Just another manic Monday...

[lucylee]

Well, I hope y'all aren't having a REALLY manic Monday... but I know I'm going to have a busy day, and I guess I was just determined to get in here first once, LOL! It is 1:14 in CST and here on Elvis Standard Time, I am wide awake, of course.
ARE you in a manic mood, or are you calming sipping hot tea and enjoying watching all the other people out in chaos of last-minute preparations?
I'm kind of in a mix of things -- still lots to do, but I think I have a realistic plan that will get it all done.

Today, after church, we had a council meeting and our pastor, another lady (one of my Wednesday night class members), and I were the last ones to leave. Pastor asked if we had lunch plans and neither of us did, so we all went to local Chinese buffet. That was nice, talking to adults for a change who were not children or in a class setting.
I came home, turned on the Christmas lights, put on my "cuddl duds" -- those thin versions of long Johns, you know, and curled up on the couch. Of course I was out like a light. It was so chilly and rainy outside, and I just wanted to enjoy the quiet. I had tried to watch the 20/20 program from Friday night -- the JonBenet Ramsey story -- but I kept dozing off, so I turned the TV onto a football game. Low volume.
It was ALMOST dark when I woke up. Took the trash to the road and worked on Christmas cards, while finishing the 20/20 program.

THEN... I realized that I was sending a card to the widow of one of dh's cousins... and I had written a note assuming she knew about dh... but I do not remember actually talking to her at the time of dh's death. She lives in another state.
So I called dbil and he does not know if she knows about dh...
Called dh's only girl cousin... and she does not know... but y'all... this is embarrassing. I think I (we) might qualify for the Guiness World Records. We were on the phone FOUR HOURS and 26 minutes. I know... I know... this is insane. But she talked as much as I did. It was not ALL me, I promise.
She has health problems, family concerns, and has lost some of her best friends in the past year, and we just talked.
To get to the point of the call, she felt bad that she had not talked to her cousin's wife either, in quite a while, so I told her I would call another family member tomorrow and let her know what I could learn. If I find out the cousin's wife has not been told, SHE is going to call her as a "I don't send cards, so just wanted to wish you a merry Christmas," check in, and in the course of the conversation, she will mention that Lucy is doing okay, but it's going to be a hard Christmas... etc... and see how she reacts. If she does not know, cousin will make apologies for not calling herself and say Lucy just wasn't thinking clearly at the time. Sigh. I wish I knew what was going on -- this lady is on FB but has not posted in a year or so -- we may find out that she herself is having health trouble of some sort.

I also sent a text to Dfriend to see if she could have lunch this week -- step out of my comfort zone, you know, because I usually wait for her to make the plans. She has entertained all of her husband's large family today, and will get back with me tomorrow or Tuesday.

I have all my cards addressed, except one that I did find out tonight, through dbil's fiance, another older lady I send a card to is in assisted living. Fiance will try to find an address for me when she gets to work Tuesday. I will have to put a label sticker on the envelope to change address but I think it will be okay. I certainly hope SHE knows about dh, but surely she does -- we did receive flowers from "The ___ Family," which would be her and her two sons/their families. She and my dmil were very good friends and she was ds's third grade teacher.

I am also debating about what to write in the card I will send Harmony. Should I tell her about dh? Will that be just too depressing? I wish we knew Harmony's state of mind at this point. I wish Sunny or Harmony's DD would post an update for us. I think I'll send Sunny a PM.

Tomorrow (today?) my PODA looks like this --
-- Call cousin 2 re: Cousin Out of State
-- Call cousin 1 re: info from cousin 2
-- Call BBQ place and order our meal for Christmas Eve
-- Wmart
-- Mail dniece's bday card with gift card (which I will need to purchase at Wmart.) Found out dniece won't be home until the 30th, and her bday is Saturday.
-- Go to post office, go to electric co-op and pay bill
-- Type up accounting for dbil's tickets -- we settle up at the end of the year -- condo expenses vs ticket expenses. Usually he owes us money. I hope that holds true again.

I hope today starts a great week for all of you and you all finish all the holiday work in time to truly relax and enjoy the holiday!

CI: It's now 3:12 and I am shutting down from trying to figure out what dbil will owe me (OR I will owe him!!!) for tickets. He has ALWAYS ended up paying us because tickets are more expensive than condo expenses. I could NOT figure out why I had not paid the big expense so far... search, search, search... finally see that LAST DECEMBER, I paid it on the 14th. It should come this week, I guess.
I was so afraid I had missed something during the first month or so after dh passed away. Some of dbil's expenses were noted in dh's handwriting, from basketball last winter. Some, I have had to keep up with myself since fall began and dbil ordered away game tickets. Whew... I did not want to give dbil any cause to doubt my bookkeeping, but I certainly want to charge him for all that is on his side of the ledger.

[CathyS]

Hi LucyLee!! Thank you for that very early start! Funny, the first "M" word that came to my mind was "Manic" and I was wondering if anyone was feeling "manic" or "in a panic". LOL!! At this time last year, we were doing all the very last minute things to go to Cuba for a week. The house was clean and very un-decorated. I think that's why I'm making up for it this year.

