Busy, busy, busy

I have been a sewing fool this week. I bought my daughter a bunk bed at Overstock for her American Girl dolls over the summer and put it away for Christmas. Last week I found it buried deep in the garage and decided I should probably not wait until Christmas week to put it together. After I got it assembled I realized there was no way I could give it to her with the hideous bedding it came with so I set off to Joanne's to find some super cute fabric and embellishments. Now I should tell you that I really don't sew. I have a machine and I have somehow produced cornice boards for my family room, kitchen and daughter's playroom but I am really not quite sure how it actually happened. I can't read the patterns so I don't even bother with them anymore. I just basically eye it up and then try to recreate it. So, anyhow I returned home with my fabulous fabrics thinking the whole way home that I should have just bought her another bed from American Girl and then I wouldn't be worrying about all of this right now. For what I paid for the fabric and the bunk beds I could have. Once I got the fabric home I had a momentary panic that I had really gotten in over my head this time but I am proud to say that I have stuck to it and I am almost done. Once I got into it I also realized the bed set came with a little closet. So far I have made curtains and a back wall for the closet, two mattresses, and both comforters. All I have left to do is the pillows. I think I am going to make one big one for each bed and then two smaller throw pillows so there will be six to make total. I should have done them tonight but I am a little fried. I will definitely put up a picture when it is done. Also a picture of the dinosaur is coming as soon as my daughter brings it home from school as I forgot to take his picture before sending him off with her.
I have my wrapping all done except a few packages that arrived today. I may have to run out for something else for my husband and I need stocking stuffers but the rest of the shopping is done. I have made four types of cookies - still have a long way to go with my baking. I still need to do all my grocery shopping though and think that will be done maybe Monday - Friday if I get to it but I doubt it. I have most of my Christmas cards done and mailed. Of course somehow I didn't order enough cards this year and I am about 30 cards short. It's too late now to order more so I went through our list with a fine tooth comb and made some major cuts. Brought me back to wedding planning days when husband and I had to fine tune our guest list. Anyway, the cards have started to pour in and wouldn't you know it just about every card we've received so far is from someone I cut from our list. Now what! I think I am going to suck it up and go to the store to buy cards and send out to the people we cut from the list. I thought once I had a child I graduated to the photo card and no longer had to write anything but this year I guess will be different. So, the cards are done - mostly. I skimped on decorations this year. I didn't put everything up and one of the main things that got axed is my Nana's Christmas village. It is a major undertaking and in this house I don't have a great location for it - there are soooo many houses - so I put some of it on top of my china cabinet and the rest on top of a book shelf in my family room. Both require being up and down on the ladder and that was just not going to happen this year. I have some boughs for the banister that I may still put up and I will probably decorate my daughter's room but mostly the house is decorated. I may sound like everything is all together but the truth is that something has to give and lately that has been house cleanliness. To the naked eye my house is clean but I know it's not. Right now it is a mess and just about every room needs to be cleaned. The laundry is piled so high on the spare room bed that my daughter was using it as a mountain for her dolls to sled down. It's all clean just not folded or put away. I gave up my cleaning lady right after Christmas last year. I was done with my last surgery and having her come clean my house made me feel like I still wasn't able. So in my effort to get my life back to some semblance of normal I let her go and believe me there have been lots of times especially recently that I think someone should have stopped me. Clearly I wasn't in my right mind and had no business making such drastic decisions. So, that's some of what I have been up to. I have a couple other big things (major really) that have been in the works and taking up some time but I'll tell you about them the next time. So I hope you are all getting all of your prep done and are able to take a few minutes to sit and enjoy some of it all. I'm trying to!