Packing It In

Crazy workstuff.

Picking Alex up from daycare and taking him to dinner and then back to daycare for their Fall Festival. Then over to Braz and Adin's for the usual Friday night hangout.

Saturday: Pumpkin carving. Pumpkin seed roasting. Butternut and acorn squash roasting and attendant soup making. Also, the weekly grocery shopping needs to happen a day earlier than usual, because...

Sunday: Craft fair with Penny and Adin and girls up in Richmond. Leaving town at 10, back probably mid/late afternoon.

November's weekends are already filling up. We don't have anything planned (yet) for the first weekend, but then after that there's a party on the 12th, two events on the 19th (one for me and one for Matt, but we'll need to juggle the overlap), and then Thanksgiving weekend.

I haven't laid out plans for December's weekends, but I only have to look at the list of Things To Do (family photo session for our cards, house decorating, Santa visit, moon cookie party, Christmastown, shopping, wrapping and mailing, 9 days in Illinois, some gathering with my family) to know already that it's going to be a busy month.

So basically, for most of the next two months, if I've got an entire half-day where I'm not doing something, I'm going to need to be finding some way to use it to make the following weeks less crazy, if at all possible. Early decorating, cooking/baking, planning, or shopping.

Which means I'm not waiting until after Thanksgiving to start my Christmas shopping. Those of you who might reasonably expect gifts from us this year, update your wishlists and then stay off of them, or else brace for potential duplicates, because I'm strongly considering trying to be at least close to done with my shopping by the first weekend of December. (Not counting stuff for the kids. I know myself well enough to know I'm going to keep buying stuff for them right up until the last possible minute.)

We're three days from Hallowe'en. Let the "holidays" begin.