I recently stumbled across a blog entitled 100 Weeks, 100 Goals. The owner of the blog made a "Bucket List" of 100 things he wants to do over the next 100 weeks. Some of his goals are quite lofty and include extensive travel around the world. Others are quite simple and easily attained. While I have no intention at this time of making an exhaustive list of everything I would like to do before I die, I have decided to use his idea in a way. I am going to choose a goal every week and post it here each Wednesday. Then each week I will share how my goal was accomplished and share a new goal for the following week. By sharing my goals in writing, there is a sense of accountability, even if only to nameless, faceless readers of my blog. I would encourage you to choose a goal each week for yourself as well and I would love to hear what those goals are and how you accomplished them. HINT HINT! LEAVE COMMENTS!
So without further ado, my goal for this week is to download all the photos on my computer onto disk. I have been meaning to do this for over a year and if my computer were to crash without my having done this I would lose countless memories. I have been putting it off for far too long. This is the week!!
Happy goal setting and Happy New Year!!!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Anti-Christmas
I have always loved the Christmas season. I have always loved decorating and doing all the special stuff with the boys like baking Christmas cookies and making gifts and crafts. I have about 50 Christmas books that I usually wrap up before December begins. I let each of the boys unwrap one book each night and I read them aloud. When they are all gone it is Christmas Eve. We have our little manger scene that we set out on the hearth. We have a small tree complete with a bunch of mini ornaments that we usually put in the boys room. We bake a birthday cake for Jesus every year on the 24th and have a birthday party.
But this year is turning into the Anti-Christmas. As is always the case, My Honey was away on a business trip for the week following Thanksgiving. It is usually during this week that the boys and I pull out all the Christmas decorations and put them out, wrap all the books and generally prepare for the month of December. This year we were unable to do that. Some months back we started some home improvements and they are as yet on going. We have built in shelving and cabinets in our living room and we took them all apart to be painted. The big issue was that they were previously painted in an oil based paint so I had to use an oil base primer before I could paint them with the water based paint we chose. I managed to get one set of shelves partially done on my own but it was a HUGE job and I just couldn't finish without help. The other side of shelves is the side where all the electrical stuff is and I did not want to even touch it without My Honey's help. All the shelves and cabinet doors were out in the garage and we needed to set up tables and basically take over the garage as a workroom in order to get those painted. Because My Honey works so many hours and travels so often, a number of months have gone by with no further progress. This is why we were unable to decorate the week after Thanksgiving. I had no shelves in place. They were all still leaning out in the garage waiting for a weekend that My Honey could help me finish the job. Not that the week was wasted, mind you. I managed to get a load of cleaning done that week including my pot shelves, closets and cupboards.
This past weekend, it appeared that the weekend to get the painting finished had finally arrived. My Honey took Friday off and we had nothing but painting planned for the full 3 days. We further tore apart the living room, took down the rest of the shelves and got to work. We were making good progress but were still not quite finished on Sunday night. We figured we would finish Monday. On Sunday night we got a call letting us know that my mother-in-law fell and broke her pelvis. This is NOT a good thing. She is 86 years old and has very brittle bones. She was admitted to the hospital and will most likely be in a rehab facility for a few weeks. In the mean time my father-in-law is 90 years old, blind, and deaf. He is unable to care for himself. My Honey headed down to So. Cal. to help care for his parents along with his siblings. He will be gone until this weekend. Hopefully a live in nurse will be brought into the home to help care for him while MIL is in the rehab facility and also for at least a while when she returns home. I feel so bad for her having this happen at this time of year. I really feel it is time that they found different living arrangements, but that is a whole other topic.
