#51- Christmas Shopping Completed!

That’s right.  It is now the week of Thanksgiving, and I’m thrilled to say that I completed all of my Christmas shopping this weekend, with one exception.  I had bought a few of the gifts already.  Then we put in a very large order to Amazon, which is currently speeding on its way towards us as I type this.  Because our order was so large, I opted for the super slow, free shipping.  It should arrive here right after we return from our Thanksgiving visit with my family.  How’s that for easy?

While there was a bit of stress in November trying to nail down presents for everyone, this is really going to open up our holiday season so that we can spend it doing all the fun things that we have planned — and believe me, we have planned them!  We have something fun to do every weekend for the rest of 2009, and a bunch of stuff to fill in those weekday nights as well.  It is great to have all the hard work done before the holidays get started.  I intend to clear off the table one night and get a wrapping party going to some Christmas music.

This is a relief to have completed.  I think I will strive to do this in other years… there won’t be as much urgency to it if I allow myself a few more exceptions.  And without it being a part of this list, I can give myself a little more leeway.

A New Way

Since the hubs has been teaching his first undergrad class, we seem to be talking a lot these days about “THOSE kids” in a completely get-off-my-lawn kind of way.  I think I’ve determined that they were deprived of all the good things we had in our childhood and left with only an inconsequential shadow of what was.

Exhibit A:

And

Oh-so-shadowy Exhibit B:

I really don’t think that it is their fault that they are so much less awesome than we were.  And are.  Do you?

#17 – I’m Prepping

Turns out that the spirit of my week so far has been prepping.  Prepping for the holidays, prepping for things for work, prepping for my future photo book of 101 goodness.  [#17 on my list is to start a scrapbook/journal documentation of this list -- with proof (blog is just a bonus).]  I spent some time yesterday updating my organization for my goals (remember when I started this?)

According to my tracking, I’ve completed 51 of my 101 goals.  (This number is looking more daunting as the second calendar year of work on my list is drawing to a close.)  Of those 51 completed goals, I’ve prepped photos and a word document of text for 10.  I’d like to continue working on this over the rest of the week and see if I can’t get most of these 51 ready for the later blurb book treatment I have planned for them.

I have 315 days left to work on the rest of my 50 goals.  Motivation is running a bit thin these days.  I have attempted a few of the goals multiple times by now and need to buckle down, others have slightly lost their glossy appeal, and some things just feel less relevant the farther I get from the time I created the list.  I am hoping for a nice burst of New Year’s resolution energy going into 2010 to help me plow through some of the remaining 50.  I’d like to finish prepping for all the goals that I’ve already finished, since I can then mark #17 completed.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

(She writes on a 70° day…)  No, it’s not snowing.  But things are really picking up for the holiday season around here.  I discovered this morning that the hubs and I have something planned for all the weekends remaining in 2009.  They are all going to be super busy and fun from now on.

I can’t wait for all the holiday events that we plan on attending this year — and believe me, there are quite a few!  Last year we decided to focus on it being our first Christmas after we got married.  This year we’re focusing on it likely being the last Christmas that we are here in Richmond.

Luckily, we’ll have time for all these events.  I’m certain now that I will be completing #51 on my list this year — buy all Christmas presents before Thanksgiving.  (I’m counting black Friday shopping in Thanksgiving, but I am not even sure if I’ll need that!)  The hubs and I have identified gifts for almost everyone on our list, and are going to be ordering the bulk of them in a giant Amazon.com order soon.  Others we have already purchased.

So, I spent a bit of time this morning reorganizing my gift wrapping goodness.  I first mentioned it here, but it had gotten a little haphazard recently.  So I straightened up the very messy ribbon drawer:

And checked on my rolls of wrapping paper, most of which are stored on two tall plastic bags beside my wrapping drawers:

Here you can see the wrapping paper I’ve pulled out for this year’s Christmas presents, and glimpse the wedding wrapping paper behind it.  You can see the small red dots, the large red dots, and the reverse side of that roll, green dots in last year’s Christmas picture.  This year I’m finishing up that roll and adding this green, red, and gold striped paper.

These rolls of wrap fit nicely behind our vacuum, like so:

I’m also doing a bit more prep for the holidays.  We already have Christmas cards waiting for us in our Christmas decorations, our Christmas card list is all ready and waiting in a google document, and I already purchased some holiday return address labels.  I’ll probably purchase some holiday stamps this week, and then we can start mailing out Christmas cards soon after Thanksgiving.

I think that this is the most I’ve been excited about Christmas since I was little.

#57- Recent Purchases

Here are some recent purchases for my new wardrobe.  I actually have two more shirts that I recently bought for very cheap money (breaking on of my own rules: don’t buy it just because it is four dollars) which I will post about later.

The top row of short sleeve, pleated at the neck and green ruffled shirt are all from JC Penney.  I think that all are Worthington.  The next row of tank tops and the shirt dress (which I got for $10, and it fits perfectly) are all from Target.  The blue shirt (with pleated neck) and blue sweater are alos both from JC Penney, while the gray sweater coat (which is slightly less than attractive, but still a step up from a sweatshirt) was from Ross.  On the final row, we have a green/teal skirt from Target, pants from JC Penney, and a scarf from Target.

More to come at some point in the future!