Christmas Eve Eve

Elizabeth is off for the rest of the year starting today, and Ornery's last day before the long weekend is today, although he will work from Tuesday through Friday next week.  We have already done all the Christmas giving we plan to do, and other than having Mom over for Christmas Day so she won't spend it alone, we don't have any plans. We have discarded the traditions we didn't really like (turkey dinner, big family gathering, etc.) but we haven't really put any new ones in place.

This is the first year ever I won't be stuffing stockings or opening any gifts on Christmas Day.  I don't know if it is good or bad, but certainly different.  I like the stress-free feeling of already being done, but somehow it feels a little funky to have nothing planned to celebrate on the actual day. It has been a month-long celebration, so I don't feel cheated in any way, but I don't think I want to do this every year.  In all it has been an out-of-the-ordinary year.

Ornery and I had a nice long visit last night as we started going through a Darren Hardy book on goal setting.  We discussed our dreams (which we will have to search for to resurrect) and passions (which don't seem to be riding very high in either of us at the moment).  We talked about what changes we wanted to see in our lives and began thinking about how we will go about making them.

When I started the year, I had high hopes for great personal growth, starting a business venture, and weight management.  In the end, it seems like all we got done was sell one house with all the preparation involved in that, and move into another and make it "ours."  Rather than lose weight, we have both added more and rather than grow personally, it seems we have digressed and lost a lot of the ground we had gained before. It seems at almost every turn my expectations have been unmet, and that has left me feeling rather flat.

While our health has not declined, we have not really improved either, and even our latest foray into the nebulous world of RBTI is not turning out as great as we had hoped it would.  We have decided to take the good from the experience and move on rather than attempt to force our lives into a mold that would be uncomfortable at best and impossible at worst to maintain. It seemed like a great idea to have a "norm" to aim for, but the routes that are suggested for reaching those perfect numbers are beyond what either of us are really willing to travel.

This little funk I am in is likely related to just really being tired and needing a nice long respite from big projects--at least I hope that is what it is!  I am glad Ornery and I are both on the same page of wanting something more from life, and it will be interesting (and I hope exciting) to see what comes of these evenings of introspection and forward planning.

Meanwhile, I think it is going to be fun to spend time with Elizabeth this week.  Ornery is almost finished with her new loom and is going to make a tripod stand for it. We are going to Hobby Lobby today to get some different gauge wire for her beading, and I am going to look at some polymer clay. If the customer who queried about ten custom clipboards follows through with some $$, I will have a pretty big job coming up, and if not, I have a lot of ribbon coming in that I will have to find a use for! I'd like to get some new stuff in my etsy shop, which will require spending some time in my studio.  I won't mind that at all!