Planning for 2014!

Well, here we are again! I’m having a really hard time believing that today is New Year’s Eve. WOW. Where did the year go? And now we’re almost out of time!

Today we’re getting ready for a little New Year’s Eve party we’ll be hosting this evening, but I’m also thinking about planning out 2014.

What does that mean in my world?

Over the Weekend…

I have been looking forward to this weekend so much! It was supposed to be a good one! Christmas was over, I wasn’t running in a million directions at once, I didn’t have any huge projects to work on, and I was totally looking forward to seeing more friends who were in from out-of-town and some catching up in the sleep department.

Yeah, well.

Accomplished on Friday:

• Dinner with friends in from out-of-town
• Half of the grocery shopping. (I had to stop at 10:00 p.m. because the store was closing.)

Accomplished on Saturday:

• Cleaned the entire house. (My plan of doing little things here and there throughout the week so I wouldn’t have to spend an entire day of the weekend cleaning did not work this week. Between Christmas and my husband getting sick, there was no time left to clean.)
• Used up 4 hours for a photo shoot. (Travel time each way was 1.5 hours.)
• Finished the grocery shopping

Accomplished on Sunday:

• Sunday School, Choir and church
• Lunch with friends
• Blog planning
• Photography business organizing. (I shut down my photography business for the entire month of January to attempt to catch a breather from the crazy months of October – December, and it takes a bit of doing to get it ready to be left alone for a month!)
• Cooked dinner (anybody ever had Cheeseburger Soup, or should I share that recipe here sometime?)

Honestly, I’m pretty disappointed with the lack of stuff that got done this weekend. I’m so tired. I really just want to quit everything and go sit in my big ol’ walk-in closet and do NOTHING. Even when I try to sleep I can’t, because my brain won’t shut up. Hence the reason I got no nap on Sunday.

I had forgotten how ridiculous I get at the end of the year…but I’m right back to it again. I am so exhausted of everyone needing everything from me, and there always being SO much to do ALL THE TIME. I guess the theory that “I’ll rest when I’m dead” applies now, right? Right now I’d like nothing more than to quit my full-time job, close my photography business forever, quit blogging for good, and find a lovely rock to climb under.

This is what an overly-tired overly-extended Kristen sounds like, y’all. I’m sorry for the jolt of realism in today’s post, and I think the only thing to do is try to hang on and get through it. Please tell me someone else feels the same way?

5 Things to Do With Your Christmas Dinner Leftovers!

If you’re anything like us, you have tons of leftovers from all the Christmas gatherings stacked up in your fridge even now as you’re reading this post! We were definitely blessed with lots of food…more than two of us could handle, that’s for sure. But we get kind of creative with things. I thought I’d share with all of you!

 

Post-Holiday Blues

Well, it’s the day after Christmas, people! I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful time of celebration with your friends and family! We had a great two days full of lots of fun, laughter and even a few tears.

But sometimes, right after a big event (especially like Christmas, that you’ve been planning for months) we can experience a bit of a let-down. All the emotions that we’ve been “hyping up” for months are suddenly spent, and we’re left feeling a bit lost. So what to do when this happens?

Merry Christmas to All!

Good morning, folks, and Merry Christmas! I wanted to share something special with all of you today!

I LOVE Christmas carols, and I pretty much have a favorite carol every single Christmas. This year my favorite one is not one of the carols we hear sung very often. Do you know it? It’s called, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day”.