What a Life!

I had all these great plans in October to get pictures taken of the boys, the family calendar made so my parents could bring it to Kentucky in November instead of shipping it to me, and all of my Christmas shopping done by Thanksgiving, too.

Well, I have no idea what happened, but those plans never became anything more than plans. I still don’t have pictures of the boys [still holding out hope on that one]. I did the family calendar this weekend. And I find myself frantically working on last minute Christmas presents.

Part of the problem was lack of work in November (I work from home a few hours a week to supplement the family income). With no income, I didn’t feel like spending money on anything, even though I had the time to do so. Now in December, I find myself swamped with more work than I can get done. Along with all these Christmas things I have to do.

Accomplishments thus far:

• Christmas program at the church where Ben attends Sunday School. [See him up there, standing in the front row?] Ben said his line. Into the microphone. Ben, the child who hardly spoke at age 2 when he should have had a vocabulary of at least 50 words. Ben, the child who will not say anything on command. Yeah, that Ben. I asked him once what his line was, you know, to practice it at home. He informed me that he could only say it into the microphone at church. Far be it from me to tell him otherwise. And by gum, he said it, into the microphone, for everybody to hear. We were very proud. I played the piano for the Christmas program, so I was very involved in it as well.
• Christmas goodies have been made. So far – Molasses Cookies, Pound Cake Cookies, Sugar Cookies – including cutting them out with the boys, and Almond Bark. The Almond Bark tastes like wax so I will be making another batch with different chocolate. I hate that when grocery stores try to be cheap. I still intend to make Auntie Ann’s Caramel Corn and Grandma Hagele’s Chocolate Caramels.
• I got the family calendars done – did I mention that? I went through all 4,330 photos I have on my computer that were taken within the last 12 months. The calendar took about twelve hours of my time. Four hours going through the pictures and selecting ones I thought I might use. Two hours making up a calendar in one program, only to find out that I could not print out a copy of it myself unless I paid the makers of the program $19.99 for each copy. Two hours surfing the internet looking for other options. And four hours trying to get the software on my computer to do the calendar for me. That said, next year the entire project should only take two hours now that I know how to do it in a word processing program.

Which leads me to my discussion of the Annual Reckoning. Steve asked me if my pictures were good this year since I have a better camera and lens (after complaining about the ones I had last year). Yes, they have improved. But if I were to state my goal for next year, it would be to upgrade my computer and learn how to edit my photos in Photoshop. It would be one of those small-step-for-man-giant-step-for-mankind kind of improvements. My dear husband complains that we have no photo albums to look at, but I can hardly bear to print out my photos because they could be so. much. better. Just saying…

My last minute gift for this year? Fish hats for my three fishermen. Stay tuned…