Monday, November 17, 2008

Holiday Bite #11 Don't Reinvent the Wheel

We continue to deal with sickness in our home. My #2 son has an ear infection that did not respond to the antibiotic from last week so it was back to the doctor's office this afternoon. We have a new antibiotic and the Dr. didn't like the sound of my cough as I was in his office so he checked me out and gave me some instructions for some medicine that I had from previous bouts with colds and flu. Right now I do not need an antibiotic but he didn't like the looks of my tonsils so we are keeping an eye on that in case I develop an infection there. Meanwhile I just want to go to bed and take a nice long siesta .... but I will push through to bedtime since I am an AWFUL napper.

Today's Holiday Bite is a result of what I am dealing with this year (because I did not do this last year.) Last year I had a wonderful plan for Thanksgiving dinner, I sat down and mapped out a timeline for the day and miracle of miracles everything was done at the same time and we sat down to eat within a half an hour of my target time. I was uncharacteristically calm throughout the morning and even my husband noticed it and asked me why I wasn't so frantic (as I usually am). Since the plan worked so well he encouraged me to save the paper that I had mapped out the timeline on for this year. I thought I had done it, I planned to do it, I probably did do it but I have no idea where that wonderful paper is. Oh brother! Now I will need to write out my menu and figure out the plan of action all over again. BUT THIS TIME I WILL PUT IT IN MY HOLIDAY PLANNER. Next year I will not have to "reinvent the wheel" when it comes to Thanksgiving. I will jot down any changes that need to be made if something doesn't work quite as planned. Today, when I am taking a break from cleaning, I will sit down with my planner and add a Thanksgiving Dinner planning page. I also will take a walk over to the butcher's shop and place my order for the Thanksgiving bird.
What can you do today to make your life easier for the holidays in 2009 and beyond?

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alice, when you get your timeline all planned out, type it on your computer and save it as a document. You will be surprised how well it will keep. I did the same thing with the green bean casserole for the sports banquet every year by not knowing how many cans to buy or what to mix. Finally last year I put a file on my word processing program called "sports banquet shopping list". When someone asked me last week how much to buy for our anniversary dinner at church this Sunday, I just searched my documents and there it was. No papers got lost, and as long as your computer runs, you will always have it. Happy Thanksgiving! Say hi to the kids.