Be Not Idle

The One-Word Survey

1. Where is your cell phone? purse

2. Your significant other? nonexistant

3. Your hair? blonde

4. Your mother? dynamo

5. Your father? jack-of-all-trades

6. Your favorite thing? friends

7. Your dreams last night? sporatic

8. Your favorite drink? coffee

9. Your dream/goal? Heaven

10. What room you are in? office

11. Your hobby? writing

12. Your fear? layoff

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? here

14. Where were you last night? home

15. Something that you aren’t? sinister

16. Muffins? bleh

17. Wish list item? husband

18. Where you grew up? Michigan

19. Last thing you did? exam

20. What are you wearing? skort

21. Your TV? off

22. Your pets? neighbors’

23. Friends? crazy

24. Your life? good

25. Your mood? nervous

26. Missing someone? Mom

27. Your car? Saturn

28. Something you’re not wearing? jockstrap

29 Your favorite store? Bookblues

32. Your favorite color? red

33. When is the last time you laughed? today

34. Last time you cried? June

The Four-item Survey

A) Four places that I go to over and over: Port Huron, Waterford, Stratford, work

B) Four people who email me regularly: Keith, Anne, Michele, spam

C) My favorite places to eat: Riveria, AJ’s Salt Docks, Cheap Charlie’s, home

D) Four places I would like to go right now: Toronto, Mackinaw Island, Washington DC, Spain

E) Four TV shows I watch all the time? LOST… and nothing else, really, so I’m adding:

F) Four books I always re-read? The Mating Season (PG Wodehouse), The Hobbit (Tolkien), The Man Who Was Thursday (GK Chesterton), Peanuts Celebration (Charles Schultz)

Organized Home, the website of organizer Cynthia Townley Ewer,  has many helpful checklists. One of her most popular features is the Christmas Countdown. It helps families finish holiday chores earlier so they can enjoy the actual event. 

She’s running a ”Christmas in July” poll, asking when people begin to prepare for Christmas.

http://organizedchristmas.com/poll-when-do-you-prepare-for-c hristmas

I thought I’d be among the earlybirds since I start getting ready after Halloween. I take out my Advent books and dig out the Advent wreath.

But more than half of the respondents start earlier, including 19% in the summer!

At first I thought, That’s crazy. Why start preparing so many months ahead?  I wondered if the respondents were thinking about Christ or just the hoopla and packaging that’s surrounding the holy day.

 Then, of course, I got one of those Holy Ghost smacks in the head. The thought came to me: How many months ahead should one be preparing for the Second Coming of Christ? 

I spend most days caught up in daily chores. There are a myriad of trivial activities and enthusiasms to distract me from my mortality.  How much do I prepare?