Christmas Musings by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Merry Christmas! I hope your family is prepared since at this point the holiday is just days away. I know Konnie is. But Konnie is ready for Christmas by the first week of December. I’m not as organized as her.

I know her system, I just never get my act together enough to utilize it, and this year I’ve had the added issues with car problems hindering my shopping. I’d normally be done with Christmas shopping by the first week of December too, just not as leisurely as Konnie manages it.

You see, Konnie only shops for like her oldest son in December. That’s her system. Each month of the year she checks who has birthdays coming up and buys both birthday and Christmas present for those who are on her list that month! She ships me both my birthday and Christmas present before our July birthday. Can you believe that?

I’m not that organized. Actually, I’m not organized at all.

In fact, I found several gifts hiding in my spare room the other day that I bought one to two years ago! And the weird part is that I didn’t forget to send those few people a gift for Christmas the last couple of years, so wow. I need to get better organized.

And, on top of being disorganized, I’ve been having car problems making it hard to get any shopping done, ergo, I am not ready for Christmas yet. Hopefully, I can get ready in the few days remaining but going shopping this late in the year is going to be horrendous. For one, electric carts will be scarce, and the stores will be crowded.

If I could I’d avoid the stores from Thanksgiving to December 26^th (you know the day with all the lines of people returning gifts they didn’t like). Yeah, I avoid Black Friday and the day after Christmas at all costs.

And what am I supposed to get?

My supervisor got me a new Nativity. I wasn’t even thinking about getting her something, now what? And I have a friend who also got me a Nativity, but I didn’t get her anything. I usually do, because I know she will get me something, but I haven’t had the means to do any extended shopping.

I wouldn’t be surprised if my neighbors get me something, they’ve surprised me with Nativities a few times. But what I do get them, and their three kids? No clue. And I really should have done that by now, but not only have I had car issues, but I just spent over a week sick. Which certainly isn’t helping the money issues any.

Did I mention my car registration is due this month?

And now it looks like my car battery needs replaced. I don’t have that kind of money. Great.

I’ve honestly thought about starting a GoFundMe page, but I doubt that would help. Who has money to spare? And why would they give it to me, even if they did?

So, I’m short on money right now and will remain short on money for the foreseeable future, which makes fixing my car all the harder.

On top of that, I haven’t been writing or editing. I did get some critiques on my chapter I submitted to a “First Chapter” contest, but I’ve read the first page of critiques, and well one of them essentially wants me to put back all the info dumps I already took out.

Not her words, but that seems to be the gist of what she is saying. She says she’s confused about the time and place of the story, which to me means she wants the time and place spelled out upfront instead of shown in the story. Either that or she missed the part about it being contemporary speculative fiction.

Not sure how I can make it even more explicit about the time and place without an info dump, which isn’t a good thing to have in a novel.

Another lady complained about how many characters were introduced in the first chapter and questioned the title character using first and last names of his family and friends. She has a point, I’m just not sure how to solve that issue.

And, yeah, I know I can’t please everyone but why can’t they at least agree on something. If they agreed on just one thing, I would know I need to fix it, but three critiques and none of them brought up the same issue. NONE! Now, what do I do?

Anyway, what are your Christmas plans? Are you ready?

If you are going to be traveling for Christmas, stay safe out there.

And Happy writing everyone!

Merry Christmas by Bonnie Le Hamilton

At this moment, I’m at a point where I both can’t believe two weeks has past since my last post and knowing that much time has to have past because of everything that’s happened since then.

To say the least, I’ve been busy. Okay, not busy on the level of Konnie’s life. Frankly, I don’t think I’d survive that level of busy, but I have had things on my calendar pretty much every day for the last couple of weeks. In fact, there are a few things on my calendar that I didn’t actually manage to do for one reason or another.

My calendar is still quite full. And by full, I mean I have at least one event or appointment a day, along with chores and or errands listed most days. Konnie is probably reading this and wishing her calendar looked like mine.

Busy is relative. I don’t have kids to run hither and thither. I do have gifts to wrap, or rather I did. Thankfully, I finished that – yesterday. I also managed to get all my gifts shipped yesterday. Which for me was quite a feat because I had a dentist appointment and company for dinner yesterday.

As I told my guests last night, the longest I’d managed to sit down all day, up to that point, was when I was in the dentist chair. I did manage to sit for longer after my guests left, but I was so exhausted by that point I could barely think. I managed to do one more crochet project and talk to Konnie, but I didn’t manage anything else.

Yeah, I know Konnie accomplished a lot more yesterday then I did, because she always does, let alone she was still up when I went to bed. I could not handle that.

And I’m not sure how I’ll get through this weekend because I’m double booked just a little bit. You see, my sister-in-law roped me into helping her with a craft fair this weekend – Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Three days, the Sunday before Christmas, so I also have choir practice Saturday and of course 

church on Sunday.

Thankfully, my sister-in-law is okay with me being gone for a couple hours those days, because I was committed to the choir long before she asked me to help her with this craft fair, but this craft fair is why I was trying to finish one more crochet project last night. I haven’t got much, but I’ve got a verity of things to sell and I will be doing this with my sister-in-law, so she has some things to sell too. And of course, we won’t be the only ones there.

Anyway, at this point, I’m hoping my life will settle down a little after Christmas, but I’m not sure it will because, one of the things I have managed to do in the last two weeks is buy a car. Yeah, that’s right, I’m mobile again, which is actually why I managed to get so much done yesterday. I didn’t have to wait around for rides, just the dentist.

And I still have my Christmas baking to do. Plus, my sister-in-law and I talked about driving around to see the lights sometime before Christmas, we’re running out of time to do that. And I may actually have to eliminate something else from my calendar, because I don’t think I have enough time for everything. After all, I’ll have to do dishes, and laundry, and all those sorts of chores in there too. I may live alone, but I still need to do those. Not as often as they are done in Konnie’s house, but there is that issue of how many people live with her. (I'm not going to try to count animals.)

And I’m running out of time for the things on my agenda today, so I’m cutting this post short.

Happy writing everyone and Merry Christmas!

Tis the Season by B. L. Hamilton

This is the time of year for spending time with family and friends, for wrapping last minute presents, baking, and maybe gathering around the table to play a game or two. If you’re getting any writing done, your family is either real understanding, or you’re living alone.

But with Christmas just two days away, all I’m saying today is Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

And, happy writing everyone, if you can manage to get any done. J