Wait, what month is it again?

Is it just me? Or is the planet actually speeding up and causing a year to go by in about a quarter the time it used to take?!

It struck me yesterday when I was making an(other) appointment for Captain Adventure’s epic voyage through the special needs program. She cheerfully said, “How about next Thursday at 10:00?” and I said, “Sure!”

And then, as I began punching buttons on my Treo, I had to take it back: “Oh wait, I forgot, I’m going to be out of town…that…weekend…”

No. Way.

Halloween is less than a week away, and the so-long-awaited-that-it-has-the-air-of-a-myth-about-it trip with my girlfriends is precisely one week away and $DEITY OF CHOICE HERE, the holidays are here!!

The snowballing rush of houseguests and parties and coming and going and cooking and eating and attending functions ranging from cheesy fundraising dinners to even cheesier school productions is coming. The holly-hanging, fruitcake-swapping, can-we-crash-on-your-couch-tonight season is no longer a distant thought; it’s Next.

Mayday, mayday, this is not a drill! Women and children first! And that means me, because I am both female AND the biggest baby in the Den…!

But inexorably, here comes 2008. Bearing down on me like a Peterbilt loaded with poorly-packaged tacks.

For months I’ve said things like, “I’m not going to worry about that until next year”, or “I’ll have to make sure I pay that off next year” or “Can’t talk now, next year” or “{mutter grumble deal in 2-qtr-08 go way now}”, and felt safe in the knowledge that ‘next year’ was an entire year away.

Hello, welcome to 2008 being almost right now. All those things you said you’d worry about or deal with or otherwise handle “in 2008”? TA DA! Here they are! Staring at you expectantly! Hello, we’re a bunch of things you didn’t want to deal with just yet – how are you? We’re going to be fully in your lap in a matter of weeks now!

And then we wonder why I suffer from insomnia.

2007 and 2008 are going to be very different years. (Which is almost a given because we seldom have any year stay the same as the year before – it’s a thing with us, apparently.) This year has been the Year of Spending Money Wildly. Especially since we started this remodeling binge, I’ve been spending money as if I had nothing else to do in life.

2008 is going to be the Year of Reckoning. There has been tomfoolery this year, people; granted, it wasn’t blindly rushed into, but still.

We have danced with abandon, and the piper will have to be paid.

Still, it’s all good. I really don’t mind. We’ve finally dug in and done the things we’ve talked about for years; we’re really tricking out the Den as if we intend to live here forever and a day. Whether we do or not, we’ll enjoy the rest of our time here.

And if I now have to go back to rationing my gasoline to one fill-up every two weeks and work on fine-tuning my grocery budget again, fine.

Although I do wish I had, you know, a little more time before tripping over the starting line I’ve painted right after New Year’s. Like, say, until…2010. That’s a nice round number. 2010. Yes. Perhaps we could talk about all those pesky little budgetary details in, you know, 2010…?