It's a new day

(My kids are already groaning about that title if they're reading my blog... I can't tell you how many times they heard my favorite quote when they were growing up!) It's a new day... a new beginning... you can't change what happened yesterday, but you can learn from it and move forward. One of my all time favorite sayings. Paraphrased from M. Scott Peck's A ROAD LESS TRAVELLED. So today is a brand new day and I am determined to be productive today. Here is my To Do List for the day:

• Box up all packages that need to be mailed - order up a mail carrier to pick them up. (Got to love that feature of the USPS web site! Now THAT is a good use of our tax/stamp money!)
• Finish Christmas cards and get them out to the mailbox.
• Finish gift tags
• Decorate the tree on and off throughout the day. Get into the ZEN of decorating the tree!

That's it! If When I get these done, I'll be in good shape! Moving forward...

What I needed was Christmas Music

I'm done with my pity party of earlier today. (If I could erase the post, I would -- but that would erase people's comments, and those, to me, are treasures.) As soon as I finished writing my post, I gave myself a serious talking-to. LOL Someone had to do it, might as well be me. I'm a believer that sometimes you have to act "as if". So, I put on some Christmas music (loud!) and spent the day acting "as if" I was excited about Christmas -- and sure enough, by this evening, I am! All is not without hope. I got a lot done. Although the tree still isn't decorated (tomorrow we have snow forecast -- you can't ask for better tree-decorating ambiance than that!), the quilted wreath is over the fireplace, the mantel cloth is up, the Christmas area rugs are out, there's a decoration on my front door (though not a wreath -- I need to go buy a new one), and I actually unpacked the box of candles from the kitchen. So, thanks to Lisa and Deb for your comments and the sympathy pats. Music was the key, so here's some Christmas music to share with you. Go to the right hand column and turn off my Christmas music first! Enjoy!

It's a Wonderful Life

Last night I watched the last few minutes of a news show (60 minutes maybe? whatever was on while I was waiting for Survivor to start) and some college football coach was on whose mantra is "I keep thinking that day to day, something good is just about to happen." I thought I was going to blog today about that train of thought and what a great way to live your that is. Idealism at it's finest. But after a night of literally tossing and turning, not falling asleep until almost 3am, instead I'm going to make a confession. I'm a holiday slacker. Oh sure, I've made some ornaments with my grandson, and fabric Christmas cards. My gift buying is done (well, except for my daughter who just cannot make up her mind about what she wants for Christmas. She will get the modern day version of coal in her stocking -- a gift card -- if she doesn't hurry up and give me some ideas). But.... The Christmas tree stands in my family room, lit up soooo pretty. Lights make a tree, don't you think? I hope so, because my tree has NO decorations on it. Oh, wait, my grandson hung ONE of our ornaments on it. There is no wreath on my door. I have not journeyed down the 14 steps to my basement to fish it out of it's box. There are lit candles in all the front windows -- my husband put them there. There are no cookies baked. I've yet to plan my Christmas Eve dinner menu or our Christmas buffet menu, to say nothing about doing the actual grocery shopping or preparation work. There are no stockings hung, no presents wrapped (or mailed), no lovely initialed gift tags made. There is no homemade tree skirt, no Christmas wreath quilt hanging over the fireplace, and no lovely Christmas quilt on the back of the family room couch, no mantel decorated. Oh, and I didn't make the embroidered Christmas sofa pillows I was sure I was going to. There are no garlands, no poinsettias, no snowflakes. There is a package of candy canes on the kitchen table. Does that count? I have a 30 year collection of more than 500 Christmas candles. The closest they have come to making an appearance this year is the cardboard box of 10 or 15 of them that my husband accidentally brought up from the basement, thinking they were something else and leaving them on the highchair in the kitchen because he thought I might want to unpack them and put them up. I haven't. I have no idea what this is all about. I used to have my shopping done in October. I stayed up nights when my kids were little, baking cookies and making homemade decorations. One year I gave all my neighbors salt dough replicas of their homes, painted in itty bitty detail! This year -- nada. I think I need to change the name of my blog... perhaps "Lazy Housewife" or "How to Disguise Yourself as a Housewife" or "Scroogey-Housewife". I like "Desperate Housewife" but that one's already taken. This is all a bit tongue-in-cheek because the one thing I do have (as of this morning) are LISTS of all the things I need to get done between now and Christmas. I'll get it done, not to worry. Gifts get wrapped today and off to the post office tomorrow. Menu plans will be done tonight. Grocery shopping on Thursday. Tree decorated on Wednesday. Shopping on Tuesday. As of Thursday my husband will be on vacation until after Christmas, so he can hang the wreath and the garlands. God bless lists. So maybe what's bothering me is the coach's mantra just doesn't fit around the holidays. Something good MAY happen today, indeed... but only if I get up off my butt and get it done!

Trying new crafts

I tried my hand at some Christmas postcards. I've not done postcards before, and enjoyed the process, but found it a little more time consuming than I thought it would be! Brayden and I worked together on the "fancy stitches" Christmas ornaments, and came out nicer than anticipated (don't you love when that happens?). I'm using them for name tags (below) as well as Christmas ornaments for the tree. In both projects I used a product called "Stiffy" that I found at the Long Creek Mills web site. It's far less expensive than TimTex or Fast2Fuse, at $1.79 a yard vs $15 and $5 a yard (on sale it's $1.29 a yard! even better!) It has a nice firmness to it that was perfect for both projects, yet it's thin and lightweight so it doesn't add bulk to the postcards. Sorry about the dates on the photos -- I changed my camera battery last night!!