Wherefore art thou, O Christmas spirit?

I just can't believe that Christmas is less than a week away.

I'm not ready for this. I didn't even realize how much of my time jury duty had eaten up until I started thinking about getting ready for Christmas. We only put our tree up on Sunday, and although we've discussed putting lights on our porch, we haven't gotten to that quite yet - and I'm not even sure we will.

Christmas shopping is the real struggle. First of all, I only managed to do about half of it earlier in the season, and absolutely none of it during the two weeks I had jury duty. So here I am, with less than a week to go, realizing that I will have to brave the crowds of Christmas shoppers (which I hate).

Additionally, money is a problem. I didn't get much writing done during the two weeks I had jury duty, which means I didn't get paid. And although I do get $50 a day for jury duty, I won't see that check for a little while yet. (Someone at the courthouse said it would be before Christmas, but I don't know that for sure. It's usually supposed to take 2-3 weeks.) I'll be fine once I get paid for jury duty, but until then...

Being broke at Christmastime sucks.

Getting caught up from my two week hiatus has been difficult, too. I have a lot of work that I want to get done before Christmas - preferrably by the end of this week, so I don't have any work to do over the holiday weekend.

There have been a few successes, though. I have been working pretty steadily so far this week, and I have almost caught up with my work on two of my quickest-paying gigs. And I finally thought of (and bought) the perfect present for Michael. That means I only have my dad left to shop for (aside from a couple of other little gifts for Michael).

I do my little blogging break is about over - I need to get back to work.