I knew it! It's not going to happen, not before Christmas, anyway. What was I thinking?! The idea of getting the living room painted and rearranged between Thanksgiving and Christmas decorating was an absurd thought.

It's fine...really. There's so much to do in these few weeks before the celebration of Christmas with family and friends. We've got all of the usual pre-nativity activities to accomplish and old and new events to attend. Who needs to add more to the list?

You know how it goes with painting. It's not just the few days that it takes to cut in, roll and clean up the mess. When you have nice, freshly-painted walls, everything else begins to look a little shabby. I have plans, already, to change the window treatments, and have bought the fabric to do them. They're not yet made, and I'd like to do that before the room color is changed, so that they're ready to put up when the paint dries. We'd like to get some mouldings for the ceiling and windows too, and wouldn't it make sense to put that up after the room is painted? No, maybe, it should go up first. Either way, it should be in our possession, not sitting in the lumberyard racks. With all of that done, the furniture will want refreshing. My mother tells me that it's not 'that hard' to upholster a chair, or even to make a slip cover. I love our furniture, and would rather recover it than buy new things. So... where does all that fit into the time schedule? It certainly doesn't fit into the packed-full time this month!

I trust that the living room walls will still be standing when the tree needles are being vacuumed up and the Rubbermaid containers are back in the shed. (After last night's storm, it does give pause to wonder if my last statement is true.) When the new year descends, I'll make a list of what needs to be done, trying to prioritize the projects, so that when the living room is recolored, the other 'little things' can be brought in and the whole room will be renewed.

Maybe this is why so few projects are ever finished.... they take on their own personality, growing as they do. Siiiiigh....