It's DECEMBER?

 


We're three days in and I am realizing that this year is coming to a close.  How the heck did that happen?  I swear I don't know what day it is, what month it is or what year it is!  This year has been that crazy.  (But don't I say that every single year?  Do I?)  Part of me thinks it's already 2025, whereas other parts of me still think it's 2023 or even 2022.  (Was 2022 two years ago?  Was it?)

I am so confused.  The weather has suddenly turned cold. (It's supposed to turn cold, it's December!)  I'm not prepared for it.  (Even though I should be.)  It snowed the week before Thanksgiving.  (We got next to nothing; a few miles up the road they got nearly a foot!)  It snowed on Thanksgiving.  It snowed the day after Thanksgiving.  (I wasn't expecting it and since it was dark outside when I went for a quick run to Walmart, I was surprised to see the flakes coming down and coating my car as I drove along.  Thankfully it amounted to nothing.)  There were flakes while I was waiting for the bus this morning.  (Yes, I was back waiting for the bus after a "blissful" week of no public transportation.  Nothing against public transportation, but I would rather be at home in my comfy house than riding on a bus.  Is that unfair?)  It was just a few random flakes, but...

Why am I so surprised by this?  I mean back in 2011 we had a major snowstorm right before Halloween.  (See I can remember that, but I can't remember what the heck day of the week it is.  What is wrong with me?)  Though it's not yet officially winter, it is the time of year when we can expect cold.  Or can we?  I mean just I KNOW I was sitting outside with no coat on and in a tank top just a few weeks ago.  (Was it November?  Was it October?  Am I making this all up?)  And I did have roses in bloom the day the snow started in November?  What the heck is going on?  (Have I asked that before?)

My point is (do I have one?) that winter is less than 20 days away and it's brutally cold.  We are probably going to have a wet, snowy winter because I purchased a house in the Poconos.  So you can thank or blame me for that.  (Just like you can thank me for this NOT being the horrible hurricane season at the NJ shore that they said we were going to have...if I had NOT sold the house at the shore, we certainly would have had hurricanes and northeasters up the wazoo. )

Am I sounding crazed and frantic?  That's because I am!  It's not just the usual holiday season "stuff' that always gets me in a tizzy, it's that I don't know whether I am coming or going.  I was in PA for most of last week.  We went from PA to NJ to NY (to get my son) to PA all in a matter of hours.  Then on Friday it was back in NJ.  On Sunday it was NY (to drop off my son) and back to NJ.  It's back to heading to the office for several days before heading back to PA.  Then after the weekend (that's this weekend, right?  There is a weekend, right?) we'll head back to NJ and I will do my public transportation thing again before having 2 days off so that I can pick my son up again (the semester will be over) and we can go to PA for a day and a half, before he and I (hubby is staying put) head back to NJ so that he can work on Saturday (and I can volunteer at the Thrift Shop, which has been crazy because it is the holiday season) and he will be the lay reader at church on Sunday (and I will sing in the choir.)  Then it's back to work and commuting before I head back to my husband in PA, leaving my son behind, but returning to NJ on Saturday because my son and I are lighting the 4th candle on the Advent wreath on Sunday.  Two days later it's Christmas Eve (do I have to go to Newark that day?  Who knows?  We're working, but I was told if I wanted to work from home that day, I'd have to put a request in writing?!) and my son is working that afternoon.  Do the two of us head to PA for Christmas afterwards?  That's my plan, but who knows with the weather.

I really am frantic and crazed, aren't I?  And I haven't even decided where (or if) I should have Christmas trees.  (Just one?  Should I do two?  Should I get a new one for the PA house which really has the room for Christmas, but will we be there?  Do I put one up in the NJ house since my son is going to be there through mid-January?  When will I be there?  I don't know?  Will I be there?  I don't know.)  

I am so frantic and crazed that even the coffee maker at the office told me to calm down.  I am NOT kidding.  As the machine was making hot water the screen told me to breathe in and then breathe out.  SERIOUSLY!  The coffee machine told me that!  I am NOT making this up!  I am NOT hallucinating! (Yet!  Although the tinnitus sometimes makes me question what I am really hearing.  I swear sometimes I hear music when it's only some appliance making noise.)

I know I need to listen to the coffee machine at work.  I need to heed the advice of Simon and Garfunkel:  "Slow down, you move too fast..."  And I do.  It's something I need to work on.  (My manager tells me that too...because I make mistakes when I rush through things.  I need to slow down, but then the work just keeps piling up and my mind keeps racing forward and I keep going and going and going...)  

I need more coffee.  I need more advice from the coffee machine. I need to listen to more Simon and Garfunkel so that I slow down and realize that all is groovy. (If not now, maybe next year?)


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