The secretary at the library wrote me an email on Monday afternoon to remind me that I have twenty-four hours of personal time left in the year, which means free vacation time I have to use by January 1 or it disappears into the abyss of lost opportunities.  Everybody and their brother has already asked for time off around Christmas, so those two weeks are off of the available list.  That leaves this week and next.

What’s a girl to do?  Take random days off for no apparent reason, of course!  And that’s exactly what I’m in the process of doing.  Eight hours down, sixteen to go.

Yesterday was such of a spur of the moment day off that I didn’t even have time to make a killer to do list for the day.  It was a nice situation to find myself in.  So instead of being super productive, I started the day off with some super laziness.  Laziness is the best (in smallish doses).

Then I went to the grocery store and started in on a few recipes I’ve been wanting to try for several weeks.  One recipe was picked because it sounded tasty–corn chowder with chilies.  The other recipe was picked because it had a pretty picture–sweet potato casserole.  You can see above which one I chose to document last night and commemorate today.

You can probably also guess which recipe tasted better.  The one picked because of delicious ingredients, of course.  The casserole wasn’t terrible, but it looked a lot better than it tasted.  I will give it credit for being fun to make, however.  Putting marshmallows in concentric circles (alternating vertical and sideways) made my night at least 10% more enjoyable, as did watching them turn crispy in the oven.

That was personal day one.  Personal day two is tomorrow.  Unfortunately, I think the list-making part of me is going to win out for that day.  There are plenty of Decemberish things that I still need to do.  Also, it’s shocking how much more productive I am at work when I know I won’t be there the next day.  I think this Monday, Wednesday, Friday thing could really work out long-term.  If only I could convince the City that it’s a win-win.