Organizing, A Breakdown

I decided to hold off on the photos project until January and started tackling the decluttering/cleaning that I've been putting off. It's funny how I think it'll be terrible, but once I get started, I enjoy the process and results. So far, I've done the laundry room shelves, spice racks, misc. technology/cords, girls' bedroom, and bookcases. Today, I'm tackling the TV stand since it's really dusty and has a big pile of DVDs that need to be sorted through. I have a lot more to do, but those things are the ones that have been bugging me for a while. I wish everything could stay clean and organized in the first place, but that's just not how it works.

I had a mini breakdown a few days ago. This time of year is just hard, and I've felt like all the "Christmas magic" has been from my hard work with very little help from any of my family members. Over the years, I've tried to scale back Christmas as much as possible, but it doesn't change the fact that I have a big family, lots of presents to buy and meals to make, family to visit (but never all of them since they live so far apart) and a little bit of seasonal depression to go with it.

On the bright side, there are only 2 days of school before we get a break. I look forward to sleeping in. I've also received a couple of small gifts with thoughtful notes in the past week. Those are my favorite. I keep those little notes forever (in Google Drive) because it's rare to get anything handwritten anymore. I was sick on Thanksgiving and hardly remember the meal due to brain fog, but I made a simple turkey dinner this week so we could have turkey pot pie. Eating that yesterday reminded me of helping my mom make pot pies the day after Thanksgiving for so many years. It was always one of my favorite meals and is still the BEST way to eat turkey leftovers. No one will change my mind on this. We also opened our NC family presents and played one of the new board games, Cascadia. I'm still nervous about travel since we'll be taking the Yukon. It's just not as reliable or comfortable as the van, but it has the snow tires just in case. It will be a good Christmas. I'll still be glad when it's over.