What a week! I am EXHAUSTED. It was a really great week, but I feel seriously hungover and depleted today. December is flying by and oh so busy. Last week was a lot of fun, but I’m hoping life in general gets a bit less chaotic these last few weeks of the year.
Shepard got his glasses a few days early on Tuesday! He’s adjusted to them remarkably well. I thought it would be a pain getting him to wear them all the time, but he’s taken responsibility for them like a pro. He cleans them twice a day, picked out a couple different cases to keep in different spots if he needs to take them off, and has generally just happily accepted them as part of his life now. I think he looks adorable in them!
We had a great family night on Tuesday, making perler bead ornaments that Twinkle (the elf) brought us. I never got around to buying us family ornaments this year, but I like these even better.
Trying to be festive, I bought a bag of chestnuts and we roasted them while we worked. The internet told me they had to be peeled while they were still hot, so I proceeded to burn the pads off all ten of my fingers getting the shells off. I legitimately burned all my fingers and it’s caused me quite a lot of issues trying to do EVERYTHING else this week. So annoying! And I thought they tasted disgusting. A few people have told me since that I probably should have roasted them longer than the directions told me, but I have a hard time believing I would have liked them at any level of roasting. Ick.
On Wednesday there was a scheduled late start and I spent the whole day prepping the house for my Favorite Things party. I should have been working on it earlier in the week, but I was too distracted trying to wrap presents. Even though I did most of the decorating weeks ago, the house was finally clean enough to take pictures of it!
Our main advent calendar. Greg gave this to me the first year we were married, I think. It’s held up pretty well! I’ve gotten pretty lazy the last two years and mostly just stuff it with different kinds of Andes candies because they fit the best.
The family room at its cleanest. You can see part of the twinkling white lights Greg and Shepard strung up around the entire room.
Our little skinny tree that brings more festive cheer to the room most of the family spends the majority of their time in.
One of my favorite Christmas candles to light because I love the cinnamon buttercream scent and woodwick fireplace noises. Unfortunately, two minutes before my party was supposed to start this candle set off the carbon monoxide alarm above it. I didn’t know that was a thing, but apparently it is? And because it was carbon monoxide instead of smoke it took me ages to get it to shut off. Fortunately nobody was at the party when it was supposed to start, so nobody had to know! 😀
Still my favorite little part of the house. So happy, especially when I light the fireplace candles. I love all the stockings and the nativity my grandma painted for me.
And my reading corner. LOVE.
My contribution to the party was my big cheese tray. So yummy.
I wrote more about the party the other day, so I won’t rehash it again. But it was so much fun! Annie also loved being in the thick of everything. She was so wiped out by the end that she fell asleep on my friend’s feet!
Thursday was St. Nick’s Day. Greg got mad at me for going too overboard last year, so I tried to reign it in a bit this year. I know it still looks like a lot, but I promise it wasn’t. Everybody got a bag of their favorite candy and a book and the boys each got a box of poptarts and a slap bracelet. The whole family got a new board game and a Christmas puzzle to encourage more family time.
The cats got bags of treats which they apparently are now crazy excited about and kept obsessing over all day Friday. They don’t normally get treats, but now they act like they’re starving to death. Annie too this week. I don’t think she likes the food she has because she almost never eats it, but has been finding tons of naughty ways to sneak people food. She’s really been pretty hyper this whole week. We’ve gone to the dog park every day, but she is crazy wild again by afternoon. It’s kind of frustrating. It’s going to be a long winter.
Greg had an eye appointment on Friday morning and got news that he needs glasses too. He refused to buy them at the huge office markup and ordered a pair online for $35… We’ll see how that goes. Caden is feeling pretty left out and wishes he had glasses now too.
The boys had a sleepover at Grandma’s on Friday night and we had our annual Madison Christmasy date night. It was pretty chilly, though, so we didn’t walk around State Street the way we usually do. Because of lack of non-event parking, we ended up at Lucky’s 1313. It was good! I loved the giant pretzel, which is just our new favorite thing to order anywhere. My tater tots were great too. The wrap was not very exciting. I ate most of it for lunch on Saturday instead.
We stopped at Trader Joe’s before going home since we were in the area. I think I’m finally stocked up on the cookie boxes I wanted to give to a bunch of people this year in lieu of making a ton of my own treats. It was a really nice night. I wish we made the effort to go on dates like that more often.
Saturday was pretty crazy. Greg had to go pick up the boys by 8:15 because Caden was headed off on a birthday party at Cascade Mountain to go tubing. Greg also left at nine to go to an all day gaming party. I was madly working on my (maybe) last batch of Christmas dolls. Then Shepard and I went to the dog park for awhile before heading out to a birthday party he was going to at the YMCA. After dropping him off I had to come back to Columbus to pick up Caden and his friend and head back to the Y for them to swim too. After the party we went to Wendy’s for dinner and then had a low key night with them gaming and me working. The day actually went a lot more smoothly than I expected and I only had to deal with a lot of whining at bedtime. But it was very exhausting.
I started working at 5:30 this morning, desperate to finish up my last six Christmas dolls. I’m pretty disappointed in how few I had time to make this last month. Life is just so busy. I have no problems selling the majority of the dolls I make, so it’s frustrating when I can’t produce up to my own personal standards. But…I just have to be okay with it. I wanted to continue to work this week, but I think there are too many other directions my attention needs to focus on. It took me four hours to finish this batch up this morning and I was stressed out every minute of it. I think I’m ready for the break.
Sunday Intentions
On to this week! I’m feeling pretty stressed out because I find out on Wednesday if I need the bone graft surgery or not. I’ve had this hanging over my head since July, but it’s become a lot more real and overwhelming the last few weeks. We’re starting to feel like even if I do need it, it’s probably not going to be squeezed in this month. Which is a relief time wise, but I’m SO not happy about the potential of starting another year with huge surgery and accompanying medical bills. I’m trying not to stress out about it until I actually know one way or another. But I still feel like I need to be basically ready for Christmas by Wednesday morning and I am NOT ready at all.
My main goal for the first half of this week is to get all the presents wrapped. I’d say I’m about 95% done shopping now. There are just a few more things I need to pick up which I’m hoping to do on my errand day Tuesday. But if I can just focus and get down to business, I think I can do almost all the remaining wrapping tomorrow. If I break out of this funk I’ve been in today. I’ve done absolutely nothing but read and lay around since I finished my dolls seven hours ago.
The second half of the week I will hopefully be excited and relieved to know that I don’t need surgery and then I can finally relax and enjoy the rest of the holiday season! I want to do a ton of reading. A little bit of baking. And I want to start exercising again. With the snow last weekend I drove the boys to school every day this week and I’m starting to feel it. Driving them allows me a no excuse way to head straight to the dog park every morning, but I think we could both really use the walking time too. I’m pretty sure all potential icy spots are gone by now, so I need to get back out there. And if it snows/rains again, I NEED to find a way to exercise in the house and actually do it!
And that’s about it! I will surely post an update on Wednesday after the doctor. Pray for good news!
