December?!?

How on earth is it December?!? And December 3rd, no less! I swear, this semester has been flying by. But, we had a very successful Thanksgiving, my mom and I officially booked our trip to Africa (even paid the deposit!), and I got the initial Girl Scout cookie order sorted out for Mia’s troop. Yay! Let’s see how November went goals wise.

1. Clean all the things. Done! Or at least as done as it was going to get. lol. RaptorDad even organized the pantry!
2. Survive Photo Sessions. Done! I had to reschedule a bunch of them due to weather, but I got all 7 sessions edited and out to the clients. Yay! I’m actually pretty happy with how the images turned out. 🙂
3. Advent Calendar. Ugh. I didn’t work on this at all. :/ But I hung it up anyway and we’re really going to enjoy the 1st 6 days. lol.
4. Thanksgiving Menu Planning. Thanksgiving went so well! Largely because RaptorDad was in charge of most of the food prep. lol.
5. RE Homework. So close. We have 5 of the 6 chapters done.
6. Scrap 5 pages. Nada.
7. 2 Project Life Layouts. Also nada.
8. Finish color wheel top. I got all of the leaves appliqued, but I still need to trim them down and attach them to the center. The progress is looking great though!
9. Ice Cream Soda. I was meant to get this back up the design wall and I didn’t. Oh well.
10. Book Africa Trip. Done!!! Now we just need to get trip insurance and book the flights. 🙂

I decided not to try to do December Daily. It’s just too much. I was worried I would really regret not having done it last year, but honestly all I felt was relief. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some goals.

1. Sub 15 days. Not all in December. lol. The school that I sub at announced an incentive if we manage to sub 15 days in a single quarter. Currently with the jobs I’ve taken and those that I have scheduled, I’ll have 13 days. Surely I can shoehorn in another 2 days? Maybe?
2. Buy all the things. Ugh. I need to order aaaaaaalllllllllllllll of the Christmas gifts.
3. Africa Trip. We need to get trip insurance, book flights, and research the vaccines we’ll need.
4. Evaluate 2022 goals and write 2023 goals.
5. Sports? We’re not a sporty family, but I want to look at putting Xander in soccer, Mia in dance or gymnastics, and Kate in volleyball. Is this insane and way too many activities given the fact that we already feel massively over-scheduled with our current activities? Yes.
6. Teacher Gifts. Oh boy. I need to figure out something for this.
7. December Montessori Trays. I’m trying to do more academics with Mia.
8. Advent Calendar. ::sigh:: I’d like to get as much of this done as I can. I think I’m going to cut out the backings of each ornament and then they can pull out the “shadows” for the days that I haven’t finished?
9. Advent Activities. Yikes. Have I mentioned that I wasn’t ready for December?
10. Hexagons. I’ve been working on quilting the hexagons in the evenings. Honestly, I’m over it, but I also want to finish!

Notice that there are zero scrappy or Project Life goals? Yeah. I’m debating making some changes going forward. Like, I’m considering being done with scrapbooking. IDK. I’m in a bit of a creative slump. The December to do list is heavy on grown-up tasks and light on creative ones, but that’s ok. I generally get a burst of mental energy in January. Maybe it will come early and I’ll end the month being super productive. lol. And maybe pigs will fly.