So far December hasn't been the best of months.
There's loads of things I need to do and I'm singularly failing to get anything done. But my main problem at the moment is that my brain feels rather fried. And it's affecting the creative side of things. I sit and sit and stare at the screen and try to write. But what comes out is either garbage or simply clumsy and it's getting really rather annoying. It took me several days to get the last review done and it's taking me far more to get the current one done.
My problem (okay, one of my many problems, but the one most directly affecting me now) is that I can't just review at half speed. I refuse to just trot some half work out, badly composed and badly written. But this does mean that when I'm left staring, staring, staring at the screen. I shall leave it for now and come back to it later. Or tomorrow. But I will get it done. And I will get it done properly. Such is my curse. The review shelf is creaking under the weight of books at the moment, it's over 40 at the moment. This means that even if I do the review marathon that I did last month (20 in November) I'd still need to be working solidly through to February. Ridiculous. I really do need to cut down slightly. But it's very difficult when there's all this great stuff coming out.
On top of all of this there's the traditional Christmas buildup. This should be a good thing, but in my case, the Christmas buildup actually means me getting stressed over the amount of work I have to do to get everything ready. I realise it's stupid, but I really can't help it. Currently I'm trying to get the last lot of present shopping done, which as usual involves a ridiculous amount of work to find just the right present or find something new and different for Molly to give to Louise for Christmas. The problem with Molly getting older is that I've now had to do this 27 times (special presents from Molly for birthday, christmas and mother's day) and I'm rather running out of ideas that don't cost a fortune. We've done mugs, paintings, letters, decorative items. But I think it's okay for this year, although so far it's taken me about 4 hours on scanning photos into the computer to even get anywhere near finishing.
Then we have the problems with school. I'm really, really behind with everything at the moment. And Christmas is hardly the best time to try to catch up. I've now got 10 school days left. Take away the last day and that leaves just 9. Take away the morning of the final Thursday when the staff are all dressing up as ABBA and performing and that's just 8.5 days.
Stress? Just a little bit.
In fact it all came to a head earlier on today (it's still sunday night to me as I'm writing this). The morning was spent shopping for Christmas stuff and then a trip to Langlands to see Santa. All the way through both I was fretting and stressing about just how much I'd got to get done. Standing in a freezing cold queue at Langlands waiting for Santa didn't much help either. Molly's hyper and wonderfully excited about seeing Santa and there's me; miserable.
I did manage to cheer up a little however and by the time we eventually got back home from putting mom and dad's christmas tree up I at least had a plan. If the reviewing isn't working for a little while, then I'll hit the schoolwork and try to get a lot of that done in one go. The thinking is that I finish all the years lesson planning and prep before Christmas and then concentrate on the website after christmas until April. And I shall review when I feel up to it, or rather when my brain actually has another creative thought.
It's a plan. Not the best of plans perhaps, but a plan nonetheless.
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