Seven Quick Takes on 2016 Planning, Favorite Christmas Books, Awesome Prize Packs, and MORE!

:: 1 ::

Today is Nutcracker day! This is one of our Advent traditions. I look forward to this annually, and since it fell through last year, we’re extra excited about it this year. Or local Nutcracker production offers a Young People’s Nutcracker during the day to school children, which is quite handy for those of us with a lower budget {if I do say so myself}. It’s a snippet version of the real thing, but I love it because we are able to go every year and it exposes my children to two of my favorite things: Tchaikovsky and ballet!

:: 2 ::

I found myself working on my 2016 goals, plans, and master calendar this week. This is about a month earlier than I usually do such things, but with some top secret projects for Scholé Sisters in the works, I decided I needed to get this stage out of the way. I usually do my year-at-a-glance with a marker and an ink pen, but this time around, I found a fun little template in Word that I tried out. It worked great, and I can easily go in and move things around, or add new commitments, as I go along. For some things, I only plan 3-months or 6-months out at a time, so being able to make changes and reprint quickly will be super helpful.

Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I love having all of this mapped out: where and when I’m speaking, when newsletters come out, family stuff, school breaks, and I get to add more as I go along. When I plan my weeks, I like to glance at my annual calendar to make sure that I can actually execute my plans. For me, this is the very first step in making plans and goals. No sense in setting unreasonable goals, or goals that interfere with previous commitments.

:: 3 ::

This week’s links collection:

• You may think you learn better in a certain way. You actually don’t from Quartz.
  • I’m generally in the we should try to learn in all the ways camp.
• Why We Must Reignite the Empire of the Mind from The Gospel Coalition.
  • Yes yes yes yes yes. Excellent. {HT: Hillary}
• Myth of pristine Amazon rainforest busted as old cities reappear from New Scientist.
  • Shock: old explorers actually knew what they were talking about and the rainforests aren’t so old as everyone seems to think.
• The few, the foolish from The Washington Post.
  • Let’s see how long it takes the military to change the standards in the name of affirmative action. Because who cares about winning wars? The important thing is that women get to fight, too. It’s only national security. What could go wrong?

:: 4 ::

This month in 2013:

In this post, I highlighted two of my all time favorite Christmas fairy tales — they were new to me back then.

:: 5 ::

It’s time for another amazing prize announcement! This one is super exciting to me. You know how excited I get about moms reading and growing — I think that keeping ourselves inspired is the first step in preventing the dreaded Homeschool Mom Burnout. Anyhow, Classical Academic Press has been kind enough to donate what I’m dubbing the Burnout Prevention Kit {aka Inspiration Prize Package Extraordinaire}. Can you tell I’m excited about it?

Here’s what’s included:

That’s right! Five awesome books! Awakening Wonder, The Liberal Arts Tradition, and the Giants in History bundle — so books on Plato, Milton, and Lewis. This should provide one lucky Afterthinker with a lot to ponder in 2016.

As a reminder, the 10th Blogoversary Celebration Extravaganza will take place in early January — we’ll be giving away 10 prizes to 10 readers in celebration of 10 years of Afterthinking.

:: 6 ::

The second prize package I’m announcing today is what I’m calling the Simplified Everything package. Mystie my pretend life coach simplified my dinners years ago, and for that I will be forever grateful. In this prize package, she’s going to help one luck winner simplify three meals per day plus snacks!!

         

This is going to revolutionize someone’s life, people!

:: 7 ::

I’ve had this urge to give gag gifts to my husband’s twin for Christmas. He’s becoming a pastor soon {after being a counselor for a long time}, and if I were less religious, I’d give him a Jesus Shaves coffee mug. As it is, it is just over the line enough that I can’t do it in good conscience, which means we’re moving on to the possibilities of Emergency Underpants or, naturally, a nose-shaped pencil sharpener {because every pastor needs one}.