(Scattered) Thoughts from the end of Thanksgiving Break

I can’t believe our first break of the school year is almost over. Today is the last day we actually have off and tomorrow starts the weekend.

I have to say, it was really nice to take a break from work. Even though we couldn’t really take a break from our lives, stepping away from the less pleasant parts of my job was a relief. It was nice for my kids to have a break from online learning too.

I did take my kids down to my campus on Tuesday so I could get some work done (and my husband, who was still working, could really get some work done) and they could play around outside. I have done quite a bit of work during the break but there has been no emails to respond to and no classes to teach and only one week’s worth of work to grade. I have gotten a fair amount of the work related tasks on my to-do list crossed off (and I can finish the rest this weekend).

I also got the Christmas box down and the Christmas tree up and decorated. I washed all the Christms clothes and distributed them to their owners. I even went to Target and bought some Christmas presents along with matching Minecraft Christmas pajamas for my kids. Besides not having any idea what to get my daughter for Christmas, I feel pretty on top of things holiday wise.

I’m almost done with the calendars, which for some reason are taking forever this year. I couldn’t decide on a style so I ended up picking a blank white one and then after I got all the pictures in I decided I hated it, so I tried to start again but that was too daunting so instead I added embellishments from another calendar onto the original white one. At this point I need to just be done with it and order them already. That should happen tonight.

{I don’t have to make my grandmother’s calendar for the first time this year, and I’m trying to focus on what an relief it is that I don’t have to get pictures of all the other great grandkids and make a totally separate calendar instead of how sad I am that she isn’t with us anymore.}

{When I started looking for pictures for the calendar I plugged my stick into my phone and learned I had over TWELVE THOUSAND PHOTOS on there. So I downloaded them all to the stick and erased about half of them. Man oh man, I’m glad I got them off of there. I tire of making the calendars but I do love that it inspires me to go through and choose the best photos of the year (which live on Shutterfly forever), and to purge them off my phone once I’ve gone through them.

I already designed and ordered this year’s ornament. I’m pleased that it is our first “bubble” ornament, which feels very fitting for 2020.

{Those of you who have been reading me for a while know that one of my favorite Christmas traditions is creating an ornament for the year. This is the 11th year that I’ve created an ornament for our tree (and the trees of the grandparents -they get one too).

One thing I have not done is clean up my house. I just can’t seem to get it done. I’ve been telling myself all month that once Thanksgiving break came I’d get the house cleaned up. But here we are, two days away from going back to work and I have barely picked up. I don’t know why I can’t seem to get through this particular headspace that has me just shutting down the minute I try to clean up my house. It’s seriously bothering me.

I have plans to tackle stuff this weekend. We shall see if it actually happens but I want it to. It stresses me out to have the house this messy.

I have gotten the kids outside every day this week (except Wednesday, I let them lounge all day on Wednesday). I’ve kept up with my workouts. I even kept up with my intermittent fasting for Monday through Wednesday. I’ve gotten a ton of stuff done. I am proud of all that and I’m trying to remind myself of it instead of berating myself for not cleaning up the house, but it’s hard.

Thanksgiving ended up being very nice. My parents did an amazing job creating a Covid-safe outdoor celebration and I think they even enjoyed it themselves. They had made a traditional Thanksgiving on Tuesday and packed up half of it for us to take home. On Thursday we all ate pozole together, which is a stew made from hominy (we were at one table and my parents were at another). We played some card games outside, and ladder ball. My mom brought out Christmas cookies to decorate. The kids spent over an hour in the hot tub and we left about 6pm. All in all, it wasn’t that different from a regular Thanksgiving, except we were outside with masks (and our close family friends weren’t celebrating with us). Of course we are lucky that the weather is still very nice here, and yesterday it was especially nice.

We’ve been working through the Marvel movies, though we’re not watching all of them (this bothered me but then I realized that this is what they can handle right now, and later they can watch them ALL again in order if they want). My son loves them but my daughter is losing interest. Luckily she likes to read and doesn’t mind doing that instead of watching… Tonight we’re watching Winter Soldier.

I made face masks for our Elf on the Shelf Heart, and her reindeer Toots. My son has been very worried that Heart will not be able to make it this year. I keep telling him that I think it will be okay but December 1st really can’t come fast enough. I’m thinking Heart might drop us a letter tomorrow morning to ease our anxiety.

I hope you had a safe and resful holiday. Thinking of everyone right now. This shit is hard.