Christmas Tree Woes

It’s been a week since I posted, I meant to at least post at the end of last weekend knowing I probably wouldn’t do it during the week. It was an up-and-down weekend. On Saturday had a great afternoon, catching up with a friend in downtown Mill Valley. On my walk there I passed a free little art gallery, a painted village hidden in a tree, and a group of students in front of Mill Valley Market holding a bake sale to raise funds for a trip to Japan. I didn’t realize that was even done anymore especially in such a wealthy enclave like Mill Valley.

On Sunday, my plan was to start getting things decorated for Christmas, but first I got out for a long hike on the Miwok trail which felt sooooo good. I needed to be away from cars and buildings and lots of people, needed to be somewhere I could move and hear just nature sounds.

The hike gave me the energy and motivation to put up the outside lights on the house, and that went better than I expected. I didn’t think I’d be able to put on the lights along the very front of the house where there is less room to maneuver the ladder, but I managed to get it worked out and did it by myself. It was so gratifying to go outside when it was dark and see those lights illuminating the windows and roof of the house. 

After that, I turned to decorating the tree. I had put the tree in the stand and started stringing the lights on Saturday, but we realized we needed more lights, so Mom picked some up Sunday morning and I got those on the tree. We lit a fire in the fireplace, put on Christmas music and started decorating. All went well until we put a couple of heavy ornaments on one side and the tree shifted out of position. I worked at trying to reposition it, but could not get the screws to go straight into the tree. Not sure if it was that the trunk was too skinny for that tree holder, or the fact that the tree holder is many decades old, and has too much give around the screw holes. I tried cutting off branches, but still couldn’t get it to stay securely. After much frustration (there may have been some swearing) and urging from Mom, I decided to take a break and deal with it later. I was really aggravated since I knew I had a busy week ahead and would be tired in the evenings and not up for figuring out how to make it work. After letting it go for a few days, I decided it was better to just get another tree – a taller one with a wider trunk and see if that would make a difference. We could just get a new Christmas tree holder, but having a tall tree would mean more room for ornaments, which we needed. So I took long lunch break on Friday, drove to a local tree lot and got a lovely noble fir tree that smells amazing. It was the heaviest tree that I could handle on my own and just fit into my car. I had to saw off a few branches, but in the end it fit and seemed stable in the tree holder. Later I put the lights up and we decorated the tree. Hopefully it stays up!

During the week I met friends for dinner one night, leaving Marin early to avoid traffic to the East Bay and setting myself up at a local Barnes & Noble to get some work done. That ended up being a much nicer experience than I expected, especially the decaf apple cider tea that I enjoyed while I worked.

This week I accomplished two big goals. First, I updated and refined my résumé and wrote a cover letter for the foundation program officer job I mentioned in an earlier post. Writing the cover letter helped clarify for me the reasons I was interested in that type of work. Spending time in a very busy job wearing lots of different hats has also helped me see how much I would like work that I can sink my teeth into and get more in-depth instead of being pulled in so many different directions. 

The other goal was much bigger- completing my NaNoWriMo challenge of writing 50,000 words over the course of November. It’s definitely not the most articulate writing I have ever done, but I finished on the morning of November 30 with a total of 50,003 words in the document I had started on November 1. It felt great to have stuck with that work over the course of the month, considering what a busy month it was for me getting re-oriented to full-time work. There were many times I felt like I had nothing to say and that I wanted to give up, but for the most part I stuck to my routine of getting up at five and writing. I felt such an intense feeling of relief on Thursday night after having accomplished those two goals, it was great to not have anything pressing hanging over my head. 

In my off work hours I am still struggling with transitioning from busy, busy, go, go, go to slowing down and being present. I am sure my caffeine consumption does not help in that regard, though that is something I am loath to give up because I just love having my coffee in the dark morning hours as I journal, read and meditate (I do realize it isn’t the best idea to combine coffee with meditation…) Anyway, that’s where I am right now. I’ve got a weekend ahead of errands, social time with family and friends and exercising my creativity in a different way by doing some collaging using paint. I am setting a goal to post at the end of the day on Sunday and talk about how it went this weekend.