Yes... trying to keep my wits about me...
Rambling thoughts in my head and no, I have not even cuop.
DH is sooo sick. Gout + nausea & diarrhea from the gout medicine... and he has really had a rough time the past couple of days.
He has doctor's appointment tomorrow to discuss last disappointing and upsetting visit with urologist's NP. I have some confusion re: WHICH doctor he will see. They assured me Doctor H. Then confirmation phone call said Doctor S. Either one could be the surgeon, but I'd like to know -- without dh knowing I had to make a phone call to them today!
Dmom... I don't know if she can manage another Christmas breakfast/brunch at her house. It makes me so nervous to be out there -- nothing is "organized" like it is here; I have to look in every cabinet for each item I need... refrigerator is running over, probably with dozens of things she will never eat before they expire... I worry about her back pain and her slowness of movement and her trouble with staying focused and remembering things. (OTOH, she did not approve of my scrambled eggs -- which
were probably overcooked -- and she did some more. But they were all eaten -- mine & hers.)
She did all the meat ahead of time, had it in the oven warming when I arrived. Fruit salad was pre-purchased and just had to be poured up in a bowl. Then we scrambled eggs, heated up frozen biscuits, set the table, and I signed her cards for all of us and made sure she had appropriate amounts of money in each one. This took over an hour.
I did an online dispute with credit card company re: that scam game table. (No, it did NOT arrive before Christmas.)
AND... the MAIN thing bothering me. HOW WOULD Y'ALL HANDLE THIS:
DDIL asked me before Christmas if I would be okay with a "fake" a pple watch to replace the one I was wearing with the cracked screen.
I told her I guess I would, if it did everything the old (real, hand-me-down) one did and I could "ping" my lost phone when necessary.
So, she got it for me. Probably ordered from Temu or Shein or something. Said it was very cheap.
Well... It doesn't do all the old one did and I don't like it.
I finally got the app installed last night, but there's just a lot of differences, namely that step count is apparently inaccurate and has to be manually re-set each morning, from all I can tell.
It does not light up when I raise my arm, although it says there is a setting for this. I can find no such setting.
It does not ping a lost phone.
It apparently does not keep up with sleep, although it shows a window that says it does.
It doesn't notify me of text messages on my phone, apparently.
The band does not work like the old one, and the charger is VERY inconvenient. AND I am just learning, it does not last even 18 hours on a charge!
I just have to get a new screen for the old watch, and I have to HOPE ddil can get her $$ back for this one. She will obviously know if I am not wearing it, and I think she was very hopeful it would be a good replacement for the old one. DGD was EXTREMELY excited about it. Maybe I could give it to DGD?
I don't know; ddil TOLD me to let her know if it didn't work like she hoped, but I hate to do that. DS/DDIL aren't wealthy or anything; anything they spent on us this year was probably a sacrifice. They painted their house, put a roof on one rental house and bought a water heater for the other. Plus ddil being out of work for a month or more. It's just been a tough year for them, I'm sure.
So -- I'm mulling over all these thoughts and trying to get into the spirit of the new year and back to the routines to finish out the old one.
One of my planning sites has a series this week of seven days of prompts to get us started on the new year. Today's assignment is:
What is ONE THING you hope 2024 brings?My first thought is, better health for dh, dmom, and dgrands.
But that's nothing I can PLAN for. There's NOTHING I can do to advance that action, except pray. So... what DO I hope to PLAN for in 2024?
A bit of excerpts from this site might be encouraging to some of you, as well: (This is from anchored women
Whatever time of the year it might be, I'm always thinking about what's coming up in the near future. I think about what's going well right now and what's not.
What I should be doing with my life, and whether I’m actually doing those things.
How to make what’s really important actually happen.
I think we all worry about this kind of stuff. We have dreams and responsibilities and we wonder how to make them all work together. We realize motherhood was a bigger job than we ever anticipated, and we wonder what we got ourselves into sometimes.
We are overwhelmed and rushed and we wonder how we can be so busy and still feel like we’re missing out on life.
I wonder if you think about those things too. And I thought it might be fun if we did all of that thinking together.
So, this week, that’s what we’re going to do! This series is all about planning a PURPOSEFUL year, and that's exactly what we're going to talk about.
We're not just setting a random New Years Resolution that we’re going to abandon in a week or two. Nope.
We’re going to talk about taking time to really evaluate where we are in our lives, bringing a focus for the next year into view, setting realistic goals, and giving ourselves grace when life happens.
This isn’t going to be a “here’s all the things you should be doing” sort of series.
Instead, it’s all about quieting our to-do lists so that we can stop living like a slave to all of our “urgent” tasks, and actually start making time and taking realistic steps toward what matters most.
I’m so excited! A whole week to really figure out what things are important to us, and then giving ourselves permission and A PLAN to pursue those things!I do not use this planner, but I think this will be worthwhile as I set up my own cards and planner for the coming year.
Another question--
LadyM mentioned a yearly calendar, which I think is the same one mentioned in the Trident planning guide you shared the other day, LadyM. Do you use google calendar for this? Do any of the rest of you use a year-at-a-glance calendar? I've never set up a google calendar but I'm thinking of trying it, with all these doctor visits and * stuff * coming up.