AHHH!!!

I wish I had time to be home alone.

The holidays never used to be an insanely busy time of year for me until now. I never used to understand why people turned into such scrooges, or when I worked in retail, how people’s fuses were so short, they were willing to backhand an employee if they looked at them wrong. But I think I’m starting to understand why.

This year, I feel myself struggling with my inner scrooge. I’m ready to be the one to backhand somebody. Now don’t get me wrong-I love the holidays (please see my previous post “Getting’ in the Holiday Spirit”), but I’ve been so insanely busy that it’s cutting into my sleep, and even my Hanson Christmas album isn’t making holly and gingerbread cookies shoot out my ass like usual (sorry for that mental image).

This is also the first time in our five-year relationship that my boyfriend and I are spending the holidays together (we were too stubborn to deviate from our own holiday traditions in years past). We’re lucky that our families are close enough that we can see them both during the holidays (after some lengthy discussions about compromising), but it does add another sense of chaos to an already busy season. I’m so happy and excited to spend the holidays with them all, but we will end up touring all of Washington’s highways about four times next week (okay so instead of compromising, maybe we found a way to jam both of our families in). I’m trying to focus on one day at a time, but it isn’t keeping my eye from twitching.

As far as the rest of the month has gone, I went to my best friend’s bachelorette party last weekend (which involved a much needed absinthe cocktail – blog post to come sometime after my eye stops twitching) and it’s been a non-stop tornado of tasks and appointments ever since. There is something going on every single day until Christmas and it’s been like that for about two weeks now.

This weekend, I somehow need to find time to bake a million cookies, somewhere in between my haircut, sushi happy hour, Seahawks game and ugly sweater party. Don’t get me wrong- my “tasks” are fun ones, but the more overloaded I get, the more they seem like another thing to do. I forced myself to say no to a co-worker who invited me to a ginger-bread making, martini party at her house next week, although under normal circumstances, I certainly wouldn’t have turned that down.

I still haven’t even wrapped my presents. And I’m supposed to find time to pack for Hawaii (I absolutely DESPISE packing, and would be willing to pay someone to do it for me. Any takers?) I know, boohoo. I’m bitching about going on vacation. I’m going to freakin’ need that vacation, okay?

Not to mention, work has been hectic and full of deadlines and pre-vacation preparations. Just about every article I’ve written this week has come back full of red lines which has not done much alleviate my stress level.

And in the background, there are all sorts of stuff going on with my mom that I can’t help but worry about. I’m just going to leave it at that.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but my after-Christmas Hawaii trip is keeping me afloat!