Odds and Ends

Christmas Things That Need Doing

This past weekend I couldn’t help but think of all the stuff that needs doing for Christmas. Seeing as I make lists for everything of course I immediately started making one. It’s had a great start as I’ve already managed to cross 1 thing off – get the trees up from the basement.

Now for the rest of the list

 1) Finish up the present shopping that I need to do before heading to visit the east coast part of my family on the 13th.

 2) Clean the house (at least the ground floor), including polishing the silver.

 3) Decide if we are doing cards this year or not and if we are, then get them bought & done before the mailing deadlines. Get the annual letter done.

 4) Decorate the trees.

 5) Put up the rest of the decorations.

 6) Get out my Christmas David Winter cottages & get them set up. I’m thinking with this I’ll take John’s cousin Linda’s idea and instead of buying more “snow” instead using white felt.

 7) Get John’s presents including stuffers and wrap them. First of all I have to decide what to get him and make sure he hasn’t already bought it for himself.

 8) Get my pate and meatballs made (actually they’re my sister’s recipes).

 9) Do the baking.

Hmmm, doesn’t look all that bad when I write it down but I’m sure to think of more – anyone notice anything I’ve forgotten?

8 Things That Need Doing By Year End

I got the idea of "8 Things" from Lee's blog Embrace Life  who credits Magpie Girl.   Here's a bit from Lee's blog about it.

"Rachelle, aka Magpie Girl, started *8 Things to quiet her "monkey mind" and I embrace it for much the same reason: therapy! If you're looking for a place to keep your lists, you might want to consider *8 Things."

and thought I would jump in with an 8 things list today.   All of these need (or should I say I absolutely want) done by year end.  This is aside from the usual Christmas stuff that has to be done too.

- get back to Weight Watchers on a weekly basis on a specific day and not just willy nilly like I have been doing.

- start back at the Y

- get my desk cleaned off & organized

- get my "new" scrapbooking area set up and actually being used.

- have all of 2010's pictures (excluding December's - they can be done in January) rated and sorted into highlight folders or otherwise and ready to be printed off the next time Costco has a sale

- put all course notes in binders so I can actually find them.

- have all filing up to date

- go through the stuff in the basement and figure out what can be gotten rid of/sold etc

 

It's Been a Busy Week

Loading up pictures, updating blog and scanning negatives.   Our friends John & Vicky had asked if I could scan in their negatives of Alison's wedding from the throw-away cameras they'd placed on every table.  Easier said than done - there were 13 envelopes of them and some needed redoing a few times because of dust etc.   I got into a routine - every time I put new ones in the scanner I'd first wipe down the screen & glass over the light with my microfibre cloth specifically designed for that & then I'd use the little air puffer/blower that we have for the camera lenses on the negatives.   Even then some would not come off & I'd have to re-do them  It took 4 solid days of basically doing nothing but that before I got them all done.  John took them to work with him yesterday (they carpool together) and handed them over to John.  I did manage to get the blog updated at the same time because everytime I had the scanner working it would 10 minutes to do a negative strip, even played some Facebook games but it wasn't enough time to go downstairs & do stuff like housework so guess what I'm doing this week.   :)  

I had picked a word for this year - Accomplish and I must say I'm glad that that is accomplished & given back to them.  Also glad that the blog date is done and now I can go on doing a daily/semi-daily update but have it more up to date than it has been.

So what else is new - oh yeah - we got egged!   We think we know who (not the name though as this person  was delivering phonebooks and trying to demolish our Japanese Maple out front while doing it) but no way to prove it.  BTW, what is up with people delivering stuff we don't need or want deciding that it's ok to damage plants - especially the Japanese Maple?  Back to the egg, it's up high on the front of the garage and baked on from all this heat.  John will have to get the extension ladder, a pail & steel brush out to get rid of it, but hey it could have been worse right?

I signed up for a new course at http://www.shimelle.com "Love your Pictures, Love your Pages" that started a couple of weeks ago and because of getting ready for the trip, being away & then the favour for John & Vicky I haven't been able to participate in it but that's changed as of today. 

We have some beautiful red Day Lillys in bloom right now & I need to get out there and get a picture of them while they still look good.  

Last Week

Ok, trying to keep on top of my word for this year - Accomplish and even though I was sick last week I did accomplish a few things.  Sad to say that no scrapbooking has been done though.

- All of the 2008 & 2009 digital pictures have been gone through as per my LOM homework and all of 2007 except for the trip we took that year.  2008 was a big undertaking as it had 3 trips in it including the Baltic cruise.

- I have the test swatch done for my newest knitting project (a stole) and can now get going on it.

- have Quicken all up to date

- managed to get all the income tax papers together and am now just waiting on the T4s

- got our hotel reservations done for the wedding

It definitely feels good getting those crossed off.  Next week I'm hoping to say that I got a scrapbook page done too but the preparations for the cruise might cut into accomplishing things.  :)