Day #278: My Bedroom Looks Like a Holiday Shipping Warehouse and It's not Relaxing

 Whew. I guess NaNoWriMo ended and I quit writing there for a bit, eh?

Quick wrapup on that: I finished with 40,000 words, which, while not technically a "win" by NaNoWriMo standards I was proud of. I ended with a draft of my "short" story at about 10,000 words, a draft of my holiday picture book, and completed a poetry prompt every day. I've started a new writing prompt book called "642 Things to Write About," which will probably take me around 6 years to complete.

We are now full-on into the festive season and I'm EXHAUSTED.

So...I am not the most organized person in the world when it comes to holidays. I generally buy Josh's gift sometime around December 22nd. I'm always the person on the 20th in the post office complaining about the prices of priority shipping. 

This year is forcing me to prep early. I'm trying to minimize my shopping in person and do online shopping (oh, my God how I hate online gift shopping,) and I know anything being shipped has to be shipped, um, yesterday?

It is working in that I am almost done. I mean, I have a pile of unwrapped stuff in the top of the linen closet and no Christmas tree to put t under, but *almost* everything has been purchased and is either in my possession or on its way to me. Last weekend while their dad did a dump run, the kids and I put together homemade stuff from them to the out of town family. Now I'm just trying to get that stuff wrapped up and shipped. (Not shipping a ton. Most of what is being gifted to out of town family can be sent to them directly from retailer...not Amazon, I don't do Amazon anymore, that wasn't a healthy relationship for me. But no retailer ships homemade kid art and things of that nature.

It is almost done. I'm sincerely hoping to get everything mailed tomorrow, which would be kind of an insane record for me. But it has meant a few quite late nights in a row as I've tried to sort and organize and get everything ready. And my bedroom looks a little like a warehouse right now which doesn't make for a restful space. But it will be *really* nice to have that piece done, especially since standing at the post office is really not something I look forward to in any year and this year it feels just scary. Hoping to be there when it opens to get 'er done. 

So, yeah. Christmas is in progress. Indoor decor and outside lights are up, tree should go up tomorrow. Maybe getting stuff sent out tomorrow will help me relax and enjoy the rest of the season without a lot of running around. A girl can dream. What I want to do with the rest of my season is the fun stuff...read the stories and watch the movies and make Chex Mix and cookies and go exploring to find lights...that kind of thing. James helps me get excited about that kind of thing.

What else is new. Have a mom friend with Covid. She's feeling better, which is good, but still quarantined. Hoping to get James on Facetime with her kiddo this week to entertain him a bit, he's been stuck home with her. Have another friend with a new baby so hoping to leave her dinner some day this week. Life keeps going. Wheels keep turning. Dad was in a car wreck on Friday...he's okay, bruised and sore. So that's no fun. It's hard to be far away from him and trying to stay away to keep him safe.

Josh's birthday is on Thursday, so that will be fun. Chocolate cake and steaks plus some birthday fun on the weekend is what I'm hoping for. The nice thing about lockdown and getting a head start on the Christmas stuff is that we should have some decent time to spend with him this weekend, without so much running around.

Media consumption: I re-watched the first three seasons of the Crown and am now into the new season. It took my forever to finish my book group book for this weekend, Amor Towes' Rules for Civility, which is weird because it was really quite good. And I finally watched Meet Me in St. Louis, which I had never seen. It was...odd.

Today I'm grateful for a walk in the rain with Max, indpendent bookstores, going to bed early Lord willing, cozy socks, the lady at Starbucks who gave me my $22 lunch order for my $20 gift card after I forgot my wallet, my dear husband, video games, books, and Advent.

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