Christmas Project Countdown 2012

The Pumpkin Extravaganza has come and gone. It was a success. We had somewhere around 300 trick-or-treaters.

And now...it's time to start preparing for the next big bang.

We are currently working on a birthday present for a certain little girl who will be turning two next week.

Once that's done, it's nothing but Christmas projects.

Last year, I completed 40 projects for homemade gifts. This year, I'm upping the ante. We took a day off after Halloween, but then Collin and I sat down two days ago and came up with a game plan. We have a completed list for presents to give to family members and friends. Other than Darian, we expect that everyone will be getting a homemade gift (or gifts) this year.

Once the plan was made, I created a list of the items we would need to get in order to put everything together. Shopping started yesterday. Using the 25% off coupon that I had for JoAnn Fabrics, we managed to get a good majority of the fabrics needed. I only purchased items that were already on sale for 30% off or higher. I am waiting on a few others that I hope will be on sale within the next two weeks. My two largest purchases are set to be on sale starting next Thursday.

I coerced Collin and Carole into driving me around all afternoon today gathering up some other supplies. I now have everything I need to make more than half of the presents. I'm already ahead of last year's game by a BUNCH! Unlike last year, I'm hoping to be finished a few days early. Last year I barely squeaked through, finishing on Christmas Eve. The stress was not awesome.

As with last year, I'll be tracking my progress using the Christmas Project Countdown. For those of you not familiar with last year, I place a nice green check mark over a present as it is completed. I won't be previewing these projects until after Christmas has come and gone. However, I do have some projects from last year that haven't yet made it to the blog. Those will be showing up as tutorials in the month of December.

The month of November will be dedicated to book reviews. I am still plodding along on my BOTY (Book of the Year) plan for 2012. The goal is to have 64 books read before January 1, 2013. I have completed 43 so far. After January 1st, I will be finishing up the reviews that still need completion and then the actual BOTY bracket breakdown begins. I'm expecting that the official 2012 BOTY winner will be announced by the end of January 2013. Last year's winner was The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson.

There's a lot that's been accomplished since October 1st, but now there is a lot more to complete by December 24th at 11:59 p.m.. And so...I now have 50 days to complete 50 presents. Game on.