So Much to Do!

So many things, so little time and so much feeling!

Does everyone feel the same way I do?  I feel overwhelmed, but at the same time accomplished for the tasks I have finished, and in awe of what I still have to do!

At this point in the game I have finished a month of poeming with Robert Lee Brewer and the crew at Writer’s Digest.  Now I need to read and edit my work into a chapbook and send it off to Robert for his perusal.  I’m actually looking forward to that but I’m wondering where I will find the time! 

I just finished building a gingerbread house with my family for a local contest.  If that sounds like a simple task, think again!  Besides planning it, which was easy, we had to make the gingerbread (several batches), create building templates, cut and bake, wait for cookie cutters in the mail (which took forever because we live in the middle of Nowhere’sville), make umpteen batches of icing, show kids how to decorate and then not correct them or try to tell them how to do it better (because you want them to do their own thing), deal with arguments about structural integrity and how things should be done, blah, blah, blah.  Plus take the roof off after an accident and replace it the next night after repairs.  Yes, it’s a big job and I have to give props to the folks that can do whole towns.  A barnyard scene was enough for me.

But it’s done.  I can breathe – for a second.  I also have Christmas cards to do.   Every year I say I will start making them (yes, you read that right) in July, so there will be no rush.  Every year I don’t start until December.  Why do I do this to myself???  Because my other half thinks they’re great, that people love them, and will help me make them.  We pick out four different cards, I make up the kit and show him how to put them together, and then he does.  He enables my crafting desires just so I will do this once a year.

We have Christmas concerts to attend, local book signings (not mine, no book yet, but which I view as a learning experience and am looking forward to attend), tree cutting, cookie making, gift shopping, house cleaning, etc., etc., etc.  It’s enough to make one yell Bah Humbug, if it weren’t for the fact I love the season.  I started listening to Christmas music on www.accuradio.com two weeks before Thanksgiving!  Oh yeah, and I have to find a Santa that will visit with the kids because we missed the one we normally see and there’s a particular 10-year-old that called me out on it.  As long as he still believes, I will enable.

So as the season rushes up and upon me I wish all of you what I hope for myself.  Have a good time.  Enjoy the spirit.  Take some time to reflect.  Stay up late to get things done, but don’t rush through, take your time.  Smile.  Bite your tongue.  May “good will” be your motto and the motto of those around you. 

I wish you all a very merry holiday season, and however you spend it, I hope you are surrounded by love.

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Summertime...

   “Summer, summer, summertime…”, as Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff sang, back in the 90’s.  Well, it sure isn’t here.  We’re in the middle of a monsoon, it seems.  I am saying this lightly, I do realize that monsoons are ferocious and this definitely isn’t the season here, but seeing so much rain makes one say some strange things.

   My gardens are getting a beating and I only hope the sun comes out and stays out for a while soon.  My tomatoes and peppers sure could use a little love, and me talking to them, encouraging them not to give up, doesn’t seem to do the trick. 

   Even my beans, that are so hardy they should grow anywhere under any conditions, are turning yellow and giving up.  The whole garden is depressed, as am I. 

   My treadmill quit a couple weeks ago.  My boyfriend is supposed to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it but that has yet to happen, although he has tried.  In the meantime I have switched to the Wii and the Just Dance games, using mainly the sweat mode, to complete a workout.  Generally I try to do this every other day, but days go by sometimes.  Other times I can get some activity in a couple days in a row.  The thing is, I started running a couple months ago – on the treadmill.  I’ve only tried it twice outside and I don’t like to do it because I’m self-conscious.  However, it’s the only exercise now that makes my body feel tight, strong and healthy. I’ve really got to get out there.

   Tonight there is a book signing and reading that I have just been invited to, by my brother because he’s got some of his work in it.  I should go.  I want to go, but I was out of the house last night and the dogs have been alone all day – again.  I’m not sure what I should do, but I think the right thing to do would be to go.  I’d want my family to show up for me.

   So it is the next day and I DID go for a run outside, and I DID go to the book signing.  Both things that I feel very good about doing.  I’m exhausted today after a few long nights, and I’ have a headache, but I still feel good.  It was a busy week with pottery class, an extreme amount of phone calls and begging from my kid, worrying and family stuff.  I’m glad the weekend is here and that I’ll be spending it with my grandson.  I can’t wait to see what we end up doing.

   It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow, but I think it’ll be nice enough to walk in and explore, and maybe that’s something I can give him.  An observation of nature, a natural curiosity.

   I love summer.  It’s more than a season, it’s a feeling.  It’s when one can exhale, relax, and just go with the flow.  I’ll be doing that this weekend. 

   As Will Smith sang “Got to sit back and unwind…”