Friday 5, Preparation, Preparation . . .

The Annunciation by Henry Tanner.
Visit The Art Archive for more info on this painting.

Sally at RevGals writes for this week's Friday Five:

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 week's Friday 5:

Before we begin, I want to acknowledge Deb, who posted one of my favorite paintings, The Annunciation, by Henry Ossawa Tanner. You can see it in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Second, my heart goes out to Sally and all those who grieve with her.

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 try to off-load as many tasks as I can, but truth be told, I'm not very good at delegating. Mostly, I just put one foot in front of the other until I'm finished.

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


Unexpected visitors are a way of life at our house, so I often just add to whatever I'm already making for dinner. It usually works out just fine.

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, unfortunately, I am neglecting it. Perhaps I should repent.

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

Absolutely true.

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

Also true. Too bad I didn't figure this out when I was younger.

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

Eternal optimist that I am, I believe I'm prepared, but on December 19, I will realize that there are more things to do than time to do them.