My dd is coming to get her winter tires on at around noon today. I still want to go to morning stitching group. Two of us do counted cross stitch and the other two crochet. It used to be a huge group and almost everyone knitted. Things have certainly changed things for this group.

We are having chicken tonight. Most likely shake and bake.

Baby Cat is yelling at me to let her outside and she has been up and down off this desk at least 10 times since I turned on the computer.

[Harriet]

lucylee, I just want you to know I completely understood your longest paragraph in one read. That totally makes sense to me. True to your raising.

We weren't going to send cards this year. But then mentions of some, or cards from some, make me wonder if that can mean everybody and I can be satisfied. Like Harmony, yes.

Manic Monday. Actually, sorry to say so, but it is. I have not slept since yesterday at 10 a.m. The wristwatch police says I slept 18 minutes last night but I'm pretty sure it was mixed up about a time I was just still. I had HRH look at it and he didn't even understand that number at first. Sigh. I suppose I will sleep the day away.

Right now, sitting with an apple for first bite of the day. I was going to have an older, little one, but HRH wanted me to have one of the large new ones he just bought. So, he said he would eat whatever I left, and since it would probably save his life to eat some apple, I just had to do it for his sake. Sorta doesn't taste apple-y, but I'm pretty sure that's me.

Still can't find the white tissue paper, so I have HRH's reluctant blessing to wrap a second gift, since there wouldn't be enough other tissue to fill the only bag the boxed present will fit. Will do that soon. He is shaking his head. "No ribbon and bows! Get some rest!"

Fed Ex gets a bad mark for yesterday, leaving a very obvious package leaned up against the mailbox right at the road, in wet grass. If I hadn't happened to check tracking, I'd never have known. How much do they want packages to be stolen? Thankfully, cloth contents protected by plastic.

Dd44's family home safe and back at schoolwork, etc.

Enjoy your creativity day, Cathy.

[Ramblinrose]

Morning…

Been to class and now drinking my second cup of coffee. Morning routines done, but still have a small bit of decorating to do. My cards are done and in my mailbox.

I am playing bocci this morning and then need to do a small grocery run. I ran out of things I use around the house all at one time.

The rest of my week is clear with everything done fro CMas so I can breath!

Waving to y’all!

[Lady Maverick]

Good Morning!

So thankful to come to our SHE village and CUOP.

DD13 and I chatted while driving her to school this morning. This is the last Monday school day of 2024. I might be more excited about this than the teens! Although they would argue who is the most excited about school break.

Cuddl Duds
Two of my favorite words during winter.
I need to order myself some more sets of them. I wear them under my clothes every day during the winter months. I hesitate to order online because I prefer the ones that have a smooth (slick?) texture so my clothes slide over them.

I have read with interest everyone prep for Christmas. Please don't kick me out of SHE village for not being one of the cool kids......... I haven't bought gifts yet. I haven't put the tree up yet. I have asked the teens what they want for Christmas and they say "I can't think of anything".

[Twins' Mom]

Running through and waving in a manic way, I'm heading out in a minute to pick up my laptop at Best buy. Dog walked, breakfast, and I've s2s-ed.

Back later!

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Harriet: my solution for apples that don't taste appley is to dip them in either a nut butter or Nutella. Actually Nutella is the first choice, and peanut butter the second but you eat more healthily than me so I decided to say "nut-butter" since it sounds better. (In my defense, I only eat peanuts-only peanut butter.)

I'm awake. Not manic yet but I'll need to be.

I went to bed at 11:30 and woke up at 6:20 to go to the bathroom. Dh got up at that point (he had gone to bed at 10) and I went back to try to sleep. Woke up at 8:10. I've just finished tea, chocolate, and light therapy.

Nothing outside the home is required today. Yay!!!!

No-one due to come over, either and no online meetings. Yay!!!!

Both of those things probably allowed me to sleep in.

The apartment is quite a disaster at the moment so it will be full focus on weekly house blessing but a major tidying before hand and those to-do items will be quite physical.

My hips are not working correctly so I can only hope the stiffness/pain recedes during what will be an active day. Once the living room is vacuumed I'll be able to spend a slightly more relaxed time on the carpet doing stretches. Right now, it is a bit crunchy. Yesterday a clip-earring rubber cushion fell as I pulled it off while walking to the kitchen onto the dining room carpet (which like the living room's can hide anything of any colour). I miraculously found the 1/8th" diameter piece of rubber by running my hand over the carpet after shining my phone's flashlight on the carpet showed nothing. I also found a large crumb of pizza and something else that was unidentifiable but probably off a wreath.

Here's my to-do list for the next two days (cuz there's no way this will be done in one day.) It is roughly in order of importance.

1. produce the Christmas Eve Church Service Bulletin: this includes writing anything that is read by the congregation, choosing and dividing up the passages, writing a candle lighting liturgy, choosing the hymns. I've pulled out the previous two services I've done for this church so I can follow their routine but not duplicate too much.

2. Take the empty Christmas decoration bins and the new car booster seat down to the storage room.

3. Take the resident association stuff back to their locker. I need to do an inventory of what we have left for forks, etc, but that's not a priority and can be done in January when we put away the Christmas decorations from the social room. (I was adding it to today's list as I typed this out but realize it isn't a priority at all.)

