Almost ho ho ho time!

Well folks, it's almost here, whether we want it or not!!

Some years, I'm panicked about Christmas because I haven't finished my shopping, don't know what to get someone, didn't do as much baking - something like that.

Some years, I feel like I haven't done anything right, haven't decorated everything that doesn't move (and a couple that DO move) and I stress out feeling like everyone is going to be upset at me for not doing it right.

This year, I'm not stressed over A N Y T H I N G, which is friggin' amazing!

I don't know how it happened..... I somehow just decided that close enough was good enough on my decorating, not every single thing has to be out every single year. No one will die if I don't make 17 varieties of cookies & candies. The people who get gift cards from us instead of physical presents will not be horribly insulted. I don't need to spend days going through magazines and cookbooks trying to plan the Christmas dinner menu. Everything will be fine, and everyone will have a happy, merry Christmas all the same.

This is a really startling thing, coming from me!

I'm actually trying to follow my doctor's advice to take it easy - I'm only six weeks out of surgery and still healing from that, not to mention that I'm still recovering from chemo & radiation AND having massive fibro flares and near-migraine level headaches and I'm TIRED. Massive exhaustion kind of tired, the kind where I was way too close to dozing off several times driving home from the doctor yesterday. My new habit of falling asleep instantly at random times is more than a bit scary. I zonked out yesterday sitting on a stool at the kitchen counter rolling cookie dough into balls.

I'm getting a reasonable amount of sleep at night, but still so tired during the day that I slept for almost 5 hours when I took a nap. I figured that the bit where I almost fell off the stool was a hint that I needed a nap.

SO, I'm trying to take things really slow, and get my biorhythms back where they belong so I can function normally again. Lots of rest and minimal stress has been officially prescribed, and I am (for once, ha ha) going to try and take them seriously & hope that it helps my never-ending all-over body pain at least a little bit.

At this point, I'll take whatever I can get!! I'm really, really miserable right now, and not enjoying it one bit. Sadly, the gift wrapping, cookie baking, dinner cooking, etc. has to be done right about now so that we're ready for the big day on Friday, A N D our darling Stella girl comes home on Saturday, which means dragging all her things back out and finding places to hide all of the no-nos.

And on Sunday... I will rest, LOL.

Happy Hanukkah!

Merry Christmas!

Feliz Navidad!

Joyeux Noel!

Happy Kwanza!

Season's Greetings!

and the warmest of Hippo Holidays from me!!!

Thank you - all of you - for being out there, reading this, and giving me so much more support than I could ever have imagined.

Whooo, baby, it's cold outside!

Or, "Watching lame Californians try to figure out how to cope with cold weather;" or

"My children are going to freeze to death on the way to school because they can not read English," or

"Global warming my sweet patootie!!," or

any one of any number of other nice subtitles I could think up!

Yes ladies and gents, it's friggin' cold out there. It is 11:31 am, and it has reached a lovely high of 35 degrees thus far.

I have tried very, very hard to warn my children of the risks of things like going to school with wet hair when it is 20 out. I have typed in clear, large-font English that the boys need to wear BOTH layers of their two-layer winter coats. None of this appears to affect their behavior at all. I'm deeply puzzled by this. Am I missing something, or is it called "teenage boys," and therefore unavoidable?

Anna seems to be doing better, thank goodness, since she has the least body mass to help keep her warm. Lloyd reports that she almost forgot her gloves this morning, but was otherwise well prepared.

Some of our neighbors-- not so much. Apparently, some of the dorks at the mouth of the court (because all of us here at the end of the court are wonderful, aren't we?!) thought it would be a great idea to hose off their icy cars this morning. While their windows didn't all crack, lucky them, all the water they used to wash them off ran into the street, where it instantly froze, making a curb-to-curb ice slick. Brilliant!!

If our little part of the valley would hurry the hell up and get some precipitation, we'd have snow. But nooooo, the one cold snap of the decade or two where it's cold enough, and we don't have any moisture. So sad. Everyone else has snow. Snow would perhaps even convince me to leave the house. We're *that* close to a white Christmas! I've told Lloyd we should get up at about 4 am when everything is covered in heavy frost, turn on all the outside and window Christmas lights, and take pictures.

Ah well...right now, I'm nestled all snug in my bed, not because I really am that lazy, but because for the last 24+ hours, my body seems to have this annoying habit of barfing every so often. I'll be find for a long time, and then out of no where...... GAK! Hrm. I don't know what's up with this, but it's sure making it rough to get any food at all in me. So, even though I woke up at nearly 10 (ah, such a rough life, I know), I'm still nursing my first morning Dr. Pepper, fighting the random waves of nausea, making sure I'm really, really ready to leave the security of having the bathroom so close by before I head downstairs to face the day.

