Merry Christmas....more or less.

Wow, where did the past 19 days go??
It is Christmas Day, and soon I will be headed over for dinner.

It was a wonderful holiday, as usual, with the usual overabundance of gifts for everyone - except for me.  That was on purpose, though, and totally with my OK.  See, from Dec 9-15 was employee appreciation week at the home improvement place.  We got free food one day, and all week we got a double discount of 20% on anything we bought.  I decided to bite the bullet and get a snow blower.  I couldn't get the lowest level one, but it turned out that I didn't want that one, anyway.  The one I did get was originally $499 - much more than I wanted to spend, but it has an electric start, which I am assured that I will be glad of.  Of course, the fact that I bought a snow blower more or less assures the community that it will not snow this year, or possibly even next year.  Anyway, David went with me to get it, and I was explaining to him that it was going to have to live on the patio square, covered with a tarp, because there was no way to keep it in the garage.  The only spot would be in front of the car.  But to get to it, I would have to pull the car out, and to do that we would have to shovel enough of the drive to be able to back the car out (and maybe two cars, if there is a snow ban and Kym is in the drive behind me).  So, the shoveling that the snow blower would be needed for would already be done just to get the snow blower out.  In the back, we could just fire it up, snowblow our way to the front, and use it.  David was apparently a little horrified that the snow blower had nowhere to live, and proposed to everyone else that they get me a shed for Christmas.  Just a small one, but large enough to get enough stuff out of the garage that the snow blower could be accessed with the car inside.

I thought it was a great idea (Mom warned me repeatedly that it would be all I got - and I had to chip in $50 if I wanted a slightly larger one, which I did).  So it was purchased, and on a reasonably warm Sunday afternoon 10 days ago, Lynda, David, Jenny, and I put it together.  It is wonderful, and I love it.  Right now I have the mower, seed spreader, sawhorses, lounge chairs and plastic chairs in it, and it isn't even halfway full.  And I have been able to rearrange so that the snowblower is appropriately staged, with the snow shovels right next to it, easily accessible with the car in its usual parking spot.  Yay!  We were supposed to get snow last night, but....the storm moved east.  It stayed warm here, rained a little - it must have heard that I bought a snow blower.

We had dinner, then went to church before doing presents.  For some reason, they selected the 9:00 service, and we didn't get out of there until nearly 10:15!  The minister did an actual sermon (an endless one, at that) and I spent most of my time stretching my hand and rolling my eyes (more about my hand in a bit).  We have since decided that we won't go next year. Once we all got settled back at the house, it was going on 11:00. I actually did get a couple of gifts anyway - an enormous Pyrex measuring cup (both of my sisters think it is the greatest thing ever invented), a necklace and earring set, and a Chili's gift card from the Hruska kids.  And of course, I got stuff from my kids this morning.  It was an interesting experience, watching everyone else open things when I had basically nothing to open.  I did have the photo of the shed from the front of the box in my stocking, along with the magic "spatula" that came with it.  The spatula was necessary for snapping the plastic panels into the tracks of the trim.  It was instrumental in the perfect assembly of the shed, and I had wondered what happened to it afterward.  :)

Not having to make a Christmas list was sort of a relief, and it was nice to be able to focus on others and watch them open what I gave them, and not worry about what I was going to open next.  Also, during shopping, if I saw something I wanted for myself (a movie, for example), I didn't have to worry whether it was on my list, and therefore off-limits until after Christmas. :)

I'm not really a big Christmas fan.  I always get a little sad, no matter what is going on (I think I have talked about this before).  I thought maybe it would be especially bad this year because of having limited things to open, but it really wasn't.

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OK, backtracking a bit.....
I had my trigger finger surgery on Dec. 18, just a week ago.  It seems like so much longer!  It went well, no pain, and I have been able to start stretching, bending my finger, making a fist, etc., without a lot of pain.  I worked on Saturday at the tax place, and on Monday at the home improvement place with the big surgical bandage still on.  On Tuesday, that was reduced to a bandaid, but I don't get my stitches out until next Monday.  I don't expect that I will need much, if any, therapy.  It really is very flexible already.  The only reason I hesitate when stretching is because the stitches pull.  Once they are out, I can do more.  Hopefully, this will be the end of surgeries for awhile!  I also got my permanent crown on the 15th.  Now I just have to pay for everything.  The copay for my knee was $100, and I still have some therapy copays to take care of.  Then there will be the copay for this surgery.  I better be making some money this season at the tax place!  Of course, I will also have the home improvement place three nights a week, so that should help.

More Repairs

Last Monday Mom got her new lighter-weight brace instead of her cast.  Gravity is supposed to take care of keeping the bone in line, and she can move her lower arm.  She keeps it wrapped to her side much of the time, but it's mainly for security.  Right now she, Dad, Lynda and David are in Florida for a long weekend.  They left on Thursday night and will be back on Monday, I think.  They are there partly to take delivery of a new fridge, stove and microwave for the condo. Since everything will work again, I think I need a do-over for my messed up trip in September!

On Dec 4 I had a followup appointment for my arthroscopy.  It's doing a lot better, though not perfect.  He told me to massage it to keep the scar tissue from re-forming (though he also said he had never had to redo a scope because the tissue came back....).  I also reminded him about the trigger finger issue in my left "bird" finger, and we set a surgery date for Dec 18.  I don't work again at the tax place until Dec 20 (unless she cancels me because it's not busy).  They had already put out the schedule for the week of Dec 18, but I don't expect to have a problem being off since I said it was for surgery.

BCPA has a new online scheduling system which is fantastic.  It became available on Friday, Dec 5 and I immediately signed up for the spring season.  Now I have to decide what to do about asking off from the home improvement place, since the shows I want seem to fall either on the weekend or one of the nights I am supposed to be there.  I don't want to ask off too far in advance, anyway, so I have some time.

So now that all schedules are settled and coordinated, I better get my butt busy doing some Christmas shopping before surgery day.  It won't be much of a hindrance, but I'd rather get it out of the way as much as possible.  Dec 18 is only 6 days from when I need to be done, anyway.  :)

December already??

How did that happen?
As usual, it just seems like it was September, like, a couple of weeks ago, and then suddenly it's less than three weeks to Christmas!  I may have said before that I am not a huge Christmas fan, and that is still true.  I just always feels like I don't have enough money to do for people what I would like to do.  And I hate those "every kiss begins with Kay" ads where the wife/girlfriend gets some stunning piece of jewelry that looks way out of scale for their apparent income level.  It's not that I am jealous, or that I want jewelry, too.  And in general, I am far from lonely and not all that interested in being in a relationship.  But somehow, at Christmas, it does make me a little sad.