On Friday, our neighbor and friend Christy came over and ate dinner with us, gave us our mail – which we had stopped at the Post Office but apparently the Post Office did not stop- and we paid her for taking care of things while we were out of town. She and I had a nice time visiting and shared the latest on our work adventures, our iphone apps, Bible studies, and YouTube videos. After she left I sat in the chair and played games on the iPad until George tapped me and said I should go to bed since I was asleep, lol.
I really needed some solid sleep since our vacation. I have been really tired and haven’t remembered to take my vitamins. And I’m having pains because of it. Trying to get back into the routine though and also do some shakes but last week I ended up mixing up an awful one b/c I added too much water and coffee (oatmeal and cinnamon) to it. Yuk. Normally coffee makes everything better. But my problem right now is that I don’t want anything cold for breakfast. I will work through this – by January I’ll be able to as I’ll be warmer with the heat and the temps won’t be so back and forth as they have been – well they will be but usually the difference will be a difference of lower temps. So instead of b/w 55 and 70 – It’l be 35 and 55, lol. The heat in our house will remain constant by then. But when it reaches 70 sometimes George will turn it off and then it’ll be freezing cold when we get home and it sets a chill in my bones. So I really just want hot things for breakfast right now. I’ve decided that really, I just want to get through the holidays – I don’t want to be really BAD at eating and I still want to make good choices, but it’s really about just GETTING EVERYTHING DONE and surviving the month! And trying to enjoy the journey and push through the tiredness. It was my goal to keep a good attitude but I’m afraid that may not have worked out totally yesterday.
So that said, we DID get a lot done yesterday.
Yesterday morning, I got up and sipped a couple of cups of coffee, playing games on the iPad and just trying to wake up. I really could have and should have slept longer. I started a load of clothes and I got ready and we took the dogs for their grooming, we went and mailed off my Christmas cards at the Post Office, and then went to Rice’s for our country ham, bacon, and sausage for Christmas Morning breakfast.
And we went to Houston’s (a local butchery and grocery store) for homemade biscuits. And we came back home. George had brought all the boxes of decor up (or so he thought) and he left to go run some “Christmas Errands”.
I fixed Egg in the holes (so hungry I fixed two) and began to decorate. I realized the main two boxes I needed were still downstairs and they were pretty heavy but I managed to get them upstairs.
The first thing I did was move things off the den desk (my old desk) to make room for a desktop den tree, and went downstairs and got Granny’s tree that she had in assisted living. I thought it would be special to have a little tree and remember her while we watched TV every night. I’m doing this one instead of the sun room tree – that finally gave up it’s ghost so to speak. It’s just wobbly and while it’s pretty from the outside and pretty looking at it from behind the glass doors to the sunroom – but we can’t really enjoy it out there. It is usually too cold. It became the birthday tree. So I plugged in the lights to Granny’s tree. The lights didn’t work. I think I remembered that they didn’t. So I stopped there and didn’t decorate it. It has to have the lights. Drats! I had wanted to surprise George when he came back home – oh well.
I began digging out decorations but before placing anything anywhere I took off the current nic nacs and had to dust, place the current nic nacs in the tub container and put in the sunroom corner, which I’ll get out and put everything back in January.
Our house is filthy and in need of a good deep cleaning. We are always gone and I rarely have time to do any deep cleaning. So it felt good to get this done. However, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. We still had so much stuff out everywhere. I began thinking that I would never work through getting this house decorated. And the fact that we have “old everything” is just highlighted when you go to decorate: old bathroom vanity, gold tub, gold toilet, blue linoleum, ugly counter tops. I made a mental note to myself if I can’t change the big expensive stuff to look nice, perhaps I could redecorate the house and at least modernize it. I told myself we’d get there in time. We always do. It’s never on my time table. Always on his but we’ll get there eventually. It may be by the time we sell this house, but hopefully we’ll be able to enjoy new floors, new counters, new fixtures at some point. But I will admit that when I set the dusting spray down and then couldn’t find it, and my foot began to hurt – my mood begin to change and tears sprung into my eyes of frustration over it all. How can I decorate if it hurts to walk or stand on my left foot? I CANNOT stand to lose anything and how do you LOSE a darned can of dusting spray and a cloth? I had to go get a different kind and another cloth b/c I had gone in every room and couldn’t find it anywhere. It showed up later, and I don’t even remember where it was, but – it was just a domino effect of doing things: moving things, cleaning things, stopping and doing things, going and getting things, trying things out here and there. It was just frustrating. But I realized that things were going to look worse before they looked better. I realized that I could work magic and make it look like a Christmas wonderland but I just needed to be patient. It’s a time thing though as I’m just feeling rushed this year. Normally we are decorated at this point and I’d have 3 more days of vacation coming but…it is what it is and I knew this month would be hard, fast, and crazy. It is anyway when I DID have vacation time to take. I had told myself over Thanksgiving that I would not panic, not get stressed but just “enjoy the journey”.
