Pass the cheese, please.

We began the holiday season with a funeral. Immediately upon returning home from the funeral, we packed the house and moved. Two of the top psychological stressors in one week, but this was mitigated by the (long-awaited) sale of our old house.

Trying to pull together some Christmas for the Angry Kid, we ran to Target and bought a fake tree, and I put some hastily wrapped gifts under it. Then, we made the Angry family's traditional Christmas Eve cinnamon rolls. I popped them in the oven and... wait a minute. That oven isn't very hot. Nope, not hot at all. The heating element is dead. No cinnamon rolls for us. No Christmas dinner for us.

It can't get any worse, right?

Sure it can. It can get a lot worse. The Angry Mother-in-Law had a stroke. Then she had another one. We've spent a horrible weekend by the phone, waiting for news. After carotid artery surgery, she is now resting back at home. We are hoping for the best.

My work computer is dead: the mother board is fried. While I have all my files backed up, I can't analyze data or run simulations. I have a grant deadline in two weeks. I will not make it. There goes my summer salary. There also go the videos for my class that begins on Thursday.

I've spent the free moments over the past week putting together a jigsaw puzzle. So soothing! So relaxing! So challenging, with a helpful, bored three-year-old! I finished it today.

One piece is missing.