There are two months of the year that nearly kill me- May and December. Every time they roll around, I am blindsided by how busy we are. I hate that. A long time ago, when I was just coming to terms with my temperament and susceptibility to overstimulation, I remember reading (perhaps in Elaine Aron’s The Highly Sensitive Person?) that many sensitive people like to see their calendars as a checkerboard: dark squares are days with events or socialization, and white squares indicated time spent alone, or unscheduled days. Back then, I didn’t have children yet, so the “white” days were totally white- alone. I could handle a bit more “dark” days– with friends and adventures– before I had kids. My checkerboard could have more black days than white, but not by many. These days- I need my checkerboard to be balanced more heavily toward white days.

This is what my calendar looked like this month:

In case you can actually read my scrawl, I assure you- “sac suppers” are not as disgusting or inappropriate as you might think.

Too. Much. Stuff. I’m eagerly anticipating some respite during the final 10 days of the month, but the first three weeks of December exceeded the pace I prefer to keep in my life.

I was expecting that my blog world would be nice and slow this month, but I was wrong. Last week, I ended up posting or being featured on websites nearly every day of the week. It was just funny timing, but it nearly did me in.

Here is what I have been up to this month, in case you deliberately ignored  missed it:

The Brilliant Book Club explored Maxed Out: American Moms on the Brink (a book I really loved and highly recommend. You can read Can You Be Maxed Out if Your Boss is YOU? to see what else I thought about the book.

I was featured on In the Powder Room writing about gratitude, and my new motto: “Complaining: It’s Not Just For Assholes Anymore!” You can read more here:  Take Your Gratitude and Shove It.

I shared our HerStories self-publication journey, complete with video of “The 12 Days of HerStories,” on BlogHer here.

Some of my favorite bloggers and I teamed up to write a series of posts- “What We Won’t Be Giving Our Kids For Christmas This Year.” My post was- Thanks for Nothing, “American Girls.” (Why I Hate American Girl Dolls.)

For Finish the Sentence Friday, we all wrote about our favorite holiday traditions. That was not hard at all- despite being a bit too busy, I adore the holidays. Read my post here.

I thought I’d give myself a break after that, but then I just couldn’t help writing a post about our Elf on the Shelf history. (Spoiler alert- it scared the crap out of my kid four years ago, and then she came around…) Read The Elf on the Shelf and the Anxious Child- A 12-Step Program

And then, finally, I’m over at Mamapedia today with a previously unpublished post about one of my daughter’s original holiday traditions that I kind of hate. Check it out here:

I think I’ll try to STFU for awhile, but I may include our virtual holiday letter, filled with extra goodies that aren’t appropriate to write in an actual holiday letter next week.

In the meantime, here’s a little giveaway to say thanks for all your support! I’m giving away a copy of my (our) book, The HerStories Project: Women Explore the Joy, Pain, and Power of Female Friendship, as well as a copy of my children’s CD, Songs That Won’t Annoy Your Parents (Too Much).

The book: ta-da!

… and the CD!

So I’ve heard all this buzz about how much Facebook sucks and how they aren’t showing anyone’s posts anymore. To be honest, I’m too lazy to explore the hard facts, but many of my blog friends are pretty irate that it seems you have to pay to get your FB posts to show up in people’s feeds- even if they’ve “liked” your page.

Today I’m begging encouraging you to sign up for my e-mail updates. Just enter your email in the sidebar over there on the right, and then respond to the confirmation email a few minutes later. Easy! Despite all my insane posting in December, you have my solemn vow that you won’t receive very many emails from me, and I never spam people who subscribe via e-mail. Those people are like gold. Which brings me back to the giveaway: I will randomly choose a winner from my list of email subscribers, so if you want to win a copy of the book and CD, all you have to do if subscribe to Mommy, for Real via email! Easy! So head over to the sidebar and subscribe– you’ll be automatically entered in the giveaway and you won’t miss any critical updates, like this parenting advice gem:

Hope you are all surviving the holiday season and all the madness and joy it brings! Stay tuned for my Holiday Letter on Monday!