Anyway, so the decorating continued as best as I could. Making more messes than making anything look good.
George came home declaring a successful trip, and he brought the Christmas tree up. And after a couple of hours, we got the call the dogs were ready. So we took them to Lowe’s with us to get light bulbs and lights for Granny’s old tree for our den.
We got several head shakes of ridicule from a few old men in Lowe’s. Their personalities are probably old and crochety anyway and I decided I didn’t care – they could get on with their shaking head/bad selves and go grump somewhere else. (Or Come home and grump with me if they want to meet their match while I’m decorating, lol). Most people loved to see the dogs. We just didn’t want to leave them in the car. They love to go! But yes we took in a pillow so their legs didn’t go through the holes. All we needed were lights and light bulbs.
Once home I was excited to work on the den tree, but uh oh – I got green strand of lights and not white. I hadn’t even thought of the color. Green just was not going to look right on a white tree so I didn’t even try. But I’d already taken them out of the box. I’ll keep the lights for something else later. Drats again! Oh well. So I focused on other areas of the house and got a lot done. I really got frustrated with the big tree trying to get the gold trimmed ribbon around it the way I wanted. It’s a struggle trying to decorate around a big tree you can’t walk around but after a few “arghs” and a few “chill out, will ya” from George, I finally got that part done. I had to go work on something else for a while and come back to it. Finally we started putting ornaments up and got about a 1/3 of the way through with that. I will finish up today. I have all day.
I stopped to do the TO DO list as my left foot needed a break. It’s not bad enough I can’t walk on it and I usually don’t limp (sometimes I do) but it can be painful if I’ve walked on it a lot. I looked and I had walked 4.5 miles by late afternoon before the sun went down. I had earned a sundowner! George brought me up a beer. And it was so good. I had to have an energy drink a couple hours before, but was really thirsty. So I’m sure I was about 6 miles by bed time and the beer truly was cheer. I began to mellow somewhat and “chill” as George had suggested, but don’t tell him that, lol! I may have told him not to tell me what to do. I do not like to be told what to do! lol Oh yeah – Somewhere in there I stopped for a break of pop corn and watched a You Tube show as I realized I’d not had lunch.
Anyway so today is a new day! George has gone to the store for a few things and to get my white lights. 😉
My to do list for today is:
___Place an on line order
—Order Movie tickets for Tues night (going with Christy to see Little Women movie).
—Put fresh sheets on guest bed and on our bed
___Iron and get work week clothes ready
___Wrap Secret Santa present for tomorrow
___Look up and print recipe for Chocolate Oatmeal cookies
—Fix mandarin orange salad to go with dinner
___Finish decorating the trees
—Make cinnamon rolls for breakfast (my own trial version)
___Make the house look as good as I can
___Hopefully start wrapping some
___Order tickets for two to the movies via AT&T benefits if they still do that.
This week’s to do list and schedule:
—Work on a writing project that needs to get finished.
___Send someone an invite for something
___Wrap Secret Santa gifts for Each Day
___Get nails and toes done Monday night
___Girls night with Christy Tues night
___Thurs night I need to bake cookies for the cookie swap.
___Work some on Final Shopping needs (George’s stocking, etc.)
___Wrapping
At some point:
___Get my prongs/ring checked and cleaned
___Spiffy the house/deeper cleaning
___Fun texas video of our pics and video moments
___Isagenix Order ($200 free product)
___Decide where to eat out for my birthday
___Work on Year in Review Post
___Back up my Computer
___Use my $25 Walmart Card from my company
I have a 2020 to do list started but it’s still kinda just a working list of sorts.
So all that listed, makes me realize I need to go get busy. How are you doing with all the Holiday Hustle? I think I’ll go get another cup of coffee to sip while I work. 😉 I’ll share pics of the decor once things calm a bit and I get things set up like I want them! Ya’ll have a good week ahead and hope you too have a productive week with lots of little breaks and try to enjoy the journey. I will try to as well.
It makes my day when I hear from you…