Getting Ready for Winter Break

I admit I really look forward to Winter Break each year. While I do love all my students and kiddos, it is a needed time to rest and rejuvenate a bit. 

What I always plan to do and what I actually do during Winter Break are two different things. I plan to relax and sleep in every day (I aim for noon), frolic (yes, frolic) in the backyard and enjoy the clear night sky as I stargaze and breathe the cool crisp air. I have very romantic notions about my down time. But it almost never happens that way. 

What really happens is Karma makes sure I am awake by 8am no matter what so he can be let outside and eat breakfast. He does this by standing next to my bed near my head and silently (creepily?) watches me sleep, communicating to me with his doggie psychic powers until I become aware enough to open my eyes and acknowledge him. I occasionally pretend to be asleep in hopes he'll get discouraged and give up. Sometimes he does give up, and goes back to his bed (with a loud sigh for good measure), which only rewards and reinforces my behavior. 

Unlike Karma who seems to be able to go without food indefinitely without complaint (Who's a good doggie? Karma is!), the cats routinely declare a state of emergency if they've been away from a food source for more than a couple of hours. They express their disgruntlement by meowing loudly and banging the cabinet doors around 5am, making it more likely than not that I am already awake by the time Karma begins his one-sided staring contest. 


Then instead of being completely lazy as intended, I end up getting some wild hair to completely redo my whole house, starting with a crazed cleaning of everything, then move into grand schemes of building stuff, whereby I haul into my main living room loads of lumber, hardware, sandpaper, and an assortment of electric saws, drills and other power tools (because the garage is too messy to work in), and ending with rearranged furniture and even whole rooms. And the added bonus of being a procrastinator is that I start all these fun projects but wait until the day before the break is over to finish, leaving me up half the night rushing around the house and getting no sleep. So instead of being well rested after my break I'm a little insane and deeply overly tired. This happens every year. Without fail.

Also applies to ice that falls from the ice dispenser. It'll be fine.

This year I've started early. I already tackled both ceiling fans and air vents near the ceiling a couple weeks ago, took down the play farmers market with intentions of rebuilding it bigger and better, the pantry got decluttered and sorted last week, and I've moved on to ultra cleaning and hyper organizing my kitchen cabinets to satisfy my inner Stepford. We'll be moving the TV room to the front room- the former Kinder room that never quite gets used enough and is now in fact storing oodles of toys- and reinstating the craft room that will also once again serve the role as our dedicated meditation space. I also plan to remove every strand of pet hair in my home between now and the 21st. I am trying to keep my goals more realistic this year (clearly).

Happy Friday the 13th!