'Tis the Season...

Whoa, so it's been over a week since I've posted anything here...sorry, you guys. Work has been a little crazy and so has, well, everything else.

The holiday season is officially upon us, and I generally do love this time of year. I love shopping (obvs), I love twinkling Christmas lights, baking cookies, spending time with friends and family, etc. I'm not a huge fan of snow, however, and we've been getting hit with it for a good three days now. Um...and only four more months of this?? Joy. Someone remind me why I live in a cold climate. Seasons, schmeasons...I could totally do without winter.

Anyway, last Friday I was off work and spent the whole day Christmas shopping with my mom and sis in law. I'd say I'm about 75% done. I need to revise my lists and make sure I know what's left to get and where I need to go, because Dan and I are heading back out on Friday afternoon and I plan on totally finishing up. I love lists, too, by the way. I have my Christmas lists down to a science, and this year I also have an app on my phone that keeps track of what I've bought and how much I've spent per person. Brilliant! One would think I'd feel super organized and in control of everything...but um, I really don't. For some reason this year I feel totally scatterbrained about what I've bought and still need to get. It's bizarre. I think once I make my new list I'll feel a little better, though. I hope.

After shopping this Friday I'm hoping to start wrapping stuff too. Our tilty tree looks so lonely with no sparkly presents underneath it! I love wrapping presents. I love pretty shiny paper and big giant bows. I'm a total nerd about wrapping (like so many things, really). I hate gift bags and only use them when something is totally odd-shaped and won't fit in a box. Then Saturday is baking day with Karyn! She's coming over and I plan on making four types of cookies this year - peanut butter blossoms, m&m cookies, chocolate chip & gingerbread. I'm cheating with the gingerbread and using a mix, because the mix I found is DELICIOUS. Everything else is from scratch though.

So with everything going on this busy time of year, my poor manuscript has been collecting dust a little bit on my jump drive. I've been trying to work on revisions whenever I can, but as I mentioned before it's terribly slow-going. I think I'm only through about 3 and a half chapters so far. But I'm liking where it's going. I've been taking out stuff that bothered me, switching more things around, and adding stuff based on the feedback I got. I'm still hoping to have the first round of revisions done before Christmas...but if not, I do at least have the week between Christmas and New Year's off, so I'll have some good quality time to work on it.

I'll try to post some pics up here sometime of our tree and stuff...if I ever have a spare moment again...