Let the Holidays Begin! PLEASE!!
This week, I have been having some serious deja vu moments harkening back to last December.
Like how the last week of school in 2013, I had all three school-aged children home sick at various points for most of the week, rounding it off with my husband catching it too (which he now denies), just before the holidays. What a lovely way to begin time off. This year, Jabin has had a weird stomach-cramping lethargy all week, and Jude is now home with the bug, too. Last year, Jude and Noah both missed their school Christmas concerts--after I had stayed up into the wee hours making angel and shepherd costumes for them. This year, it looks like Jabin gets to miss, since his is tonight. I am praying that Noah and Levi and the parents all manage to stay healthy. This bug looks like a nasty one.
(I don't think I ever got around to blogging the story behind these costumes, or even posting photos to the blog, so here is what kept me sewing instead of blogging last December--photographed several months later, obviously!)
Last December I spent the better part of the month writing the first draft of The Friday Night Date Dress. (Then did nothing with it for months and months. Ha!) Well, I got the revision back from my editor this past Sunday, and have been going through it and "fixing" things ever since. Given that it is my first real novel (okay, okay, it's only a novella), I am quite pleased that the suggested changes were mostly grammatical, with only a few comments about strange turns of phrase and one or two scenes that needed heavier revision. There were no comments about major plot points that needed revision or anything, so I am just thrilled. This is my first time through the process, so everything is an estimate at this point, but I am hopefully only weeks away from publishing this baby!
And, as is typical in December, I am working to finish a knitting pattern to put out by Christmas (don't think that will happen) or immediately after for the "holiday bored knitters rush." I was trying to hit the "last-minute gift-knitters rush" with a quick, bulky bootcuff-and-mitten-set pattern, but with everything else I am trying to juggle this week, I think that might be pushing me beyond my limits. (No photos of that yet, sorry.)
Sure, there are some differences between Decembers 2013 and 2014--like, instead of being in the minus thirties for three weeks straight at this point, with only a few hours of sunshine here and there, we have had a remarkably mild and snow-free December. It was actually above freezing for a few days! We can't see green grass like they can in Calgary right now, but not having to shovel twice a day has been wonderful!
Hanukkah began last night, and with its much later arrival, I am feeling much better prepared for it. I am looking forward to using up some garden potatoes to make latkes once this stomach bug flees the house!
The other major difference, at least to me, is how busy I still am in the office. December is the month I usually relax, escape my chair, and do crafty stuff that I want to do, not have to do. Last year, I made myself a summer dress. I was hoping that I might manage a winter dress or even a sweater for which I've had supplies for a year during this month's hiatus.
Except, I don't think I'll get the hiatus. Between revising my story and getting it publishable, finishing a pattern, revising the musical, and--this is the big one that has me totally freaking out--finishing with building my new Winters Distributing store (which, although it will be lovely and customer-friendly when I am done is a huge. freakin'. ALBERTOSAURUS of a project that there is just not enough time to finish before Magento Go closes my other one down in 6 weeks), my butt has been glued in my office chair many more hours than I wish it to be. And when I'm done all that? There is always my office work to finish so I can do taxes! Whee!!
(Plus, my next story to work on, my next pattern, my next...)
And here I am, blogging. :-)
Happy Hanukkah, friends! I'll be sure to check in any time I need an escape for sanity's sake! (Among other reasons, I'm sure.)
Stay warm!
