Things That Didn't Happen

This Christmas season was a bit of an odd mix for me.

While I thoroughly enjoyed Christmas and the whirlwind of activities around it, I was definitely not my usual self in terms of some traditions.  These were relatively minor things but they are things that I always do.  A few examples...

1.  As Christmas cards arrive, I always hang them on our fridge and once that is full, I hang them on the back of our basement door.  They are fun to look at for me and for guests- people always get a kick out of HOW MANY cards we receive. We are blessed with very thoughtful friends and family and I love talking about the bloggy friends who send cards.  This year? One card made it to the fridge.  That's it!  I have them all, read them all, looked at the pictures several times.  But they didn't make it to the hanging phase and while it didn't bother me too much before, now that the holiday hustle is over, I miss having those cards in plain view.

2.  On that same topic, for the 2nd year in a row, I did not create a Christmas card.  I think that last year, I may have printed a picture and mailed out cards to friends and family that we don't see all the time.  This year? Nothing... I actually created a New Year's card (on January 1st...haha) but haven't ordered it and now I'm not so sure I should.  It makes me sad to have missed doing this twice.  I foresee our Christmas card count dropping significantly next year...so perhaps #1 and 2 on my list will be no big deal for 2014 ;)

3.  While our outside lights were up at a reasonable time, the inside stuff barely made it.  Our tree was up at the start of December but my other usual decorations (Hallmark snowmen, other little nicknacks and HELLO- the NATIVITY??) only made it out at the last minute.  None of our snow village pieces came out at all and I skipped alot of things.  So strange- for the first time since we've had them, I didn't even get out our little Fisher Price nativities for the kids to play with.  That is often one of the first things...

4.  I didn't listen to any Christmas cd's until Christmas Day. We listened to radio Christmas songs in the car but not the usual selection of cd's.  And I ALWAYS listen to my Jewel Christmas cd- a personal favorite- and it remains unheard this season.  I can't even FIND our mix cd with fun kid-songs on it.  What is my world coming to?

I will note a general lack of organization with paperwork-related things that has me feeling out of balance.  And my laundry situation?  There remains, at this moment, a mountain of clean laundry- in a heap- in the toy area of my living room (which is also the family room/play room-- hey we only have one room!).  I should include a photo.  It's absurd.

The organization thing and my recent propensity for what I like to call "mini-hoarding" behavior is both annoying and perplexing to me.  At the same time, I can't seem to fully jump the mental hurdle that means getting everything in order at the same time and then maintaining that order.  I think I might have talked about this before- at least the paperwork part because that has been an ongoing problem for quite some time.

I have a college friend who is a professional organizer and who also has a social work degree.  I plan to enlist her help (seriously) because I hope that not only will she help me get everything together but perhaps she can help me identify what is keeping me from doing this on my own.  I have always been uber-organized with paperwork and while laundry is always a challenge, I don't historically have it just sitting around for such a lengthy period of time.

I actually think that getting some organization back on track will help me with being present...because I won't have these incomplete tasks lurking and distracting me.

So there you have it- what didn't get done!