Sunday Night Strategizing, Vol. 8

Oh my goodness, I am feeling like I have a million zillion things to do. Got to eat the elephant one bite at a time, I guess. This week's menu:

Elephant saute (prayer)

• Transfer notes from spiritual direction to a more permanent home
• Each day, spend some of the baby's naptime with my journal
• Start the St. Andrew novena

Elephant fricassee (person)

• Climb wearily back on the no sugar/moderate exercise wagon after the Thanksgiving revel
• Take some time to work on a post to be called Lilies in November, even though it's unlikely to surface before December
• Start this year's Shakespeare play (and perhaps blog about the Shakespeare project, which has been less successful than the Dickens project)

Poached elephant (parent)

• Figure out a manger/straw thing
• Look for a Nativity set that the little kids can play with
• Tenaciously push away stress-related snappishness with the kids. Approach Advent prayer with reverence and patience, not with the bad cop hat on.
• Read faithfully to the three youngest. Listen faithfully to the big guys. (Well, I should listen to everybody, but I'm going to concentrate especially on the big guys.)

Braised elephant (provider - home)

• Clean house
• Balance checkbook
• Figure out end-of-year financial stuff

Elephant tartare (provider - work)

• Prepare for thesis committee meeting
• Submit article review to journal editor
• Set nose to grindstone in multivariate book, to get it finished by December 31
• Pin down co-author about what needs to happen before article submission, even if it means feeling pushy
• Test vocab tool on a batch of new transcripts

Gingered elephant (Christmas)

• Mail out Christmas cards
• Make a Christmas pudding
• Get those Snapfish calendars made without swearing
• Prepare packages for mailing
• Seize the opportunity tomorrow to buy a specially priced gift before the offer expires

It's been fun to see a few other SNS posts. Hope it's helpful for those of you who have tried it! If you might like to leave a comment with a link, I'd enjoy reading what you're up to this week as the crazy season descends. I mean, as we enter this season of wonder and waiting. Yeah.

Comments

[gina]

Thinking of you this week :) My list looks similar :) I found a spiritual director...the day you blogged about it our parish opened up an Advent at home retreat w/ daily meetings with a spiritual director. Met her today. Loved her :) Thank you...

[Kristin]

Fisher Price makes a Little People Nativity.

SNS...supplemental nursing system?

Trying to do some Advent reading/praying with the husband and the small boy -- trying to set the thone and make it something we do...while also recognizing that this wasn't always something we did, and so it feels odd to the husband, and new to the small boy... So instead of the whole reading/blessing/prayer thing I had aspired to last night, I winged it in mid-course: we lit the wreath, said grace at dinner, and then at bedtime I read the Annunciation from Luke to the small boy, after one of his Bill Peet books from the library.

It wasn't as done up as I might have hoped, but maybe we'll get to that in a couple of years. ;-)

[Carla]

Wow! Ambitious list this week...be careful to avoid steamrolling towards Christmas burnout...

I also have a zillion things to do the next two weeks (Madrigals season for my oldest) but I am trying to keep in mind that Jesus wants to REST in our hearts....

"Martha, Martha, you are concerned about many things, but only one is necessary..."

[Jamie]

Kristin, SNS = Sunday Night Strategizing. :-)

Carla, you're right. Trying to get things like PO trips out of the way early so I can rest instead of stressing later!

[etteloc]

I didn't get around to it until Tuesday, because apparently I want to add "work on procrastination" to my Sunday Night Strategies.

Also, I'm a little thankful for your posts on self-discipline. Online Stopwatch is helping me keep the internet from eating my life away.