Advent Calendar Day 23

Eek! It’s almost Christmas and I still have so much to do! Yesterday’s bugger-it-and-drink-Champagne-instead just didn’t happen. DD and I were hacking away at the cooking rock-face for the whole afternoon.

The final tally was 101 pierogi, a dozen mince pies (more to do today, but there’s only so much dough you can roll in one day) and an orange and almond cake, which was almost burnt because I forgot all about it in utter exhaustion and the smell* was masked by the rather good chicken and butternut curry I’d dragged myself back into the kitchen to make for dinner.

*I bake by smell mostly (partly due to a slightly unreliable oven temperature) – if it smells done it probably is 🙂

I was up at 6am today doing an embroidery job and packing a final order. Once you’re awake, it’s impossible to go back to sleep when you’ve gone into a mild panic running through a to-do list that seems to stretch off towards infinity. Briefly, today will be more baking, making mayonnaise, a bit of final shopping and vast quantities of tidying as I attempt to turn my bomb site of a workroom back into a vaguely civilised dining room for Christmas. You have NO IDEA what an epic undertaking that is – even Hercules would quail at the prospect. And, I still have to finish knitting DS’ mitts by tomorrow. Eep!

Oddly, I don’t have a mythological Tarot deck (how remiss!) so I’ve opted for the Kaos Tarot, since all is still in disarray. The cards are extremely unwieldy due to their large size and during my attempts to shuffle, the Queen of Swords fell out…

This grim-faced baggage looks about as haggard as I feel today and it’s not even 9am. I don’t even have the inclination to contemplate what gifts she may bring for Christmas, but it’s probably best not to put a sword in my hand as you may lose an appendage if you piss me off today. I haz a mission and all WILL be done by the end of the day or heads will roll!

A quick look at the LWB confirms that she has determination, though I may not have time for the subtlety, diplomacy or charm it also refers to today.

Somehow, the only T-shirt I could find to wear this morning has “Here Be Dragons” embroidered on it. I think that pretty much sums it up 🙂