Now November ends. December begins, with its month full of dark nights, wintry cold, seasonal holidays, festive parties, and family gatherings.
Let’s be sure to have some fun tonight or this week before the crowds completely make restaurants and malls unbearable. Let’s enjoy this before we get wrapped up (so to speak) in holiday preparations and all the busy times ahead.
QUICK THINGS TO DO TODAY:
- Need to send any thank-you notes? To your Thanksgiving hosts, perhaps?
- Look over your past month. Did you achieve goals you set for yourself? (Whether they involve personal growth, housekeeping, budgeting, crafting, cooking, socializing, de-cluttering, travel, book-reading, journaling, etc?)
- Make a meal that cleverly helps you use up your last remaining leftovers from Thanksgiving.
- If you’re wearing slippers at night a lot, do you need to launder them? They can get sweaty and a bit smelly. How about your family members slippers?
- Put away any remaining autumn crafts or crafting supplies. It’s time to switch to winter crafts.
- Need to catch up on any mid-week vacuuming or laundry?
- Try to remove two items from your bathroom counter and store them somewhere else (or get rid of them entirely!)
TODAY’S PROJECT: Pick-A-Spot Cleaning
Tonight’s a schoolnight/worknight in my house. I don’t want to involve myself in an enormous project, so I’m going to pick the very worst spot of my house and work on improving it.
Right now the worst spot is my upstairs living room. The carpet needs to be vacuumed and spot cleaned. The furniture is very dusty from having the dogs wander in and out of the rain. A light bulb needs to be changed, houseplants watered and tidied, and a couple dishes removed. A huge stack of magazines needs to be sorted, read, and recycled.
Lastly, the placemats I have on the side tables and coffee tables need to be laundered and put away – I’ll be getting out Christmasy ones tomorrow anyway.
LOVELY BLOGS: Home Ec 101
This site offers “skills for everyday living.” Learn to wash it, cook it, clean it, and fix it. The blog also offers a very handy printable weekly chore schedule. Heather posted a series of very helpful posts on a Thanksgiving countdown, and I suspect she’ll have a quite useful Christmas countdown series too.
LOVELY LINKS FOR TODAY:
Beet and Goat Cheese Tartlets (The Desk and the Stove)
Caramelized Mushrooms and Dumplings (Joy the Baker)
Gingersnap Cherry Cheesecake (Worth the Whisk)
Mini Pumpkin Tartlets with Homemade Cinnamon Whipped Cream (For the Love of Cooking)
Mozzarella-Baked Gnocchi (Cassie Craves)
Paprika-Spiced Cauliflower Soup (Saveur)
Spiced Strawberry Creme Brulee (Raspberri Cupcakes)
Heather Solos
Thank you so much for linking to my site, I truly appreciate it. I actually don't do a Christmas countdown as people's celebrations vary so much that I haven't figured out how to be helpful without seeming to add to the feeling of obligation to make it perfect that seems to pervade the holiday.
I think maybe this year I'll take a survey and see what people would like included and build out from there.
I wish you all the best.