After teaching 9th grade 30 years, I have to say I would agree with you, LadyM.
At least your ds has bounced back from the heartbreak a few months ago. And Harriet -- typing on phone earlier, now I see that I am so shouldn’t are makes no sense at all. That was supposed to say "I am so sorry you are expecting to have to deal with losing your hair..."
And I know what you're talking about with "Bozo" hair, blessed! If I wore a ballcap like a lot of these professional baseball players, just letting my hair be loose under the cap, well... I'd look a lot like Bozo too! LOL. Of course, with the longer hair some of these guys are wearing now, they look like Bozo too. The only way I will wear a cap is to put my hair in a ponytail and pull the ponytail through the gap in the back.
Blessed, I hope things work out for your dd to go back to Florida and live in your mom's apartment, if that is what she is hoping to do. She has been such a big help to your mom. She deserves some time for herself.
I have wrapped the gifts that arrived at the post off ice today; I'm doing well in that part of my "to do's". And I also printed labels to put on the back of dgrands' pictures that I will insert in Christmas cards.
DS and DDIL don't send cards except maybe to people who send them cards first, and they don't always get cards out to those people, so I'm not duplicating anything they do. I print labels with their names and ages and parents' names, so it's kinda like I'm including ds & ddil with mine.
I send to all close relatives -- aunt, uncle, cousins, (mine & dh's) (* need to get duncle's new address!) and to quite a few friends. A few former students who always send cards to me. Anyway, the pictures are in and I have no excuse for getting these out ASAP. I wonder when the last mailing days are for cards and online orders. I'm sure I could google that...
I also have separated stocking stuffers bought today into ziploc bags. That was certainly a game changer! No more waiting until Christmas Eve to figure out who gets what. (I can't put them IN the stockings till I'm ready to go to ds's house, because they'd be too heavy and fall off the mantle.)
DBIL's girlfriend asked if we wanted to do Christmas like we always do -- at ds' house, etc. I think she was concerned that I might need or want a little change. I told her I wanted to continue as we always have, and then I checked with ds and ddil who agreed. DS said, "It would be worse if we tried to do something different." He said, "You could tell them WE are going to do like we always have, and if they don't want to do that, we'll just invite (ddil's) parents over to eat bar-b-que with us." LOL. He was just joking; he wants dbil & gf and cousins to come to his house. He just has a pretty dry sense of humor.
Personally, I am about to the point I wouldn't mind if we quit exchanging gifts among the adults. Sheesh... I do NOT know what to buy dbil now that I don't have dh to make suggestions. Of course, the only children ARE ds's children, so it might not be quite fair for dbil and family to do all the buying...
My brother and I quit exchanging gifts, but usually he and his wife send gifts for my dgrands and dmom. Dmom usually just gives us all money, and maybe has me do the shopping and buy something for the dgrands to unwrap. We will all give her gifts. I got her a pair of S kecher's slip on shoes, and a photo book like the one I made for ds of his big O pry appearance. (That turned out really well -- S hutterfly insisted on 20 pages, minimum, and I didn't have 20 different ones from that one night, so I put pictures of when he was really little, including one with him standing on the stage at the O pry, the Christmas he got his first banjo, and some with all the people he has played with, locally and professionally -- then pictures from that night. I was really pleased with it. I think dmom will like it, and I think he will too.)
I went out to eat with ds & dgrands tonight. I let him pay because we went to a sushi place, and I ordered fried rice and shrimp, but I ended up letting dgs eat about half of my salad, most of my rice, and probably some of my vegetables. This was AFTER he ate his share of pot-stickers two different kinds of sushi rolls. LOL. He is at that age where he is just a bottomless pit.
I told ds about my "issue of blood." It probably grossed him out, but I was afraid ddil had mentioned it to him, after she told me tonight that maybe I just needed to have a hysterectomy.
I was afraid HE was trying to avoid the subject and waiting on me to bring it up. (He wasn't.) I asked ds, "(DDIL) really likes for people to go to the hospital, doesn't she?" He said, "Oh YES. Don't involve her if you don't want to rush off to the hospital." Shaking my head. DGS piped up, "Maybe she wants people to go so maybe the hospital will stay open." But our hospital hasn't done surgery in YEARS. I told ddil, I really think it is most likely a side effect of the medicine, (which she had not googled, like we did, Twins.)
I wonder what will happen if I just stop taking the progesterone AND the estrogen. I don't want to grow a beard.
Survey -- how many of you take hormones and how many do not? You can put that in J&C if you don't want to answer out here. I have nothing outside the house planned for tomorrow. Thank goodness. I hope to get laundry and basic cleaning done, but mostly I am just glad to be home. Alone. I will work on Christmas cards.