So, not to diminish the severity of my MIL's injury, but lets get back to my pity party, shall we? So here it is, nine days before Christmas and although I have tried to finish the job by myself, there are things I just cannot do alone. Also, because it is so cold, the paint is taking quite a long time to cure and I am still unable to get the shelves back in place or set anything on them. Today I made the decision that all the Christmas stuff is going right back into the garage and not coming out again until next year! Oh, we have the tree up, and I am sure we will do some baking and what not, but I never did get all those books wrapped, or any of the other decorations out, and honestly, what is the point in decorating 5 days before Christmas? I am just not going to do it! I had a good cry today. I feel TOTALLY frustrated! My house looks like total chaos with shelf stuff piled all over in boxes and ladders leaning here and there. All the electronic stuff is piled in the living room and the pictures have all been taken off the walls. What makes it even worse is that I did spend the whole week after Thanksgiving deep cleaning the house and if anyone walked in here today they would not be able to tell.
So anyway, this is basically a pity party, rant. I just needed to get it out and say that I feel like Scrooge! Bah Humbug!
But this year is turning into the Anti-Christmas. As is always the case, My Honey was away on a business trip for the week following Thanksgiving. It is usually during this week that the boys and I pull out all the Christmas decorations and put them out, wrap all the books and generally prepare for the month of December. This year we were unable to do that. Some months back we started some home improvements and they are as yet on going. We have built in shelving and cabinets in our living room and we took them all apart to be painted. The big issue was that they were previously painted in an oil based paint so I had to use an oil base primer before I could paint them with the water based paint we chose. I managed to get one set of shelves partially done on my own but it was a HUGE job and I just couldn't finish without help. The other side of shelves is the side where all the electrical stuff is and I did not want to even touch it without My Honey's help. All the shelves and cabinet doors were out in the garage and we needed to set up tables and basically take over the garage as a workroom in order to get those painted. Because My Honey works so many hours and travels so often, a number of months have gone by with no further progress. This is why we were unable to decorate the week after Thanksgiving. I had no shelves in place. They were all still leaning out in the garage waiting for a weekend that My Honey could help me finish the job. Not that the week was wasted, mind you. I managed to get a load of cleaning done that week including my pot shelves, closets and cupboards.
This past weekend, it appeared that the weekend to get the painting finished had finally arrived. My Honey took Friday off and we had nothing but painting planned for the full 3 days. We further tore apart the living room, took down the rest of the shelves and got to work. We were making good progress but were still not quite finished on Sunday night. We figured we would finish Monday. On Sunday night we got a call letting us know that my mother-in-law fell and broke her pelvis. This is NOT a good thing. She is 86 years old and has very brittle bones. She was admitted to the hospital and will most likely be in a rehab facility for a few weeks. In the mean time my father-in-law is 90 years old, blind, and deaf. He is unable to care for himself. My Honey headed down to So. Cal. to help care for his parents along with his siblings. He will be gone until this weekend. Hopefully a live in nurse will be brought into the home to help care for him while MIL is in the rehab facility and also for at least a while when she returns home. I feel so bad for her having this happen at this time of year. I really feel it is time that they found different living arrangements, but that is a whole other topic.
So, not to diminish the severity of my MIL's injury, but lets get back to my pity party, shall we? So here it is, nine days before Christmas and although I have tried to finish the job by myself, there are things I just cannot do alone. Also, because it is so cold, the paint is taking quite a long time to cure and I am still unable to get the shelves back in place or set anything on them. Today I made the decision that all the Christmas stuff is going right back into the garage and not coming out again until next year! Oh, we have the tree up, and I am sure we will do some baking and what not, but I never did get all those books wrapped, or any of the other decorations out, and honestly, what is the point in decorating 5 days before Christmas? I am just not going to do it! I had a good cry today. I feel TOTALLY frustrated! My house looks like total chaos with shelf stuff piled all over in boxes and ladders leaning here and there. All the electronic stuff is piled in the living room and the pictures have all been taken off the walls. What makes it even worse is that I did spend the whole week after Thanksgiving deep cleaning the house and if anyone walked in here today they would not be able to tell.
So anyway, this is basically a pity party, rant. I just needed to get it out and say that I feel like Scrooge! Bah Humbug!
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