4. Put away dgs3.5's toys properly. Bless his heart, dh made dgs help with this as we raced out the door to return him last night after the residents' Christmas party. I'm using Bless his heart in the Southern way....

5. Strip the bed and put on fresh sheets.

6. Empty the drying rack in the bedroom.

7. Strip dgs3.5's bed, wash his sheets and reset it to be ready for him. Also empty and clean his humidifier.

8. Dust the bedrooms.

8.5 Water the plants and dead-head leaves/blooms to make sure I don't let leaves end up on the floor after vacuuming.

8.75 Vacuum or dust the dining room table first to make sure I don't put crumbs on the floor after vacuuming.

9. Vacuum the apartment. Thoroughly.

10. Wash the kitchen floor.

11. Clean the bathrooms, especially the office one since the tub toys need to be put away and the potty seat cleaned and put away.

12. Take my jewelry to the jewelry for repair. There are 3 rings plus dgs broke an important gold chain holding my best cross yesterday. My fault for putting it on him at his request at the party and forgetting it was there so he broke it pulling it off hours later; at least he brought it to me so it wasn't lost in the dining room carpet that hides everything.

13. Phone the clock repair guy about the clock in for repair and prepare to take the next one in for repair (there are 3 waiting to be fixed/updated.)

14. Book an adjustment appointment for my new orthotic. It took about 6 hours of wear before the same problem as before reared its head.

15. Book a doctor's appointment for my hips/knees. Time to get in the queue for x-rays, a referral to physio and/or onto a waiting list for surgery.

16. Write the words I'll be using on family/love for the last movement of the figurines into the creche at church. I wrote out a rough plan before Advent to have the figures added a few each week, and others turned into Kathryn's 'journey to Bethlehem' theme for Advent, something that wasn't in my mind at all. I love watching God at work! (That led to the minister sharing a story with Worship Committee which led to my Christmas Eve sermon pouring out of me in a matter of a few hours, so the Spirit has been particularly busy this year!)

17. Get the Dec. 29 service moved into Google Docs so I can work on it with the person leading it. We need to get that done by Thursday so the office administrator can pull the slides and bulletin together for that. (this is likely a Wednesday task.)

Ten o'clock just chimes so I'm going to poof for a while. Getting dressed isn't even on that overwhelming list!

[Lady Maverick]

DSisIL just dropped by for a visit. She brought a Christmas tin of homemade peanut brittle. OH MY. I am not a person who enjoys eating sweets, but this crunchy goodness is better than anything I can remember.

I wish I could be better at staying up with things and preparing for future doings. I seem to only be able to handle what is happening in this hour....and if I am doing really good then plan for the next hour.

Next up - Prepare this week's lesson assignments for Math and ELA and get each assignment on DS16 daily calendar. I usually have him do 3 assignment a day for each subject. Sometimes I question whether DS16 homeschool is everything he needs. But then I compare it to what is happening in public school and don't worry about it. Public school is not doing anything this week according to DD13. Puzzles. Making snowflakes. Watching movies. etc.

[Dove]

Good morning!

I'm 2 days behind on posts here so am posting now & will catch up later this week. A few things have been on my mind regarding our SHE village:

dTwins does not need more surgery on her wrist -- hooray! Very happy for you.

dblessed, I'm glad to read that your dmom is out of the hospital & having better days. I'm so sorry your dcat passed away ((hugs)).

((dHarriet)), thinking of you often & praying for you as you begin your treatments. Delighted to see you posting here often.

Only have a few things left to do to prepare for Christmas. I need to finalize menus & make sure I have all the ingredients I need. Have all gifts & started wrapping last night. Enjoyed listening to Christmas music while I did that -- very peaceful. Cards are written & mailed. Years ago I asked dh to help me with that & we split the list which makes it less time consuming (& easier on my writing hand). We have a few fun day trips planned with Christmas-y themes & lights at night. Hope the weather is not too cold or rainy.

Sorry I can't reply to all individually right now. Waving ~~~ hope you have a wonderful day!

[Nancy]

CUOP X Thank you all for sharing.
LucyL I know what you mean about cards I was stuck on just the two I needed to send this year. Thinking of you all.
Waving!
I slept in today.
Snow in the forecast trend out to be rain this morning.
QT Planning & some Journaling and some class done.
s2s happened last nite.

I have some lovely classical Christmas tunes on now.
I need to do the basement walk about & get dressed

Thinking about my week dd needs to shred some stuff.
I need to call on an apt on the cable update to set up in Feb. not doing that in Dec. Desk Day;

I skipped church and a Cmas gathering yesterday to regroup.
Glad I did as I was able to reclaim my butterfly room and walk with ddoggo in the wonderful sunshine and nearly 50* we had
it was glorious!
Last evening saw a concert of chiors singing Christmas music it was what I needed!
Saw a yt that expressed how I was feeling perfectly yesterday that was so helpful to not feel l was the only one.

Had my Rx.
Considering my bfast options.
I need to get up and do some stretches.