Friday Five: Preparation

The RevGalBlogPals (which I plan to join as soon as I have extra money after Christmas) Friday Five this week deals with preparation.

1. You have a busy week, pushing out all time for preparing worship/ Sunday School lessons/ being ready for an important meeting ( or whatever equivalent your profession demands)- how do you cope?
Procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate. Then scurry around doing what's absolutely necessary. At least, sadly, that is my usual method. Once in a while I get sensible.

2. You have unexpected visitors, and need to provide them with a meal- what do you do?
This hardly ever happens to us. But, since we can easily walk to the supermarket, the natural food store, and several nice restaurants, and I usually have some sort of food in the freezer/pantry and a microwave for defrosting, we would probably just decide something based on how far visitors had come, how tired they were, how hungry, etc.

Three discussion topics:

3. Thinking along the lines of this weeks advent theme; repentance is an important but often neglected aspect of advent preparations.....
Well, this year I'm repenting not having done more shopping/preparation earlier in the year. Then I wouldn't be doing a voice-recording project while getting over a cold; and so on. I don't know if it qualifies as repentance as such, but I am glad that this year I successfully (to cries of delight, actually) broached the idea of drawing names for presents to the extended family. It will help our celebration be a bit more people-focussed and less stuff-focussed.

4. Some of the best experiences in life occur when you simply go with the flow.....
Yes, I would agree. But then, I'm an INFP like a surprising number of the other RGBPs. (Do you know we're like, 1% of the population or something?) That said, the "I" part of me does sometimes need a lot of positive self-talk to engage in social activities, so for those things I do need a bit more preparation.

5. Details are everything, attention to the small things enables a plan to roll forward smoothly...
Although this is not my first instinct, I have found that it helps me with activities that are not second nature to me -- such as entertaining -- it works better if I have lists, lists, lists even down to which dish and spoon to use for serving the mashed potatoes. If I have to make decisions at the last minute I get a little freaky.

Bonus if you dare- how well prepared are you for Christmas this year?
Not very. Tree not cut yet, don't know when it will be as OHP has rehearsals for two plays. Christmas letter not written yet, never mind mailed. Presents are getting under control, invitations are out for Christmas Eve but not yet for another party later in the week. BUT, Sisterknits has her plane ticket here and that's the most important thing this year!