Down to the last minutes, again!

I'm pampering myself because I have a cold, so that meant I did NOTHING all weekend to prepare for my Christmas trip home to Mom's, including accumulated laundry and dishes and garbage. It's now Monday morning. I intend to leave in about 28 hours. And I still have that cold, which started on Friday afternoon. I haven't moved my car in over a week, and ploughs have gone by twice (twice!) now after two snowfalls, dumping about 30-40 cm (about 14 inches). So the car is snowed in, and that just adds to my list of chores. And at about 7:30 am ET it's -12 C (about 9 F). Brr.

This is one of two pictures I'm framing for my mother's present. It's a cover from Canadian Homes and Gardens magazine (now defunct), dated 1930. She asked for vintage ad posters with a country theme, of which there do not seem to be any except within the pages of old magazines! Anyways, the two covers are lovely and the see-through frames will work pretty well, and you can see the ads on the inside covers. I just have to put them together still...

Christmas Day Update: Mom liked the pictures!

So what do I get from postponing all my chores? I guess calling them chores is a clue. I do this every year. The last few years, for example, I have started thinking about considering getting a cat sitter for my brood of four in the weeks before Christmas so I can get someone before they're all booked. I didn't ask anyone until Saturday afternoon (December 20). But the second person I asked is available and lives only three doors away. That's actually better than last year.

Christmas makes me tired. I don't feel much like socializing and my health seems to bounce around a lot before the days start getting longer again. I feel as though there are a lot of demands on my physical and emotional energy that I'm not prepared to provide. And I'm cynical about the fact that I start getting Christmas catalogues in August.

But my to-do list is years old and miles long. Along with craft projects, small repairs, and books to read, I haven't done any ironing all year; my dining room table is covered with stuff that should go into the computer/guest room, which needs to be organized. But before I tackle that room it should really have a new ceiling put up (that's the room where the roof leaked).

My list of things to do and bring home with me (besides the usual gifts and clothes) includes things I've offered and that people have asked for. The car will be bulging at the seams. Now I've just added minutes to my cell phone so I can call Mom on the trip to tell her how it's going, and I can't find the charger. It's in here somewhere; I know it is here somewhere...

1o:oo am update: I found the cell phone charger. It was just sitting there under a pile of books.