It's the Most Wonderful .. er I mean.. the Busiest Time of Year

I've decided that I'm going to stop making resolutions about how I'm going to do better about blogging. Maybe I will actually blog MORE if I don't make resolutions. It's worth a try anyhow. Anywho, life has been its normal extremely crazy self except with some abnormal extra craziness thrown in including some difficult trials which I don't want to talk about because I want this to be a generally happy post and it won't be if I start talking about all the sad stuff. Anyway, MoVing On...so, Thanksgiving has already come and gone!! Unbelievable! We had a "small" Thanksgiving for us - in that we had no company and even some of our family wasn't there - namely Josh, Kristi, and Ashlyn. That meant we had a microscopic group of only 10 people plus Sofi. We actually fit around one table this year with even a couple seats left over. We probably should have taken a picture to commemorate that epic moment but we were all too busy stuffing our faces.

I have decided the reason I never feel rested after a "break" is because they seem to be even busier than regular life. Wednesday was the first day out of school. I got up at like 5:30 and got ready to go to my piano lesson in Macon. I was gone to it from 7 until 4:30 ish, then when I got back, Hannah and I ran/ walked a couple miles. After supper, I made the apple and pumpkin pies (from scratch) and did a bunch of other stuff that I don't remember anymore. At some point, I crashed into bed.

Thanksgiving morning, I was up at 4:00 am so I could get in a couple hours of practicing and some other stuff before we left at 8 to run in the Turkey Trot. I did my first 5K - still can't run all of it but I did a mixture of walking and running. Hannah and I did it together which made it extra fun. We came back and ate some of my Mom's famous pumpkin pancakes and bacon and then had the most relaxing part of the whole break - snuggling on the couch with Sofi, sipping hot chocolate, and watching the Macy's Day Parade.  I haven't been able to sit and watch it in a long time so that was pretty nice. Thanksgiving was the funnest and most relaxing of all the days because I also got to play a family game and watch a movie. All of those things have not happened in the same day in at least 47 weeks. We also went on a super long bike ride.

Friday, I was up early again, trying to get some work and practicing done before I headed out to work/ teach at Jamestown Piano from 10 until 6. It was the first time I have worked instead of shopped on Black Friday but I didn't have any money to spend anyway, so it was OK. Plus, I got to decorate the store for Christmas. The rest of the weekend brought more practicing, decorating for Christmas, playing at the mall, church music preparation, music directing at church, exercising, and at least 103 other things that were on my list which I no longer remember. I just know it was crazy busy and exhausting!!

Christmas is such a busy time of year for me. As if my current schedule was not insane enough, I now have rehearsal on Thursday night in addition to Tuesday night (and we will have even more if the music is not up to par by the Festival of Lessons and Carols service), all the responsibilites of special Christmas services/music at church to plan and prepare, playing at the mall for a few hours on Saturdays and Sundays - and all the music for that to practice, my students' Christmas recital, and a million other random things. Plus, I have to keep up with my 4 and a half jobs, all my practicing for my lessons, grad school prep studying, exercising, etc., etc., etc. I am also in charge of Christmas cheer at my house so I need to get on that. Yes. Hopefully, you get the picture. According to the movie ELF, elves only need 40 minutes of sleep a night. It is time for me to speedily develop elven characteristics. I will add that to my to-do list for today. Well, I had better go practice!!