Christmas Wrap Up

My future mother in law just left to head back to New Orleans, and honey just left to go to work after being off since Friday. He's off tomorrow and works New Year's Eve. He should be home before midnight, though. Cop's schedules suck, sometimes, but that's how it goes.

It was nice having M.J. in town, we don't get to see her often. She made this incredible cheese cake for our Monday Night Football Party, which was a nice bonus on top of Drew Brees record breaking year.  The fact that he broke Marino's record with a touchdown pass, in New Orleans and we beat the Falcons was awesome. We are hoping for another trip to the Super Bowl for our team this year!

Christmas itself was nice. This year was different in as much as we didn't have to spend Christmas Eve at the hospital with mom, like last year. Although it's been a rough year for the family, and especially my mother with her knee, we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It's miraculous, really, considering that at one point we were being told to expect the worst. It's also a lesson in how to never take things for granted. A seemingly simple surgery can cascade into complications galore and change one's life in ways unintended.  This isn't to say that the experience was all bad. One learns things about oneself when faced with challenges. Whether we grow from them or not is up to each individual.

My Aunt Merle passed away in November. I am still so sad over that. My mother lost her only remaining sibling with her passing, and she was extremely close to Aunt Merle. If there is a blessing amongst this, it is that mom was well enough, or had the strength, to spend the last two weeks of Aunt Merle's life with her. She was at her side, along with my cousins, when she passed. I got to say a good-bye to her, as well, although I didn't know it was a good-bye at the time.

About a month before she died, when my dog accidentally called her on my cell phone, we had a nice chat. She told me that she was sorry to have to die before I graduated from school, but that she would proudly be watching me from Heaven. She went down hill so fast after that, we thought that she had at least a year. As much as we hate the fact that she is gone, the other blessing in this is that she did go so soon. The cancer had gotten into her bones, already weakened by Rheumatoid Arthritis, and that is a horribly painful cancer to have. At least she didn't have to suffer for a year, drugged up and in bed. She would have hated that.

Another blessing was the fact that I got to see some of my cousins again, and it had been far too long. We all live so far away from each other, our lives being lived, we never really lost touch, but we didn't see one another as often as we used to. In the way of love and family, though, it was like the years fell away. So when I found myself reminiscing about childhood Christmases at Aunt Merle's this season, it was bitter sweet, but also comforting. Especially when I hold, and smell the small rosary that my cousins (Aunt Merle's daughters) Carol and Mary had made. It is a beautiful piece and it's filled with the crushed flowers from Aunt Merle's funeral arrangements. They had one made for my mother, me and my two sisters. I carry it everywhere with me. I can wear it as a bracelet, but I am not ready for that yet.

I will wear it on my wedding day. I will wear it when I graduate from nursing school.

The June Cleaver Update

The other day, I posted on Facebook that I was going to spend the day baking. That came to naught, as a few last minute Christmas presents needed to be purchased, and it fell upon me to brave the maddening hordes. I can't even begin to describe the felicity that I experienced at the local Walmart, with it's many babies clad in tops and diapers, no pants to speak of, complete with runny noses and coughs. Their mothers left much to be desired in their choice of attire as well. I'm not saying that I journey out to shop dressed as if I am attending tea with the queen, but I do at least make sure that I am clad in something other than spandex and a too small t-shirt.  There are just some women who SHOUDN'T wear spandex, or too small t- shirts for that matter, yet they insist on doing so.  Scratch that. Unless you are a dancer or you work in your town's hooker area, you shouldn't wear spandex in public at all.  Think of it as the woman's version of a man in a Speedo...it just shouldn't be done.

I digress.

Today was the day that I finally did almost all of the baking that I didn't get to the other day. This almost came to naught as well, when I managed to pinch a finger in my folding step stool, which I was deploying in search of powdered sugar. Long story short, I managed to break my solar nail clear down to the quick of my finger, in the middle of the finger. It hurt like hell and bled too. The nail salon told me to come back after Christmas for a repair to give the skin of my nail bed time to heal. I am so looking forward to the repair. I hope that a liberal amount of super glue will be all that is required for the repair, and not the removal of my nail. I know that would hurt. Badly.

As for the baking, I made peanut butter cookies, chocolate chip cookies, thumb print cookies and 2 pounds of fudge.  It's very difficult kneading cookie dough with one hand, I didn't want to risk pulling the injured nail off as it wiggles, ewwww, but I managed quite well. I even had time to slice the left over ham to freeze for later use.

I am currently sitting in Mike's recliner (I do that when he's at work. I feel quite rebellious!) sipping a well earned Cosmopolitan, and contemplating tomorrow's tasks. I have sugar cookies to make, and the icing for them to make as well. I also have to finish getting the house ready for my future mother-in-law's Christmas visit.  We will also have a house full the Monday after Christmas for the Saint's Monday Night Football extravaganza. I am making a HUGE pot of shrimp and andoulle sausage gumbo for that.

My kids are currently upstairs, and being quiet. Thank god they stopped quarreling over the damn Wii. Perhaps the fact that I threatened to yank the thing out of the wall, and roll over it with the car, was a help. I don't know, and I'm not looking too much into it. No, I shall treasure the peace while it lasts.

I think that I will make the kids clean up the back yard tomorrow.