We finally got our Christmas tree on Saturday, after a week of false starts. Costco was offering 7-8 foot Noble firs for the unheard-of price of $41.99, and they were supposed to be in on the first. Then the second. Then maybe 5pm on the second...and so on. So, finally, we went to get ours on the fifth, to find out that A) it's a damn good thing we did, 'cause there weren't enough trees to last the weekend, and B) bringing the whole family for a tree-picking adventure was pretty pointless, because Costco's trade-off for the dirt cheap price on the tree is that you pretty much have zero choice in what your tree will look like. They've got one or two of them unbound for display, but the rest of the trees are wrapped up tight in twine, and about the only choice you get is, uh, this one or that one. It's all a big surprise when you get the tree home!

We did luck out-- it's a beautiful tree, about seven and a half feet, perfectly shaped. I guess I just have to trust the Costco elves to know their stuff. It's all installed in the stand, waiting patiently downstairs for me to start the oh-so-crucial first steps of putting the lights on. After I do the hard part, I can turn over most of the decorating to Head Elf Anna. Then again, we still have to finish decorating the rest of the house too...and cards to address...and gifts to buy...and wrap...and...and...and.........

I guess I should get out of bed now, huh? I still feel rather gak-y but the tree ain't gonna light itself. It's up to 37 outside, which is supposed to be close to the high for the day, so this is about as good as it's gonna get.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

A day of thankfulness, and learning a big, big lesson

Oh, I'm so far behind in updating this blog! I started writing right after Thanksgiving and am just now ready to post, so forgive me!

I have to say, I had a very nice, pleasant Thanksgiving, despite some very last minute changes in plans. It was warm and comfortable, surrounded by some of the people I love the most, with good food and good conversation. I have an awful lot to be thankful for.

And, over the last couple of days, I've learned a HUGE lesson about myself and life in general. I'm too nice. And it ends now!

Obviously, I need to explain.

The original plans for Thanksgiving around here were this: The three kids would get dropped off at Grandma's house (this would be their mother's mother) for two days of Thanksgiving fun, and Lloyd and I would enjoy our quiet time by doing absolutely nothing, like we've done the past couple of years, or, we might go to one of the many Indian casinos to be found around here and check out the buffet, play a few nickel slots and generally goof off.

Things changed at the absolute last-est last minute, approximately 10 or 12 seconds before

Lloyd and the kids were supposed to be getting in the car and leaving, when my baby girl was feeling so horrible, physically AND mentally, that I was not even remotely capable of making her get in the car and go. No way, no how. She needed to stay home, with me, and so she did. Lloyd accepted this pretty well, and I figured her Grandma would understand, given the extraordinary circumstances.

I called Grandma after Lloyd left, explained, and she took it pretty well, despite being disappointed.

I hadn't planned on cooking, but I had the

materials, luckily, so I pulled it together at the last minute. I couldn't have one of the kids home and not cook Thanksgiving dinner. The three of us had a very nice little dinner on our own. It's nice for Anna to have the two of us to herself once in a great while too. Quiet, pleasant and relaxing.

Now, here's the problem. Later, after I'd been off the phone with Grandma for a while, I realized that something that she said had really, really hurt my feelings. Then I found out that she told Lloyd something else that really hurt my feelings. What isn't important-- all that matters is that I realized that someone I thought of as a friend maybe didn't think of me as anything at all. Hmm.

Still--after 5 years of trying. I also found out that the ex, otherwise known at Mommy The Great and Wonderful, while thinking of me when I had surgery and sending flowers, was still upset with me. She kept thanking me for "taking such good care of her kids," as if I'm a nanny or something--when I considered them "our" kids these days, after I've been raising them for over 5 years - almost a year and a half longer than SHE raised Anna, by the way. I brought it up, she agreed that "our" was more appropriate now, and all was fine--until I found out that she's mad that I consider them "our" kids.

So, after all these years of trying, I've FINALLY realized what an unwinnable battle this is!

I hereby renounce all my efforts to try and make nice with people who don't want to be nice and who don't care about me at all. So there.

That was easy, right?! Yeah, we'll see how it goes in practice.

Since then, I've been alternating days of pre-holiday activity, shopping, decorating and all the usual fun with days of sitting very, very still and letting my back and hips rest after all the shopping and such.

It's going to be a pretty quiet Christmas for us, in that we won't have our usual houseful of company. I'm hoping Daddy and Chris will come, but they'll be about it. I'm part bummed and part ok with it all, because I'm just so tired that a quiet, mellow Christmas will be great. Each year since we've been married, we've hosted the family in whatever form, so it'll definitely be a change for us!!

How ever things work out, I'll be happy with it. I'm actually feeling pretty festive this year, maybe because I think I've got all the surgery behind me now, and I'm FINALLY on the road to recovery. That is definitely something to celebrate!!

I hope everyone else is finding things to be merry about too...2010 has got to be a better year for all of us, or else.

And for your entertainment...our Thanksgiving pumpkin Pi pie-- pi squared...but round. This was not my idea...I have strange children.