Snow Day
So we're currently in the middle of our first big storm of the season. We've only had two other days with snow so far, both an inch or less and both within the past week. It's weird to go this long before we get any snow, but hey, I wasn't complaining! I just wasn't ready for winter yet. Still not, but I don't think I ever really will be.
Even though we only got 4-5 inches or so, school was still canceled because it turned to sleet and is supposed to turn into freezing rain and the roads look too messy to deal with. Doesn't bother me. I certainly don't want to be driving in this. Plus I've had three super late nights in a row and relished the chance to sleep in.
So, in previous years, I've spent the weeks leading up to Christmas in a stressed out frenzy trying to be super woman and get way more done than I really needed to because I felt like if I wasn't going above and beyond with everything, especially the holiday baking, I wasn't good enough. I ended up really burning out and not enjoying Christmas several years in a row. This year I decided enough of that. I'm going to sit back and relax and enjoy the holiday season with my family. So far so good. My Christmas shopping is all done (just need to wrap everything... next week), Christmas cards and packages are already in the mail. I didn't even have to write the letter this year. Chriss did that for me. He even helped me stuff envelopes. Made it much less of a chore. Although, next year, I think we're gonna go the e-letter/card route and only send snail mail ones to those who we don't have email addresses for.
As for Christmas baking, instead of making 6 different kinds of cookies and 12 different kinds of candies, I'm scaling back big time. I'm gonna make gingerbread cookies and pb kisses cookies. Then for candy, just the easy stuff: fudge, choc. pretzels and pb bon bons. Shouldn't take me more than a day and a half to make them. So I don't even need to start until the 21 or 22. Much better than doing nothing but bake for 2 weeks straight. I can't tell you how much easier it is to relax and get into the holiday spirit this way. And, I don't even feel inadequate for "slacking off" like this!
As for writing, I took a few days break. Writing Rachel and Rider's summaries was exhausting. But I did do a marathon sprint last night getting enough notes written out for all the secondary characters on Rachel's side of the story. Just enough that I'm not completely clueless about them but still have enough freedom to discover them as I write them. Today, as long as T will let me, I hope to make my notes for the secondary characters on Rider's side of the story. Then I'll just have a loose scene outline to make in excel and I'll be done with my prewriting. So I should be able to spend the rest of the month enjoying the holidays with my family and reading The Best of Me for meredith_wood. So she better hurry up and get me the rest of it because I'm not gonna be too happy if I get to the end of chapter 7 and have to wait a while for the rest! ; )
Even though we only got 4-5 inches or so, school was still canceled because it turned to sleet and is supposed to turn into freezing rain and the roads look too messy to deal with. Doesn't bother me. I certainly don't want to be driving in this. Plus I've had three super late nights in a row and relished the chance to sleep in.
So, in previous years, I've spent the weeks leading up to Christmas in a stressed out frenzy trying to be super woman and get way more done than I really needed to because I felt like if I wasn't going above and beyond with everything, especially the holiday baking, I wasn't good enough. I ended up really burning out and not enjoying Christmas several years in a row. This year I decided enough of that. I'm going to sit back and relax and enjoy the holiday season with my family. So far so good. My Christmas shopping is all done (just need to wrap everything... next week), Christmas cards and packages are already in the mail. I didn't even have to write the letter this year. Chriss did that for me. He even helped me stuff envelopes. Made it much less of a chore. Although, next year, I think we're gonna go the e-letter/card route and only send snail mail ones to those who we don't have email addresses for.
As for Christmas baking, instead of making 6 different kinds of cookies and 12 different kinds of candies, I'm scaling back big time. I'm gonna make gingerbread cookies and pb kisses cookies. Then for candy, just the easy stuff: fudge, choc. pretzels and pb bon bons. Shouldn't take me more than a day and a half to make them. So I don't even need to start until the 21 or 22. Much better than doing nothing but bake for 2 weeks straight. I can't tell you how much easier it is to relax and get into the holiday spirit this way. And, I don't even feel inadequate for "slacking off" like this!
As for writing, I took a few days break. Writing Rachel and Rider's summaries was exhausting. But I did do a marathon sprint last night getting enough notes written out for all the secondary characters on Rachel's side of the story. Just enough that I'm not completely clueless about them but still have enough freedom to discover them as I write them. Today, as long as T will let me, I hope to make my notes for the secondary characters on Rider's side of the story. Then I'll just have a loose scene outline to make in excel and I'll be done with my prewriting. So I should be able to spend the rest of the month enjoying the holidays with my family and reading The Best of Me for meredith_wood. So she better hurry up and get me the rest of it because I'm not gonna be too happy if I get to the end of chapter 7 and have to wait a while for the rest! ; )