Christmas break

Lunchtime, Christmas Eve

My Christmas break from work officially starts today. I’m not going away, but have a bunch of stuff I should get done over the next few weeks.

• Last minute hurried and harried Christmas shopping, naturally
• Fill in that Copyright Agency form so they will hand over the moula
• Fill in and send off those late tax forms so I can cough up some moula
• In fact go right through the supposed "inbox" on my desk and file, throw out or action all the correspondence therein
• Ditto for my e-mail inbox, which at last glance had close to 700 items in it
• Get the spare VCR fixed (or at least get the tape jammed in it out)
• Watch the DVDs I’ve bought but not yet watched
• Join the local video shop
• Go right through the house and finally get those boxes of stuff that are still hanging about after moving either unpacked, stored away in a cupboard or the bungalow, or thrown out
• Figure out if my vacuum cleaner can be fixed or if I should venture to a purveyor of fine vacuum cleaners to procure a replacement
• Then tidy up the entire house so it doesn’t look such a pigsty
• Re-engineer my blog for the new year (for its tenth birthday, in fact) onto a proper blogging application instead of me (almost) manually doing it all
• Use those Gold Class cinema tickets that run out on the 31st of December
• Clear out my old clothes, replacing where applicable. You know the kind of thing… t-shirts I don’t wear anymore (at least not in public); shorts that are hideously unfashionable; ties that never come off the rack; socks with holes; underwear that is not necessarily unwearable but is certainly uncomfortable and not pretty and only to be used in dire emergencies*
• Polish my shoes (boy are they overdue for it) and get my other work stuff cleaned
• Probably almost due for a haircut too
• Get the garden mowed (the guys are coming on Saturday – from talking on the phone I suspect they may be school kids doing this over the holidays, but I’ll give ’em a go) and get a regular mowing schedule sorted out
• Since my health insurance helpfully told me they won’t accept claims for recreation/sporting/etc expenses beyond 1st January, I should see if I can get in a claim for that bicycle I bought last January before then
• Should try and get out for a ride or two, too…
• Sort out my finances and work out how close I am to trying again to buy a house
• Get lots and lots of sleep and fully recharge the batteries

And somewhere amongst all that lot is Christmas. Hope you all have a good one!

*Credit where credit’s due – this bit inspired by a conversation with Marita.