The preponderance of little but cat videos for the last week should tell you all something. I took a little break from the grind. Over the course of my career thus far, I’ve traditionally worked with the kind of person who hosted their family’s Thanksgiving feast, so I’ve usually been the guy who stayed around the office in the days surrounding the holiday to make sure the place didn’t burn down. This year, however, was different, as the project I’m working on seemed to take a little bit of a break, the make-up of the team is different, and, I decided…it was my turn.

So, I took last week off.

I didn’t really even do all that much. I mostly hung around the house, other than getting out to spend an afternoon with a friend who needed some company. I tackled a few small projects, like consolidating my two fish tanks down to one, and upgrading the OS on my desktop computer, but mostly I just hung out and relaxed.

The latter part of the week was unfortunately marred by a random illness being passed around through much of the household, starting Wednesday night (I was sidelined most of the weekend), but I still managed to make a mostly traditional Thanksgiving feast (which actually breaks tradition for me), which was well-enjoyed by all present, given the current level of leftovers (there aren’t many).

I did take a subset of the kids out to the movies on Thanksgiving afternoon (the sick folks needed some peace and quiet), where we greatly enjoyed “The Muppets”, a film that was a lot of fun, and made just as much for new fans (the youngest child was captivated the entire time) and for old (lots of fun little continuity jokes for old fans like me).

That’s where we stand right now; as things go, I’ve got a few things to wrap up the work year, which ends for me in about three weeks. I’m already counting down.