First let me wish my oldest Happy 45th Birthday.  It was quite a day Wes !!  Back then and today.  More on that when I feel better!

Second A Big Happy New Year to all of you.  May it bring all happiness, health, and prosperity you justly deserve!!!!

Yep, today is December 28, 2006 and our snow due on Christmas Day arrived this morning early.  This vision drove floating on the tube in a gentle current right out of my head.  But the important thing is Cindy and I are two days away from the Bob Seger concert, my Christmas present from my daughter.  I haven’t been to a concert in about seven years.  I don’t know if I can remember how to act!  I do envy Mrs. Dof a little with her location in a college town that presents a multitude of different musical situations.

But I’m happy growing older with the comfort of woods and wildlife around me.  It is not too far into the woods but breathing space enough for me.

Update:

Just like that——-All gone

Well that’s Michigan for you!!!

After the gifts were opened.  After the dinner was consumed.  After the families had gone home.  The holiday get together has ended.  All the decorations have done their job.  All the pressure was off and I found a funny feeling overtaking me.  Like a child laying in an inner tube floating slowly with the current.  No need to paddle along.  No need to go faster because there is no race to be run.  Just floating, turning in lazy circles and relaxing.  Very soon the life of appointments, doctors,  and hospitals will resume.  But for now I just float. 

What will this next year bring?  Will the many problems of this last year follow us into the new one?  Will my loved ones find work, with decent benefits?  Will good health be a part of their life style?  Will happiness rule their lives?  What answer will there be?  I don’t know. I can only keep floating until the answer appears.

For two months now I have watch this basket that contains this lovely doll and untold amounts of goodies.  It was at Oliver T’s in Grand Blanc, Mi.  As a prize in a drawing for raising funds for the Whaley Children Center in Flint Mi. I finally broke down and bought 6 tickets for it.  Now I have never won much more than $5. on a lottery ticket once, some dish towels at a shower, or a centerpiece at a dinner so imagine my delight when they called to tell me the basket was mine.  Whenever anyone asks who will I give it to I say ME. 

The other good thing is that after my second post op exam on my left eye I have 20/20 vision in it.  I will have the right eye fixed on Jan. 3rd then as my kids used to say I’ll be all better. 

So now hanging on the new fridge door is a list of ‘to dos’ to get ready for Christmas Eve dinner company so I better heist my butt out of this chair and get started.  Hope everything is going as planned for your holiday festivities.

From Vitamin Sea!

Important Christmas Meme

Here ya go, courtesy of Goldbloom:

1. What is the worst Christmas gift you ever received?  My first husband, the kids father. gave me a snow shovel for Christmas when I was pregnant with Wes but I have to admit it worked!

2. Two weeks before Christmas you win $1 million. You have to spend it all by the end of this year and you cannot buy anything for yourself. How do you celebrate the holidays?  I would buy a business in my kids names and put them all to work at a decent wage and not have them worry about getting laid off.

3. Do you have any family traditions? What are they and do you continue the tradition in your own household? – Yes Children and grandchildren come to my house on Christmas Eve for dinner and gifts.  My father did this when I was a little girl.  He said it wasn’t fair to drag the youngsters away from their gifts from Santa and their folks to travel to another house on Christmas day.  I have carried that on because it made sense.

4. What is your favorite smell from this season?  When Christmas Eve Dinner is being put on the table.  Honey baked ham, sweet potato balls, escalloped potatoes, asparagus, a green salad, corn, warm spinach dip with bread sticks, deviled eggs, relish plates, and a Christmas cake is the menu this year. 

5. Do you regift? (That’s when you get something you hate and give it to someone else on another Christmas later) – no I may put it away and a couple of years later see if one of the family wants it but not as a gift.

6. If you have kids, how hard do you try to preserve the myth of Santa Claus? What do you do to keep the Fat Man “alive?”  I do remember printing tags and saying that I didn’t have enough money to buy what the children wanted.  My oldest son went to great lengths to keep his kids believing, like tracks in the snow, phone calls from Santa, and other things.

7. When do you decorate your house and tree? When do you take everything down? Are you one of those batshit crazy people that does a countdown to Christmas (who anticipate that one day as if it is the birth of your firstborn)? -  Decoration go up starting the first week of December but the outside lights don’t go on except for a couple of hours on the weekend.  They will be lit every night until 10 pm starting the 20th.  I try to start ‘undecorating’ at least the outside the week after New Years Day but at one point in time the tree was still up on my birthday(2-22).  How sad is that? 

