Not that I needed another reason to marry him, but the fact that the husband is from New England and lived in Syracuse for graduate school means he's very familiar with snow and how to shovel it. And, more to the point, he's actually willing to shovel the whole four feet of sidewalk we have to do here in the new place (it's a little more than that, but not much). That's a keeper.

We got a couple inches of snow over the weekend, and it's rained and snowed lightly today. There are cat tracks in the back yard; I believe I've seen the cat in question before at night, much to the delight/annoyance of my own beasties. There may be squirrel tracks on the top of the backyard fence, but it's hard to tell. I'm running a little low on cat treats, but we should be clear by the time I get to the bottom of the bags.

Working on the job app is otherwise how I'm spending my time, as that's due next week. I hate writing about myself, so I'm trying to approach this like I'm talking about someone I supervised rather than myself, which seems to be working a bit better. But it's still a somewhat awkward style of writing for work for me, with all these "I"s; I'm used to referring to the agency and what it's doing, and deliberately depersonalizing things.

My slow process of driving the husband nuts by making more things around the house voice activated proceeds apace -- just ordered more Hue bulbs for the staircase. I added two a couple months ago, and having the ability to turn on just enough light on the section of stairs from the bedroom to the kitchen to see whether there was a cat in the way has probably been a literal life saver (both for us, and for the cat). There aren't any electrical outlets in the stairway, so couldn't just plug in night lights, unfortunately.

Holiday 'gift exchange' for work is happening this afternoon, and I'm prepped with my ridiculous holiday suit. At least, the tie and jacket part; ain't putting on the pants for a video call. Like my old office they have a white elephant tradition, but in this one they steal the gifts after their open. At the old place we fought over the still-wrapped gifts, and you were stuck with what you ended up with. Not knowing the crowd well yet, I added a mug with a dog theme to the mix, as it seems that well over half have dogs. We'll see how it goes over. The mug itself arrives today, with some silly gift bags for the husband's Xmas stuff.

We're sort of maybe predicted to get snow tomorrow. Which means for (maybe?) the first time in my adult life I need to buy a snow shovel. The HOA takes care of the roads & our driveways, but we have to clear the stoop and all 4 feet of sidewalk. So, post-mandatory fun, the husband and I will go pick up a snow shovel from the local Lowe's. Whee.