Freedom!!!

Aaaaah! Did you hear the big sigh of relief that emanated from my house yesterday afternoon? I fulfilled the last of my outside commitments for 2008 yesterday morning. And in the process I reached the big goal I set for myself in January. I am free!

No more speaking engagements or radio interviews to prepare for. No more articles to be submitted. No more volunteer commitments to remember. No more meetings to attend. While I enjoy doing all those things, the pace of ordinary life makes a commitment-free couple of weeks feel very good. Yes, I am free!

I am free to shop for the 15 or so remaining Christmas gifts on my list. I am free to address 90 to 100 christmas cards. I am free to bake batches upon batches of Christmas cookies. I am free to wrap those dozens of gifts hidden in the corners and closets. I am free to catch up on the 75 emails that have accumulated in my inbox. I am free to write the December newsletter that should have gone out a week and a half ago. I am free to finish the last chapter of the novel I wrote in November.

I'm also free to: catch up on the books on my reading list, play board games with my kids, have lunch with a friend or two or three, celebrate writing a novel in a month, take a nap every now and then, get in the workouts that I've been saying I would since April, take my girls to see HSM3 (which they have been begging me to do for more than a month), write more than one blog post a week, and just simply enjoy the extra space on my calendar.

Can I tell you what I love the most about the last few weeks of the year? All the freedom!