Catching Up

I've gotten a lot done this weekend. And this is really shaping up to be an exciting post, as you can see. Who doesn't want to hear all about someone else's Got-Done list? Perhaps you would (or wouldn't) if it was about something interesting, like "places I've had sex" or something like that. Which doesn't apply to my weekend at all. Consider yourself forewarned.

This weekend, I decided that it was December and I darn well better start acting like it. On Friday, I knocked my Google Reader down to under 150 unread messages. This was huge progress for me (check out the agent/editor/industry/writing blogs in the lower part of my sidebar; they're great!). I also tidied the main areas of the first floor.

Saturday morning I dusted everything and tidied both girls' rooms, too. I ordered favors for our Christmas Open House. We created a guest list and sent out an invitation to the open house. (My Punchbowl is a FABULOUS application, if you've not tried it. Evite is MUCH clunkier.) I also exercised, read, and napped. So that was fabulous, except possibly for the reading, since I'm working through Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, which is wonderful but also depressing. We also went out to get a Christmas tree for our sparkly-clean house, and made a big pot of chili. Before bed, I prepared a Sunday School lesson, and I stayed up way too late, as usual. (I was working on an Advent meditation, so that does help ameliorate some of my guilt at poor time management.)

On Sunday I did the whole shower/lead Sunday School/church/brunch with friend thing. Naptime failed - both girls and Paul have lousy colds - so we pumped some Christmas tunes, broke out the eggnog, and started decorating. The house is starting to look and smell pretty good, and only part of that is from the entire cup of eggnog Ellie spilled on the carpet!

On Sunday we also realized that we scheduled our big annual open house right on top of our church's big annual Christmas concert and dinner. Oops.

It's Sunday night, now. Both girls are bathed and sleeping, though congested. Paul and I are about to address all of our Christmas cards, which should go out tomorrow.

And then the only things from my impressively long weekend to-do list that we didn't complete are raking - we still have 3 HUGE old oak trees dropping leaves all over the place, the jerks - and putting up the lights on the outside of the house.

I'll take it! Next weekend: bathrooms, cleaning downstairs, and baking. And the week after that is the fourth week of Advent!

Just don't talk to me about Christmas shopping. I'm WAY behind.