UNFINISHED BUSINESS

2019 is rolling downhill like a great big snowball.  There’s no stopping it, or even slowing it down.  The best I can hope for is to stay out of its direct path while I scramble through the remaining days trying to get things done.

This being retired business that I’m in is kind of misleading.  Yes, I can and do call my time my own, but also yes, this precious time is sometimes spent puttering around my gardens and playing with grandchildren.  This is not ‘wasting’ time, it is the perfect way to refresh my soul, but even people with refreshed souls need to get a few things accomplished from day to day.

Oh sure the meals get made, the laundry gets done and it’s a very rare bill that doesn’t get paid on time.  The outside summer work gets done because I love to be out there doing it and writing is usually up to date because, again, it’s the kind of thing I enjoy.  Where I fail usually has to do with numbers, books, accounts, and paperwork of any kind.  Let me play with words all day long ... make the numbers go away.

With less than two weeks before Christmas and three before we swap out our calendars for the bright new shiny unscribbled on ones, I have a fair amount on my plate already.  I am hosting the family feast so there is a menu to plan, phone calls to make, baking to do, and extra house cleaning to tackle.  It’s really embarrassing when you know Santa was here because he left his autograph in the dust on your furniture.  And wouldn’t it be nice if the windows were clean enough to let the sun shine through?

But, before I tackle cleaning I should get the decorating out of the way.  The tree is bought but not yet thawed out or set up.  The tubs of garland and tinsel, baubles and lights are awaiting their annual moment to shine.  It’s time to turn on the Christmas music or the ‘too sweet for my teeth’ Hallmark movie channel, and get in the groove.

As of this morning I have several dozen tarts of many kinds all baked – and due to extreme will power, not all eaten – and the gifts have all been wrapped and hidden because there are grandkids coming for a sleepover tomorrow.  The tree is my weekend project.

That’s what I started doing last night - tidying up so that I could begin decorating.  I cleaned up the pile of papers on the desk in my tv room – and found a stack of paperwork to claim 2019 health benefits before the end of the year.  I sorted through the stack of too-important-to-throw-away papers on top of the china cabinet and found a project I was working on for Tourism that I had forgotten all about.  Thank goodness the deadline is still a month off!  Chastising myself for being so unorganized I carefully stacked these two jobs out to my computer desk in the office and placed them with a couple other coupon redemption jobs that have to be completed online.  To top it off I received an email requiring me to put together an application for grant money, I must double check the deadline on that ...

 Even as I sit here, happily tapping away on my keyboard this stack of nuisance papers mock and intimidate me.  I wonder, if I poured gravy on them, would the dog eat my homework?

Merry Christmas everyone – lets all hope for a quiet, relaxing January!