I made my goal, but I did learn that I am absolutely horrible at estimating time. I finished Emily's project yesterday evening around 7pm after working on it for about three days straight. Collin & I added up the hours and figured out that her project alone took me around 45-50 hours to complete. Crazy.
So the lesson learned this year is that Christmas projects need to be started earlier. I think next year's countdown will be started in September instead of the late November start I got this year.
Everyone seemed to like their gifts - even though there were a couple of technical difficulties. I will be sharing the presents by type in separate posts over the next few weeks - including the things that I screwed up and things that I would change to make them better. I think that's the nicest thing about sharing them in posts. I know full well that my projects are nowhere near perfect and I can always learn something during the process of making them.
Today has been a great day and it's been fun watching everything get opened and head to new homes. Christmas also hasn't been too bad to me. I have wonderful family and friends. It's been great to relax all day with them. We were so relaxed at our house that we didn't even start opening gifts until around 11 and then finished at 4pm. That's some nice slow moving opening. But we were all pretty happy about the pace.
I hope everyone enjoys their holidays and spends time with the ones they love. I'm going to go get a reasonable amount of sleep. (My earliest bedtime - with the exception of last night - since last week has been 2 a.m. I'm ready to crash out.)
Over the next few days I'm going to be doing some serious reading in order to finish up my goal of 52 books for the year. I'm also going to be thinking about my goals for next year and mapping out the plans for blog projects. I have already decided on a goal of 64 books for next year. Darian will also be joining me in the book blogging with his own goal of 32 books. More about that on another date.
Tomorrow I'll be back with another book post, working to fill the brackets the rest of the way so that I can announce My Favorite Book of 2011 somewhere between December 31st and January 2nd.
Looking forward to seeing all these projects! I'm already impressed at the sheer quantity you churned out in such a short amount of time!
ReplyDeleteI love the 52 books for the year goal. Man I should do that next year. I imagine its quite a commitment though. Happy holidays from out here in Portland Oregon!
ReplyDelete@2frogsngrasshopper I will definitely be giving myself more time next year. The last week was a bit much.
ReplyDelete@Steve Bailey It's a fun goal, but it can definitely be overwhelming if you don't stay on top of it. I use the Goodreads Reading Challenge to keep me on track. It tells me if I'm ahead of or behind schedule. It's a nice reminder for when I've been slacking off.
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