Against My Nature

Yesterday, I wrote out a plan to get everything finished before I leave for Nebraska on the 21st. Being a natural procrastinator, I will never have everything done that needs to be done unless I set some kind of plan in stone right now. It's already the 9th. After being called a scrooge yesterday for complaining too much about what I have to do, the best way to say "fuck you" other than saying it outright is to do it all. So even though I was very upset by the label (I cried), I have managed to make something good out of it.

I think I may need to put my mission to get rid of something every day on hold. I will do what I can to keep up with it, but after writing out that list of things to do and people I want to buy gifts for, there's not going to be a lot of time in the day left to hunt down extraneous junk. If there is, I'll do it, but I'm not going to feel like a big ol' failure if I don't.

Today begins the first leg of my plan: cleaning and decorating. My house can always be counted on to be messy, and I need to get it in a state of less messy. I'm also being realistic with my plan. I don't think I have any chance of Martha Stewart's approval; so being able to see the tops of furniture (and not through a layer of dust) is what I'm going for instead. After the clutter is shoveled out of here and the dust bunnies are caged, the decorating will begin.

Considering I usually don't get around to decorating for Christmas until the week before, I'm doing pretty well this year. I was even able to find all the Christmas decorations, and it was put away rather than being scattered in piles throughout the basement. That makes for a very happy me.

I'll get grumpy again later on when I have to find something to wear for John's business Christmas dinner. This is probably another reason I was labeled a scrooge yesterday. I said I didn't want to go to this party and that I hate those kinds of things. It has nothing to do with hating Christmas though. It has everything to do with not knowing these people, only seeing them one time two years ago (we weaseled out of last year's dinner) and being all self-conscious about how big I am because one of them is Mr. Judgmental. Seeing as it's a dinner only makes it worse. I'll be worried about every bite I put into my mouth. I just have to keep telling myself, "It's only a couple hours."

Afterward, John and I are going to take advantage of the fact we have a sitter and John doesn't have a gig. We actually get to go out. No kids. Alone together. I can look forward to that the whole time I'm squirming through dinner. At least there's a nice end to the day. Nothing like going to bed in a cranky mood to elevate a person's scrooginess. Don't think I need that.