Somewhere out there is a gif of a stick figure running around a square and never getting anywhere. I was going to use that one here but I couldn't find it.
So Thanksgiving is more or less over. Tomorrow I plan to make up our last pie to give us dessert to last until Saturday, which is the last day of Hell Week around here. I have nearly finished all of the naughty ornaments for the party, only one left to go, which I am tempted to just do and get done today. But at the same time I am several days behind on my stocking, which I am also tempted to work on, and I am well and truly behind on my current published stories, which is also vexing me. I might just churn out a few chapters of story and then finish the last ornament so I can work on my stocking in peace for a few days.
Of course this is all compounded by my knees, which are not doing well. I've been taking the advice of my doctor and trainer and husband and staying off them, only stretching the muscles around them a few times a day. Stretching feels wonderful, of course, but otherwise they are getting worse. Six months ago I was able to ride 5 miles at a stretch and was considering training up for a quarter-century (25 miles) next summer. Yesterday I was in so much pain I was having trouble hobbling around my apartment. I would go in and get this fixed but long story short money is an issue. All I will say is that if you are behind in your bills calling others out publicly for fiscal issues is more than a little hypocritical. That said this should be fixed in he near future and then I'm going in to get this checked out. As it is I'm afraid to hang my acid rain* snowflakes in my window for fear of irritating my knees and I need to make a stop at JoAnn's tonight.
Another irritation over the last few days involves missing Christmas items. I've always collected Hallmark miniature ornaments, ever since high school when I was stuck in the dorms much of the time and my nanny's** 2nd husband insisted on a "designer" tree every year. You know the kind, one color of glass balls, one color of garland, one color of bows scattered about and a large one for a topper, all color coordinated. Red and gold, silver and pink, purple and blue, make your house look like an office building. I started a mini-tree for myself, and adored it for years. These days I display my mini collection on a wreath in my kitchen/dining area.
Apologies for the truly crapalicious picture there. I store the mini ornaments in their original packaging and boxes in 3x5 card boxes, so they stay together and as added protection.
I pack them in a big red and green storage box along with both the display wreath and the display tree and all the bits that go with it. So it's all neatly organized and safe.
And somehow I managed to misplace a box of ornaments. Seven of them from the late 80's and early 90's, just gone. I also lost a stocking, a very lovely one, given to us by one of our groomsmen, which is usually the stocking I hang for absent friends every year. I have no idea how these two items escaped from the holiday boxes, except that they have and I have no idea where they've gone. The stocking has somehow migrated out from time to time, let out when it came time to put away, so it might turn up, but I don't know about that box of ornaments. And the loss of one of them vexes me greatly.
It doesn't seem like much but in 1989 laser cut ornaments were the latest thing. One year right around then an amusement park near us named
Great America opened for Christmas. I don't know if they didn't advertise well or if it was because it was pouring rain but on the day my nanny and I went we were practically the only ones there. Can you imagine having an amusement park all to yourself
and having it all decorated for the holidays? I love holiday decorations, they give me the literal shivers, and everyone was so nice to the only customers so I ended up having the most amazing time. Nanny bought two of those laser cut ornaments as souvenirs from the park, which I never saw again after that season, so this little one reminds me of that wonderful trip. I will be replacing it soon because I really don't mind having two of them at all. Thankfully the secondary market for those little ornaments is robust, so they're around to buy. And eventually I will collect all the ones I missed, some will go in shadow boxes for year-round display, and some will go on the wreath and perhaps even the little tree, if I can find a cat-safe way of doing it. Husband will just have to live with that.
* Acid rain snowflakes are what you get when you crochet cobweb snowflakes, block them in thinned out white glue, and pin them out with pins that are supposed to be rust-proof, but aren't. You end up with rust-spots which do not wash out. So you can either crochet more, which I might someday, or live with acid rain snowflakes/
** Most people would call Nanny my mother. However over the past few years I have come to realize that if 1) you didn't want to be pregnant, 2) someone pays you to carry the pregnancy instead of having the abortion you were planning, 3) someone pays you to stick around to raise the child and care for the house and 4) you were never emotionally invested in any of it, you were just in it for the money, you're not really a mother. You're a surrogate/nanny/housekeeper. But if you never actually clean house you're not really a Housekeeper. and if you stuck around after giving birth you are more than a surrogate, so Nanny will have to do. My "mother;", the woman who loved me and wanted me and would have raised me on her own and who
paid for me, died when I was eight after a long battle with cancer. Nanny received her final pay-out in 2013 and has not been seen or heard from since.
