As always with this journal, I’m torn between simple posts about what’s been happening, what I’ve been doing, and more complex posts about my philosophies and what I think and care about. For the 4 of you reading, does it make a difference?
It was an up and down week, work-wise. I tried too hard and went in on Monday, but ended up only managing a half-day before giving up and going home. Tuesday, however, I woke up feeling much better, worked from home all day and by Wednesday felt I was pretty much back to normal. The only other issue I’ve had is one of the incisions starting to feel a little inflamed, but a little advice from my pharmacist sister-in-law soon had me put to rights (couldn’t call the doctor on a Friday night) and I feel fine now. Still taking it easy eating small portions, but haven’t been avoiding anything specific yet.
I just saw that Facebook has added Stories…the same thing already to be found on Instagram and Snapchat. Seriously? How many videos do we need to see? Just post a photo or a status update, for crying out loud. Better yet, write a blog post.
This morning was a nice sleep-in, for once. I woke up early, but managed to fall back asleep but had a couple of nightmares and work up twice with my heart thumping. Finally got up, dressed, showered and went to the mall to finish off stocking stuffers. Mostly I needed to even out what I already had, but I ended up making it worse, and now I have to go shopping again tomorrow to REALLY even it out. The only other thing left is Anders’ mom, and I’m ordering that when I’m done writing this. We’re giving her 2 tickets to see the gospelfest concert that Karin and I are singing in, at the end of February.
So many people think that Christmas is too commercial, but I love giving gifts and receiving them. I love that someone takes the time to think about me and what to get me, and it’s fun to reciprocate. Presents don’t have to be expensive or fancy to be appreciated.
For me, it’s so much more about getting in the holiday mood: decorating the house, getting the tree(s), pulling out the boxes of ornaments that we only get to see once a year, some of which go back to my childhood. Each one is a little memory capsule. When we cut the tree down to fit in the stand, we end up with lots of extra branches of greenery to decorate with as well.
I put several on top of the bookcases and hang glittery red balls from them. Some end up in little buckets, some go behind the Lenox nativity set and some in various places on the table, windows, etc. The leftovers get fanned out across the little garden bed under the kitchen window outside. They make the house smell so nice!
We rev up the Christmas playlist for decorating and for evenings. Karin and I sing carols at the tops of our lungs as we hang the decorations on the tree: wood, glass, ceramic, clay, metal, felt, and more, all topped with a white & silver stained glass style star tree topper. Family is coming for “Little Christmas Eve” since that is Anders’ mom’s birthday, and for Christmas Eve. For Christmas Day, we’ll celebrate together, just the four of us, as we always have. It feels especially great to have Martin arriving home next Tuesday for the holidays. He told me last week he was ready to come home, and we are sure looking forward to seeing him. 6 months apart…I know it’s just the beginning but aaugh, it’s hard. I wish my mom was coming with him. And my siblings. We haven’t had a Christmas all together in a long time. We’re talking about trying to go home to my mom’s next year for Christmas, but getting all of us there at the same time is probably not possible.
Now if we would just get some snow, that would be perfect.