8. Do you sing along with the Christmas muzak in the stores? What’s your favorite Christmas song and which is the one that you hate so badly that you go postal and run amok in the aisles of Walmart when you hear it? -  Off Key singing is the way to go!  I have been known to sing my heart out in the truck but only hum in stores.  My favorite Carol is O Holy Night and my favorite song is Bob Seger’s Little Drummer Boy.  I really don’t have an unfavorite.

Play along in comments or on your own site!

Time for a Meme. Let’s do one about Yuletide. This one has been bouncing around on various sites so I figured I’d do it:

1. Egg nog or hot chocolate?  Egg nog over hot chocolate but I’m really a coffee hound.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa wrapped everything that could be wrapped.
3. Colored lights or white on tree/house?  Colored C9 to outline the house, Mini whites on the outside tree with lighted balls and colored C7 on the deck rail.  A mini white sled and two reindeer, with white and colored minis in different figures around the house and the upper windows(inside).  Our inside tree is mini colored and prewired.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? The last few years no -we just naturally kiss when we see each other.
5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually the first week of December with help from the family.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Honeybaked Ham which Cindyisms is providing this year.  Everyone will bring something to accompany it.
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? It was so many years ago but getting my two wheel bike was probably it.
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I can’t even remember except that I had three younger brothers and I had to pretend for quite awhile after I found out.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Very seldom but as my children became adults we started holding their Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve so their kids could be home on Christmas morning with their gifts from Santa.  My Dad started that tradition when I was very little and I kept it up because it made sense as well as making the kids happy.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?  We now have a prewired tree with colored mini lites.  The garland in silver,  the ornaments go from 35 or 40 years ago (depending on how many survive the packing and unpacking each year) to last year’s new ones.  We dispensed with icicles because Molly, our cat, love to eat them.  The few that clung to the ornaments have Brandy licking her chops to get at them. 
11. Snow, love it or dread it? At a younger age I loved it.  Diamonds sparkling in the sunshine was the thought that always came to mind.  But I age the fear of falling grows stronger and then the magic disappears.  The sadness is when over the last few years the lack of it at Christmas seemed to diminish the happiness of the holiday.
12. Do you know how to ice skate? I used to but at almost 72 I’m not brave enough anymore.
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? If I think back over 70 years it is hard to pick one out.  But if you count ones that come later than Christmas day I would have to say Wes, who was born on Dec. 31, Les who was born on Aug. 25, and Cindy who was born on July 7 because they brought a new way of life to me that I have reveled in for the last 40 some years.
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? The fact that the children and grandchildren are with us and enjoying themselves together. Give me a few more of them before it is too late.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Simple any flavor cake and ice cream.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition?  As I mentioned before the Christmas Eve get together.
17. What tops your tree?  A silver star with colored mini lites.
18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?  I think that giving is more satisfying be it family. close friends , or people who impact your life in a good way.
19. Favorite Christmas Song?  O Holy Night ever since I sang it in Christmas Concert In High School. I get a little thrill every time I hear “Fall on your knees”.
20. Favorite flavor of Candy Canes? I’m not much into candy canes but I do know peppermint is the best.

Stole this one from Neil’s World via SEB

Somehow seeing Molly laying on a white plastic bag seemed appropriate to describe the vision in my left eye.  If I close the right eye everything becomes brighter than it has been in years.  Things I thought were tan are actually white.  I am having a slight problem with reading with one eye fixed and the other not but I am still reading without glasses.  This is only my second day after surgery and using the prescribed drops I have no pain.  My right eye is scheduled tentatively for January 2nd and then we will have a final decision on the proceedure.

I can only say if the doctor has said that cataract surgery is needed please do yourself a favor and get it done because life isn’t as dark and dull as you see it now!

Here I sit like an old, rusty Buick in a muddy parking lot with one headlight poked out.  I would make Johnny Depp green with envy because me patch is shiney metal.  Yep the first eye is done and so far it is a walk in the park.  Cindy was with me to bring me home from the hospital and SEB is going to drive me to the doctor’s office for a post op exam in the morning.  This is my public thank you to them for being available for me. 

Stay warm and happy everyone!

I can see when you are a child on Christmas day.
I know when the school bell rings-time to be on your way.
Or church on Sunday for a lesson for your soul.
A baby to feed or helping someone who is old.

But when you are old and tired-find it hard to move.
When them tired feet and ankles just can’t find the groove.
Shouldn’t you be allowed to wait at least until it’s noon,
Because some days end so slowly but rest will end too soon.

You got to remember the pills you take.
The time to eat the breakfast that you make,
No I don’t want to sleep my life away my days are precious now.
But time for mind and body to rejuvenate is important some how.

So let the puppy’s bladder expand a little more.
Let the kitty wait a bit before scratching at the door.
Let the sun fully rise high up in the sky.
Let this old one’s rest be longer before the night does fly.