be very clear, I am not attempting to complain about nor do I dislike a Christmas Party that we planned ourselves, nor do I dislike hometeaching or Tithing Settlements. I only dislike having to clean my house, and Sundays that somehow combine all of the above into one united day of business. And this is the first stressful even somewhat Christmas related activity we've done - we're going for the so-low-key-we-don't-ever-leave-the-house Christmas celebrating this year.

Oh, dear. Now I only have twenty minutes to make up the recipe for the Cheese Ball. Wish me (and the Ball) luck!