Crazy Days of December (An Impromptu Thursday 13)

No month seems shorter, flies faster and disappears as quickly as December. It’s a month filled with fun and joy and full of things incomplete, projects undone and plenty of things put off until January. Or at least, that’s how it is for me – maybe you’ve got it all together!

Every night I go to bed and I lay there thinking, “Oh and that’s got to get done and this hasn’t been finished and I’d better get this done…”

We’ve officially passed the halfway point of the month, there are only 7 days til Christmas and THIS is what keeps running through my brain (It just so happens I thought of 13 things! I didn’t have to try very hard either. So here’s an impromptu Thursday Thirteen for you:)

1. I haven’t mailed Christmas cards. Or written a Christmas letter. Or at the very least taken a snapshot of the kids in front of the tree and emailed a Christmas greeting to friends and family.
2. I leave for my mom’s house in 3 days and I have a lot of housework that I want to get done before I go – not to mention the packing.
3. Weeks ago the kids and I bought supplies to make an ornament ball wreath and these three tree decorations, but we haven’t done either one of them.
4. I have taken pictures of the decorations I do have up, but haven’t uploaded, edited or blogged/facebooked them.
5. In fact, I’m pretty sure there are pictures on my camera nearly a month old, and more on my computer older than that, that haven’t been edited and shared on Facebook.
6. Speaking of a month ago, I bought a box of hair color when I was down at my mom’s the last week of October AND IT’S STILL IN THE CABINET. I’d really like to get that done soon – somewhere between not getting gifts wrapped and not blogging and not getting craft projects done.
7. Oh – And the presents? I still have a few small things to pick up but haven’t been able to go shopping without the kids. My mom doesn’t know it yet, but I’m planning on doing that after we get down there.
8. I have two presents wrapped and under the tree, but there are a few gifts in my bedroom that haven’t been wrapped yet. Need to do that before we go, so that I’m not transporting unwrapped gifts in the car. Too risky!
9. Of course we’re still doing school, too. I don’t want to take a break right now because we’re going to take a break next week. While we’re down there we’re going to do some fun things together with our extended family, but I’m taking a little bit of school work and hoping they can do a few things during downtime in the first half of the week. One thing I learned from Thanksgiving was to include an off day at the beginning of the next week for recovery.
10. We’re taking family pictures at my mom’s and we’re all supposed to have shirts in certain colors and I have no idea what we are all going to wear.
11. I also have no idea what I am making/bringing for the Christmas meal. But I’m sure my mom is going to let me know when I get there!
12. I wanted to purge the kids toys and clothes some before Christmas got here and take them to the women’s shelter. At this point I’m wondering if that’s going to happen – perhaps on Saturday?
13. Oh! And my mother-in-law wants to pick up some clothes for my husband for Christmas and my husband wants me to go with her — did I mention I’m leaving in three days??

I need two of me. Or four. Four would be better.

I don’t want to stress out, and I’m not yet. But I know me and I know that by Saturday I will be stressed out from all the things that haven’t been done. Not so much the craft stuff, but the present wrapping, the packing, the cleaning… That’s the sort of thing that’s gonna get me.

And I was hoping to get some blogging done and some bloggy maintenance done while I was down at my mom’s next week. You know, year end posts, and I have finally upgraded wordpress on half of the blogs (because there are seven installations and the automatic upgrade that has always worked stopped working – of course.) But the week is filling up with lots of stuff to do – and that’s a good thing. It just means less down time pecking things out on the keyboard. Oh well!

Yes, Christmas is going to be here in a flash and there will be more pictures taken, more chores to do and so on. Next time you blink we’ll be in January and I’m going to have a to-do list the size of Mt. Everest!