am i doing too much?

This past week was a blur. With so much I have to do, instead of chipping away at it, I spent too much time watching TV, napping and basically wandering around my house in a daze. I know that it’s mostly from stress, but I really am exhausted and ache from my head to my toes. Making it hard to get motivated. Somehow I will get things done – I only have eight more Christmas cards to address. Let’s see, already mailed 46 or 48 of them. I have the last batch of Christmas cookies baked. I have half of the cut-outs decorated, so am not going to worry about when I finish the rest of them. Almost all of the presents are purchased, now I just need to wrap them. Oh, and we did get the tree decorated yesterday.

Every year, I ask myself why we put ourselves through all of this. Part of it is my husband. When I try to convince him each year that we need to cut back, he proclaims, “Christmas is my holiday and you’re not going to take that away from me.” To which I want to say, “Have at ‘er. Just coz you want to go nuts, doesn’t mean I have to.” Instead, this one time a year, I am the supportive wife and let him have his way. 

So what about my goals?

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”.  I only wrote one chapter, 1,379 words this week. A far cry from the average I need to finish my rough draft by the end of the year.

2)        Ready “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” for publication. I still haven’t received the first round of edits from my publisher. I emailed them on Wednesday, I think, and heard back that I should get those edits by the end of the week, which didn’t happen. I’m trying not to stress about it. I have enough other things to do anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until the relaxed days following January 1 to start re-reading the manuscript? But I am anxious to get the book ready for publication. My publisher originally set a release date for some time in April. And I suppose, since I am going to be in Africa the first two weeks of April, we might as well wait to release it towards the end of the month. I still just want it back in my hands. It also makes me nervous that my publisher hasn’t kept up their end of the deal on this. I know it is minor, but is it a warning sign?

3)        Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week.  It helps that I set myself up with the topics for all the posts for the month.   

4)        Finalize the next trip for my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.  As much as we need to do on this, we haven’t worked on it this week. Life has just gotten in the way. Weather hasn’t helped. This Friday, no matter what, my daughter and I are going to work on things. I’m also meeting with our treasurer as she has not been able to balance the November income and expense report. And somehow she thinks it’s my fault. I don’t know why she blames me, but I need to appease her.

5)        Get my body in shape. Seriously? Do I not realize what this month is all about? There couldn’t be more junk food in my house right now.

Have you achieved all of your goals this Round? This year? And are you just going to sit back and relax for the last two weeks of 2016?   

Last year's cut-outs. I took a picture of this year's, but haven't looked at it yet. 

These cookies look just as good.