December is slipping by and I am feeling woefully unprepared for Christmas. Oh, I promise myself every year that I'll start earlier, etc. But I never do. The advent calendar is barely happening this year ... despite my best intentions and good advice for everyone else, I was not as organized this year as I was last year, and it's causing some nightmares for me. My Christmas cards are sitting here on my desk, un-signed, un-addressed, un-stamped, un-sent. I always mail my cards on November 30. I have not even begun the children's Christmas pajamas (a last day of advent tradition here), and worse, haven't even begun Elisabeth's gifts. I don't have gifts in hand for most of our extended family, or any good birthday ideas for my husband (he turns 40 on Sunday -- can I say that?). I have hours of work left on my doll commissions. (If you ordered dolls from me and are reading this, they will make their way to you, sweetly wrapped, this week. I don't know when, but I'd mail them by Express mail anyway as a protection, so they'll get to you.) And, oh, yeah:

James's leg is broken. We don't know how it happened. We were in to the doctor twice last week because of it; at first they thought they wouldn't need to cast it, but after a second opinion by an orthopedist, James came home with a bright red cast.

I know this will all seem funny to me in, oh, about 8 days. But this week? Not so much.

uncommon grace