inevitable stress

Every single year, I make great goals to have all Christmas purchasing requirements made before December. This year, I had my kids all taken care of (mostly because my sister and I traded an iPod for groovy girls, ponies and bella bella dancerella...hooray for older cousins shedding their great toys!!!) so I assumed I was done. Then I remember grandparents, parents, siblings, teachers, friends and neighbors....holy smokes! I have so much left to do.

So today the kids and I tackled most of the leftover list. Now at least I have a plan and should finish and mail all necessaries by week's end. One great thing about moving (again) to a new area is no one knows about last years gifts so the CD's and cocoa cones are making a comeback.

To add to the stress, somehow (thanks to the miracle of online banking) I have been double paying my mortgage each month for the past two months!!! That's an extra $1800 I paid. Patrick cashed out his stock hobby for student loans, so I didn't really notice the big drop (well I really didn't pay that close of attention to what I was spending because I knew there was a cushion...bad bad bad). STRESS reached limits not before known this morning thanks to that slight on my part.

And Patrick is in and out of town every other day for a week or so, and my friend I trade babysitting with is out of town, so I don't get any BREAKS for a while.

Thankfully, I embrace a tiny bit of the stress to motivate me to accomplish good things (such as balancing my account every few days instead of every month or so). And thank goodness I discovered this yummy good chocolate bar in my stocking stuffer stash. I stuffed it for my own good today and had little moments of elation.