Brain Dead

It is a busy time of year for everyone. Here's what I have on the agenda:

• sing at a funeral
• finish Christmas decorations
• finish Christmas shopping*
• send Christmas cards
• RSVP to Christmas parties
• attend my daughters' dance performances
• attend my daughter's choir concerts
• finish and teach choreography for Children's' Choir Christmas program
• design and print programs for Children's Choir Christmas program
• design and print programs for Chancel Choir Christmas Cantata
• direct rehearsals for above Christmas programs
• direct above Christmas programs
• attend Robing Ceremony and Graduation Ceremony!!!
• attend party in my honor (how cool is that?)
• study for the board exam
• see clients
• lead group
• schedule voice students for after holiday
• shop for a baby shower
• practice solo for chapel and for Christmas Eve
• pack for trip

Here's what I'd like to get done but most likely won't:

• sewing my daughters' Christmas dresses (sorry, girls!)
• wrapping gifts - Mikel does that, and he is great at it!
• cooking
• getting the dogs groomed
• seeing The Nutcracker
• sleeping

* A story about Christmas shopping. We went to the toy store. We listened to a really knowledgeable fellow talk for 40 minutes about video games, about which we know literally nothing. We had hoped to avoid ever having to know anything about video games, but alas our daughters have other ideas. We weren't able to make a decision at that moment, so we thanked the fellow and walked away while he warned us that we had better make a purchase before December 1st or everything would be sold out. (He wasn't kidding. We have since made a purchase, but it took some searching.)

Then we walked over to the Thomas the Tank Engine section of the store to pick out something for my nephew. I expected a couple of shelves of cutesy blue trains and some track. In the name of all that is good and Holy! Do you know how much Thomas the Tank Engine stuff there is? Have you seen the choices, the variety, the sizes, the colors, the prices?! It took us 30 minutes to choose something, and as we walked away we said to one another, "Well, I guess his parents will hate us for starting this madness...."

After that, we went to buy a Christmas tree. (I will post another entry about our old tree soon.) For the love of doughnuts! Have you seen how many different types of artificial trees there are? Did you know they are rated by number of points, number of lights, life-expectancy of wiring, color, type of material used? It's no longer just height and width anymore, folks. We chose a beautiful 7.5' blue spruce wannabe. The cats think it is delicious.

And everything I said in the above two paragraphs applies to bicycles, too, by the way. Great God in Heaven! Have you shopped for bicycles lately? The colors, the wheel size, the components, the materials used, the accessories... I suppose it all matters to someone, but I dreamed of Thomas and his friends on bicycles weaving through forests of brightly lit trees while shooting at aliens with ray guns.... Okay, okay, not really...............

I could barely remember my name the next morning. I'm pretty sure I've suffered an aneurysm.