Last Post This Round

This will be my last post for this Round of Words in 80 Days. I don't have too many Christmas preparations left to do, mostly wrapping presents, but I want to spend whatever time I can this week just chilling out. 

I've done fantastic on my meager list of goals for this Round and previously shared them so I won't list them again. The last goal was directing and surviving our church's Children's Christmas program. It went off last night without a hitch. It came together so amazingly that I was stunned, tearful even. None of it was my doing. Everything just plain fell into place. 

The only negative was how few people attended. 99, according to our freshman usher, Raleigh on the far right below. I'm so proud of Raleigh for taking charge of the other kids who were ushering for the first time. That's his sister Lily on the far right, followed by Noah, Bethany and Payton. I'm just a softy for all these kids. Noah and Payton also had reading parts in the program, along with four high school girls. 

And then there's our entire Sunday school class of five kids. Five kids who pulled it together and did their parts like veterans. CJ, Ethan, Catherine, Scarlett and Maddie. Aren't the two littlest girls absolutely adorable?

In addition to our spattering of kids, the Creative Ministry group below performed three songs. They are so cool. My daughter was in this troop for a couple years when she was in middle school and she had such a good time doing it.

So, that's it for this year. I look forward to hearing from everyone in the New Year, with our lists of goals ready to be tackled.

Merry Christmas to you all.

I promise . . .

It was a busy week, but I got through. On Friday I gave my presentation on my trip to Africa to my co-workers. Considering I had to be at the clinic by 11 and I was still working on my slides at nine and started cooking chapati at 9:30, I think I did pretty good. Thirteen people attended my first talk (seven of them were kids, all from one family, if you can believe it) and seven at my second talk right after the first. They had lots of question, which I think is good. I must have held their interest and I had questions for the kids (how fast can a cheetah run?). One straggler came in  after I had finished and was packing up, so I gave her the elevator speech, whipping through the slides on my laptop. After she left and I had already closed down my computer, another coworker came in and I couldn’t get rid of her, so it was 2:00 before I got out of there. I stopped at my mom’s and then checked some stores in town looking for a Christmas present for my hubby. It is something that needs to be ordered and I don’t know why I wait until the last minute. Needless to say, I didn’t get anything else done on Friday.

Yesterday, I worked at the clinic in the morning, went from there straight to my daughter’s for a meeting of Tumaini. Had hoped to do some shopping after that, but Hubby said the stores were packed so don’t even bother. I do not know when I will get the rest of his presents. Anyway, got home in time to go to church, where I did hand out some copies of the Christmas program to some of the participants. Oh, I didn’t mention that 6:00 that morning I was printing off copies of the program, so that I would have them ready for any kids I saw. As soon as I finish posting this I need to run into church to catch more of them going in for the 9:00 service.

It has been quite the weekend. Not over yet. This afternoon I am taking my Kinship kid to the Kinship Christmas party. And I absolutely positively have to do Christmas cards today. I also need to make Christmas cookies since I signed up to bring them to the clinic Christmas party next Saturday night, which is right after the Christmas program at church.

Why does there have to be so much going on this time of year???

My goals for the week were to finish the program, finish the presentation and do some writing on my memoir. So I got two out of three done. I think I can live with myself.

I promise as soon as the New Year rolls around I will get at my memoir, and all the other writing projects I have on my plate. 

And still editing the 1400 pictures from the trip. 

exciting week

Let’s start with that wonderful list of accomplishments this Round.

  

• Blogged about my trip to Africa.
• Wrote a summary of my trip to Kenya and financial prospectus.  
• Set up dates to do my presentation. The first talk is this Friday, then I have one in January and two in February.  
• Had two sales of my Kenyan merchandise. Have had three, at which I made a total of over $700.
• Wrote a newsletter for the nonprofit.
• Finished reading “Shantaram”.

I don’t know where to put this accomplishment, but click on this link for an exciting article.

I have a lot going on yet this month, in addition to the list below, but I think that I can get it done, along with decorating the tree, writing and mailing out Christmas cards, baking Christmas cookies, etc., etc.

• My church’s Christmas program. I have the first real draft finished. I will talk to our Sunday School teacher and our organist today to see if there are any changes they think need to be made. Then I will try to finalize everything else on Wednesday night. I still don’t know if we can pull this off, but whatever. It is what it is.
• Work on a power point presentation of the trip. I really haven’t worked on it this week. I do not know what I am thinking. My first talk is this Friday. Oh, well, just like the Christmas program, somehow it will come together.
• On the writing end of things… So I started my second memoir about Kenya last week. I am up to 2000 words. Pretty stoked. 

Hopefully my last sale for a while. Tired of dragging this stuff around. 

Yikes!

As I blogged about on Sunday, I have made a serious dent in the goals for this Round, but three of them have been hanging out there, causing me undo stress.

• My church’s Christmas program. This is the biggest stressor because it is not just about me failing myself, it is about letting down the people at church. I don’t even think it is the kids – there are so few of them and I don’t think that the Christmas Program means as much to them as it did when my generation were kids. But it is what it is. Somehow it will all come together, even though there is such a small handful of people and boys and girls helping with it.   
• Work on a power point presentation of the trip. I started it and even though I only have four slides done, I think I can pull it together. The presentation I do on the 11^th is going to be my practice, and I will just get better from there.
• On the writing end of things… Yikes! I started it! My second memoir about Kenya. Ok, so it is only like 420 words, but every journey begins with a single step. I will just see where the next couple steps take me and keep going.

 And that’s about it for now. I have a busy week yet. I have to nail down the rest of the Christmas program at church tonight, I work the day job Friday morning, Hubby and I want to go Christmas shopping Friday afternoon and I have a craft show for our Kenyan merchandise all day Saturday. What am I thinking????? And the rest of the month doesn’t get any better than that!

How about your month? Are you going to get everything done in December that you need to? 

My daughter and I in Kenya in 2013.
We had taken a thousand steps to get to the top of the hill, and returned with sunburns, but it was a beautiful day.