I should be doing things on the "to do" list, but.............

I have been reading some of my favourite blogs this morning - and a word leapt out and caught my attention over at Vee's place. This word is at the heart of what I am supposed to do. How I am supposed to shape my life. My days. A word about which I have read a great deal. I understand the theory, but oh boy, do I fail miserably at the practice. And that is why I am a wreck every couple of days. Every evening. This can be verified by my children. They take photos of me slumped in the chair fast asleep. Probably drooling. {shudder}  Lovely kids I have. 

Pacing. 

Pacing myself. 

Slowing down. Being mindful. 

Saying no. Focusing on one thing.

Miserable failure. 

Seriously. I am so bad at this that I amaze myself. It is as if I am not ready to admit things are different, in a sense. Slow down, Linds. But what if there is not enough time? Does it really matter? But I have stuff I want to do. It can wait. Yes, but...... And therein lies the problem. I have a "Yes, but" answer to everything in the Entire World. 

I suspect I am not the only one. So in the new year, I am going to make a conscious effort to try out the pacing idea a bit more thoroughly. It is my mind, you see, it never stops racing about all over the place. 

I am doomed. 

On to more seasonal things. 

Do you see the little Christmas Care Bear there on the tree? A long time ago, it was my ornament of the year. Diana adored all the Care Bears. Every traveller we knew brought back another one from the States. She had them all. 

Geoff built her a big shelf up high in her bedroom, and cut out and painted white clouds made of wood. Then he nailed them to the front of the shelf, and she had all her Care Bears up there in the clouds, looking down on her while she slept.

She was about 3 at the time. 

Care Bears were very important people. 

(Remind me to tell you about plane trips with her. We had to ask the pilot to look out for Care Bears in those clouds.)

So I invented Christmas Bear. He was very cute. I gave him to all my friends, and wherever they ended up in the world, little red Christmas bears appear on their trees every year. 

Considering he is roughly 30 years old, he has weathered the ravages of time rather well, I feel. 

I also wanted to show you the Noel ornament up there at the top of the (dark) photo. See it? Well, it is something that hung over the fireplace at my parent's home every single year. I found it in the bottom of a box this year and rescued it. So many memories of hot summer Christmases. 

(The double "s", or any letter, seems to be dropped - apart from the "p" - by autocorrect.  We still do things a little differently in the UK!)

Speaking of Noel, I unpacked my 4 blocks of red letters which spell out NOEL. I love them. However, I seem to have misplaced the "O". NEL does not have quite the right ring to it, does it? I have NO idea what I have done with it. Hopefully it will turn up.

By then, I will have lost the N, E and L, of course. 

Pace yourself, Linds.