The year is nearly done, and so it’s time for me to reflect on how my business did this year, and what I want to change for next year. There’s no law stating I have to do this, of course, but it’s a little exercise that I find goes well with writing checks to the IRS and weeping uncontrollably.

Oh, I’m kidding. I don’t cry while I write those checks.

I come up with new swear words, instead.

Kidding! Truly!

Look, ever since the first time I got completely walloped with taxes, I have a little mantra I like to repeat to myself: This is an excellent problem to have. Having lots of taxes to pay means I made money. Having more taxes to pay than I planned for means I made more money than I thought I would. If there’s a better problem to have, I’d like to know what it is.

Still, it’s the perfect time of year to reflect, to start planning for next year, and to just generally see where my business is at.
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Oh what a difference a week makes.

Last week, I was trying not to drown. Too much to do, not enough time to do it in, angst and fretting running in overdrive.

This week, things are different. And not because anything changed. Well, nothing changed with work, anyway. The difference this week is that my children are home from school. And I still have lots to get done; but for some reason, rather than feeling overwrought and frantic about it, I’m just feeling much more relaxed.

Crazy, right? To feel more relaxed when the kids are running around and I have to stop working fifteen times a day to play referee or fix them something to eat or just come and “look, Mom!” or whatever? Usually those things would, I’m sad to say, put me on edge and make my day more stressful, if I’m trying to get work done.

If this were a movie, now would be the part where I would show you have I was visited by several ghosts and learned the true meaning of Christmas.
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I’ve got about a week and a half to go until Christmas, and I think I’m going to make it. It’s all going to be fine. I’m sure it is. It has to be, right? It will. Obviously.

It is helpful, at this time of year, to remind myself that I feel this way at this time of year every single year without fail. Because the way I feel right now is sort of how I imagine the last mile of a marathon feels. I keep telling myself that I just have to keep going until Christmas, at which point I can pull back and relax a little bit. It’s just that right now I have to do all of my regular work as well as “prepare for the holidays.”

(I think maybe the holidays should learn to prepare for themselves. That would make things a lot easier….)
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I’m kind of having A Day. And given that it’s barely 10:00 a.m., that just seems… not good.

The plan, today, was to work this morning (as I do) and then go to an appointment with my accountant, be home in time for lunch, and work the rest of the afternoon until the kids got home from school. Nothing remarkable.

Instead, I got a call late yesterday afternoon that we’d come up on the cancellation list with Dr. Important Specialist, and did I want to bring my son in first thing this morning? Of course I did. So I shuffled a few assignments around, determined that I could get him there, drop him off at school after, and still make it to the accountant on time. Easy.

But this morning did not go according to plan.
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I think I mentioned a few weeks back that I was going to be starting a new project, soon, and that I was excited to tell y’all about it. We did a soft launch a few weeks ago, but as of today (December 1st) it’s supposedly ready for Prime Time: I am one of the bloggers behind a new weight loss challenge site, Five Full Plates.

There are a lot of good and rational reasons why partaking in this project are—for me, right now—utter lunacy. For one thing, time is at a premium for me as it is, and December is absolutely my busiest time at Want Not, so starting this now is sort of like hitting myself in the face repeatedly (for no pay). For another, I have “dieted” very few times in my life, and have rarely met with any sort of success. Furthermore, I’ve always detested exercise! And lastly, I’m not even overweight. Not clinically, anyway.

And yet, despite all of these things, I’ve decided this is what I need to be doing right now. We will blog through the month of December, and then starting in January the five of us are on the clock—we have ten weeks to (safely!) lose ten pounds apiece. I will not make a dime through this process. I will say Very Bad Things about my elliptical trainer and my Wii Fit. And, hopefully, if I do it right… I will emerge proud of myself.
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