Woo hooo! Getting on a plane to go home tomorrow!! Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to get much done at work today.... :)

Michael and I had a pretty full weekend. We hosted our annual pre-Christmas get-together at my place Saturday night. Ergo, I spent all of Saturday catching up on my housecleaning, which has been sorely neglected this past week or two...it turned out to be a bit smaller of a gathering than we had originally anticipated, but we still had enough guests to make it feel like a party, and we also got to see some people that we hadn't got together with in a while, so it was all good. I made my family's traditional christmas apple cider--cinammon sticks, allspice, cloves, brown sugar, and sliced lemons and oranges simmered in apple juice and served with rum--which went over pretty well.

Sunday Michael and I exchanged Christmas gifts (only time we could devote to it before we left), and as usual, though he always complains that he isn't good at shopping for gifts, the things he got me were great! I have a new set of instructional bellydance DVDs to play with, as well as a couple of good CDs to dance around to. I got Michael a drum to learn to play Middle Eastern rhythms on, as well as an instructional CD, so we can do stuff together. He was also really happy with the tickets to the Panthers-Rangers game that I gave him. Hopefully Messier won't retire before March!

Of course, the big thing this weekend for me was that I made my solo improvised bellydance debut at the holiday performance party my teacher threw at the Chocolate Moose cafe. It went pretty well, I think, probably in part because I had so much else to do and think about this past few weeks that I didn't have much time to get nervous about it. I started out with a slow veil piece--which is my stronger suit, I think--and then a shorter faster section. I finally had a chance to use one of my newer silk veils! I also ended up kind of improvising a duet with one of my teacher's more advanced students for part of one of the open dances, which was neat--it's fun to have a partner to play off of just to see what happens. Of course, I did so much dancing that my back is a little sore today...but it was worth it! Michael took lots of photos--if I have a chance I'll scan some at my parents' over the holidays, and post some links for you.