Today we put Christmas lights on our house. This is momentous because we haven’t done so for about 7 years. We’ve stuck lights into trees and bushes, but not scaled ladders to put them on the house. This year several of the kids spoke longingly of lights on the house and I knew it was important to them. I also knew that if it didn’t happen this weekend, it would not happen at all. So this morning I hauled out the ladders and the lights.
I began to climb the ladder and discovered that I have entirely too thorough a possible-consequences generator in my brain. Ladders did not used to scare me that way. Kiki at age 12 was not inflicted with so vivid an imagination, so she was the one to scale the ladders. I kept both feet on the ground and shouted instructions. She loved every minute of it. And now we have lights on our house.
We also have our tree constructed and lit. Tomorrow I will haul out the ornaments for decorating. Once again the kids did all of the work of hauling and assembling the tree. This makes me very glad. It is a big tree. Now I can begin the task of getting the presents organized, wrapped, and under the tree. I have most of what we’ll need stashed away in my storage room, I just need to let Gleek and Patches “go shopping” for presents among the stash. I have until the books arrive to focus on Christmas. Then I’ll have no attention for anything else until the books are shipped. Everything depends upon the arrival of the books for which I still do not have a firm delivery date. Once I know the delivery date I can schedule everything else.
I have to keep reminding myself that the delivery of the books is not today’s problem. I am on vacation until Monday morning and thus I am not allowed to fret until then. For today I’m going to sit by the Christmas tree and listen to music. Maybe I’ll light a candle.
I call that act of imagination my “That could kill you, you know” thought-to-action filter…
I’d think “I’ll climb this ladder and clean out the gutters…”
“That could kill you, you know…”
“Hmmm… I’ll call someone else to do it…”