Over load

I've decidedly bitten off more than I can chew. I seem to have signed up for too much stuff to do outside of the holidays this Christmas! Right now I'm looking through what I've got and what I can easily delay. Here's my list:

1. play piano for Children's choir - must do
2. make cookies - highly recommended to do
3. participate in Living Nativity - must do
4. attend Sunday School play - must do
5. attend School Christmas play - must do
6. 3 family Christmases - must do
7. update my resume - can wait
8. refresher courses for work - needs to be done by Dec. 25th, thankfully on line
9. attend orientation days for work - must do
10. write - must do in order to sleep, which I haven't been sleeping well b/c I haven't been writing
11. apply for scholarships - can wait
12. apply for college - can wait
13. wrap presents - must do
14. plan snowshoeing/sledding for Young Adult group - can wait
15. attend flute ensemble at Blue Frog - really want to go, but guess I could skip it
16. keep up correspondence with people about my book - should do
17. work out - must do
18. organize ornaments - needs to be done by end of holidays
19. organize winter outer wear - can wait
20. practice piano for upcoming times to play at church in Jan/Feb - can wait

I feel better now that I know what needs to be done and what can wait. It's hard to put things off, since I want to do them all, but if I do, I won't have time for the kids!

Garden Goodbye's

This afternoon I finished cleaning out all of my flower beds, getting them ready for the winter. Matt even pruned the crab apple tree for me. This is the first time I've actually cleaned them all out. In past years I was hit or miss. The ones I missed over the years made for easier Falls, but the Spring plantings required more work. Just because you don't clean your gardens out in the fall, doesn't mean you won't have to clean them out sometime, if you want them to remain a garden! It feels good to have one item checked off my list, at least for a few months. As a Mom I have the eternal to do list with jobs that continually need to be redone, even if I did them yesterday. I look forward to the endless mountains of dirty and unfolded clean laundry, stacks of macaroni art dishes, and Lego landmines.