Friday Five - Preparation, Preparation

For this week's Friday Five, Sally wrote:

This has been a difficult week for me, the death of a little six year old has overshadowed our advent preparations, and made many of us here in Downham Market look differently at Christmas. With that in mind I ask whether you are the kind of person that likes everything prepared well in advance, are you a last minute crammer, or a bit of a mixture.....

Here then is this weeks Friday 5:

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?

I am great at avoidance, and my house tends to be less cluttered and my blog more up to date when there's lots to do.

But seriously, I will do whatever is next, and leave the rest until that is done. Or, whatever is going to have me in front of people will come first.

2. You have unexpected visitors, and need to provide them with a meal- what do you do?

I do not have unexpected visitors. My friends know never to come to my house unannounced. It has become a running joke. I am a ball of stress when anyone is in my house, because my perfectionism makes me worry about every detail - is it too hot, too cold; do they need something else to drink, is what I have in the house adequate to offer; yada, yada. It just is not fun.

Because my job as a music teacher requires me to be in charge and entertaining all the time, my friends are very graciously sensitive to my need for my house to be my shelter and hiding place.

Three discussion topics:

3. Thinking along the lines of this weeks advent theme; repentance is an important but often neglected aspect of advent preparations.....

And it's something we should be practicing all the time. I don't know about the rest of you, but I keep doing things I have to repent of. Pesky sin nature. The cool thing is, God's forgiveness has no limit.

4. Some of the best experiences in life occur when you simply go with the flow.....

I went with the flow with a vendor the other day and ended up getting about $800-$1000 of free equipment. Sometimes keeping your cool and going with the flow pays off in unexpected ways.

5. Details are everything, attention to the small things enables a plan to roll forward smoothly...

I try to be vigilant about details, and my department generally functions at high efficiency in this area. But it is easier to catch all the details when you are working with a good team.

Bonus if you dare- how well prepared are you for Christmas this year?

Not. 'Nuff said.