Aarons Beach

The past few days have been unseasonably warm around here, 

so today on my day off from work I decided to visit Aarons Beach.

Truth be told, I had a list of a million tasks to accomplish and didn't want to do any of the things listed except for two.

Those two things were jogging and blogging.

(They even rhyme.)

The jogging part was over and done with first thing in the morning.  That left the entire day--along with those 999,998 other undesirable items on the To Do list--in front of me, mocking me, taunting me. Picking on me, really.

I decided to ignore the taunts and focus on what I wanted to could accomplish. Although blogging was on the I Want To Do This part of the list, I had absolutely no new pictures.

Hence, the trip to the beach.

This beach has changed so much over the time I've been photographing it--over 8 years.

But some things remain constant.

It's hard to believe that December is here already.  Although I survived Thanksgiving and barely survived the annual Chesapeake Bay Woman vs. Artificial Christmas Tree fight, there is still a lot left to do before I'd consider myself anywhere close to ready for Christmas.  I'm not in the mood--at all--to do any sort of Christmas shopping.  But I am looking forward to the Mathews Christmas Parade on Saturday, December 10. It's always a great time. Perhaps that will put me in a more festive mood.

As for this weekend, I'm looking forward to it.  Friday I'm taking my parents to dinner at my favorite local restaurant, Mi Casa Azteca.  Saturday I travel to visit Baby Sister in Richmond.  I ought to take advantage of being in the Big City and start some Christmas shopping, but that's just not on my radar at the moment.  The older I get, the more I can't stand shopping, especially when it's semi-forced and overly crowded.  That just equates to stress as far as I'm concerned.

And I'm all about avoiding unnecessary stress.

Which is why I thoroughly enjoyed today's trip to the local beach and the intentional avoidance of that pesky To Do list.


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To read about previous Christmas quandaries,  click here .

Lists

Over the weekend I attempted to tackle at least a few of the 12 items on my High Priority To Do list.

(I have several To Do lists, and it's a fact that some of the items on my Lower Priority To Do list will never get done. Still, at least I am aware of what needs doing. At least there's that.)

One of those on the High Priority list that I did not get around to doing was taking new pictures. As a result I am showing pictures from around Thanksgiving.

The first two are in Mathews, the next three are from Big Hair Envy's house.

Of those 12 High Priority items, I completed only two things, one of which was setting up our monster of a fake Christmas tree.  This arduous task, which I dread each and every year, took a minimum of five hours on Saturday, between hauling it up from the basement, assembling it, stringing the lights, and decorating it.

The end result looks like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree something a five-year-old would have put together, but regardless, it's up.

(Here, insert the sound of CBW scratching Christmas Tree off her list. Also insert the sound of her banging her head against the wall because she never got around to the internet Christmas shopping she planned to do. She loathes shopping and will do everything in her power to avoid going across the river and setting foot in an actual store where there are (gasp!) other people! This internet thing is right up her alley, but she needs to stop talking about it and actually do it.)

Those other High Priority items need to get done this week, in between work and traveling to basketball games.

Speaking of basketball, the Mathews JV girls won their game Friday night.  Chesapeake Bay Daughter still isn't feeling 100% but she gave everything she had out there on that court.

There's a game tonight in Northumberland and one Thursday in Lancaster.  That's a whole lot of driving.

Given all that--plus my dearth of new photos, postings this week will be sparse.

In the mean time, and circling back to the To Do lists previously referenced, recently I've been contemplating an even greater To Do list--my Bucket List.

In this (click here) blog post from 2008 I sort of came up with one (under Seven Things I Plan To Do Before I Die), but it really needs updating.  For example, I am pleased to see that I've actually done some of the things I talked about doing.

What are seven things you hope to do in this lifetime?

Have a great week and hopefully I'll get some new photos before the week is out.