Well, I seem to be sick an awful lot anymore.

In my last post, I hinted at how I was going to make myself happier and healthier this year.  And no, I am not referring to giving up potato chips for lent, but the part where I joked about saving the world, albeit one step at a time.  I plan on joining a group or volunteering my time to a worthy cause.  Because I have discovered that this makes me a happier person. 

I use to volunteer my time and energy a lot before I “settled down”.  I use to work in the mental health field.  I use to be committed.

And I never got sick.

But somewhere between the house, the kids, the job and full time life, I lost that part of me.  And I need to get it back.  Although I enjoy my job, it is in the wee hours, while lying in bed at night where I start to feel the void.  What did I accomplish today?  Yeah, I figured that thing out, I solved that problem, I helped those people.  But all those actions only amount to earning my paycheck, by making other people more money.

I want to lie in bed and rattle off at least one accomplishment which did not benefit me or make someone else wealthier, and I want to do it without a stuffy nose! 

{What are your plans for a healthier new year?  Share them over at Blogher and you might win a trip to BlogHer ‘08!}

And yet somehow I managed to get the Christmas cards ordered. Not signed and sent out, mind you - just ordered. Still, I am in shock that I actually did that much, unlike last year where I spaced too long and missed the boat entirely.  Because monumental tasks like these take time, with multiple steps involved.  Multiple steps for one accomplishment is an unorganized person’s greatest nightmare. When sending out photo Christmas cards, the first step is to actually take the photo.

Stop right there.

You might be thinking this is the easy part. You are sooooo wrong. Try taking a decent photo of the Tasmanian devil on a sugar high. It is nearly impossible. On Thanksgiving I took roughly 75 shots of her in the adorable outfit I bought.  None came out.  In every shot, she is making a strange face, looking down, blurry, etc.

I gave up on the Thanksgiving shot.  And the weeks ticked by.  Suddenly, I am down to one weekend to get it done (because something like this, with multiple steps, takes me an entire weekend) lest the cards would not arrive in time to send them out.

With the help of my step daughters doing a show stopping rendition of Jingle Bells to enthrall her and keep her still, we managed to get a few shots (out of another 75 frames) that just might work for a card. 

Please let me remind you that getting the photo was just the first step.  Now I have to go online and put together the card, figure out all the cropping, red-eye and credit card, shipping address, blah blah crap.  After much trial and error, I finally ordered the cards.  Here is the final rendition:

Please note that the special outfit I bought for her is completely unseen.  Why? Because the only photo out of 75 where she was smiling and in focus, she was also kicking her leg in the air.  So I had to crop out the bottom of her shoe, which took up roughly 80% of photo.  Plus I am a perfectionist to boot. Can’t have the wall showing, must be centered, has to be a tad sharper… I edited that photo at least 15 times. So much for the outfit.

But here’s the best part.  I was so hell bent on getting a decent photo of her for the past three weeks, that I had complete tunnel vision.  Due to the holidays and Thanksgiving, we haven’t seen my youngest step daughter for over a month.  So, even though I had all three kids together and available this past weekend, it completely didn’t register.  While all four of us were singing and dancing and clicking and positioning to get a good picture of Piper, we could have gotten a picture of all the kids together for the card.

So my husband says, “No worries. We will have them all again this weekend.  We’ll just do it over.”

Shoot me now.