-- चार हजार छह सौ अड़तीस --

Shobhit worked all evening last night, so I really didn't see him yesterday aside from briefly before work. And, I took myself to see Last Christmas right after I got off work myself, and to say it was "blah" was about the best I could say for it. I went home, served up some of the surprisingly tasty minestrone soup Shobhit had heated up (though it was still too salty, almost certainly because Shobhit insists on salting all foods before even tasting it, which is dumb), and set about writing the review.

It was about 7:15 by the time I got home, and another hour at least before I finished the review. I had the time still leftover, so I watched this week's episode of Watchmen on HBO Go, which I quite enjoyed, even if it could not quite live up to the spectacular episode that we got last week.

I then got into bed, read the library book I am really enjoying for a bit (Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton), and then was falling asleep right at the time Shobhit got home from work around 10:25 or so.

-- चार हजार छह सौ अड़तीस --

-- चार हजार छह सौ अड़तीस --

I did get all the calendars finalized yesterday—finally. They are all ordered through Comcast, and within about a week hopefully will be ready for pickup. I have a feeling the photo quality is not quite going to match those of the Apple calendars I've done for the past decade, but we'll see whether I think they are still good enough to keep doing in years to come. I do love having the pickup option that allows me to avoid shipping costs. I'm still spending slightly more on calendars overall this year than I did last year, because I am having a few more of them made this year. In just one example, for the first time I am making a separate one for Alex, because I'm pretty sure he is finally living on his own. I never made a separate one in the past for him because he lived with Angel (his mom) and I always made one for her. But, the idea of having one made for every one of Angel and Gina's kids and not Alex just won't do. Eventually I'll have to add calendars to the list for Christopher's three youngest as well: Tristen, Christian and Braeden. I would be doing another one for Tristen already except he's still living with Christopher. I'm not making a separate one for Christian and Braeden on a technicality, as even though they live with Katina away from Christopher, well, they still visit Christopher every other weekend and they can see the calendar there for a while. (In fact, there are two such calendars that will be hung in the Mom and Bill household: the one made for Mom and Bill that excludes birthday and anniversary info for people on Dad's side of the family; and the one made for Christopher that includes the info for everyone on both sides.)

The generation below me is where I draw the line, though. I'm not going to start adding calendars to the list when my grandnieces and grandnephews grow up. They can forget it! The annual cost for these calendars is approaching $400 as it is, and will easily exceed it just once the rest of Christopher's kids finally move out on their own. The cost is increasing as time goes on, but I always still find it worth it. Generally everyone loves them, and the one year I did something different they were almost uniformly bummed they did not get a calendar—they are now expected. It's an added bonus that I never have to wrack my brain as to what I'll give anyone for Christmas, because this annual tradition is now well established and built in. All I have to figure out every year is what the theme will be. Both last year's and this year's have been less personal than they have traditionally been, though, and I am leaning toward returning to something much more personal again when I make next year's calendars for 2021.

-- चार हजार छह सौ अड़तीस --

-- चार हजार छह सौ अड़तीस --

Oops! I came back from lunch and forgot to post this . . . until now! [3:34 pm]