Morganise Monday

morganise ~ to secretly do away with

Another Christmas under our belts and the year is almost over. And if you want to know the truth, I’m not sorry in the least to see the end of 2018. It’s been a crappy, crappy year and I was done with its shenanigans months ago.

And it STILL hasn’t been snowy or cold enough to wear my new boots!

There’s usually at least some good to go along with the bad, but looking back all I can see is the bad stuff that’s happened – the disappointments, the setbacks, the unexpected illnesses… And then whilst perusing Facebook one day I saw a picture of something called a blessing jar.

The idea is that in January you start with an empty jar. Each week you write down a good thing that’s happened and add it to the jar. On New Year’s Eve you empty the jar and read about the amazing year you had.

Sounds like a neat idea, doesn’t it? I liked it so much that I not only bought myself a jar, I got one for a couple of friends who’ve had a bad year as well. Maybe we can compare notes at the end and see who came out on top. The challenge will be to have a good year.

There’s good news and bad news about my poor, sick kitty. The good news is that he’s feeling better, good enough to fight getting his medication in fact. And he’s back to walking normally and howling the house down. The bad news is that this is just a temporary reprieve. He has kidney disease as well as a compressed disk in his back, so this is most likely his last Christmas. But as I said, he’s doing better right now and hopefully he has several good months to enjoy yet.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, then you know another unexpectedly bad thing that happened was the hubby’s brush with cancer. After an operation that removed 70 % of his intestines and six months of chemotherapy his prognosis is good, but for a long while things didn’t seem so optimistic.

The daughter decided to offset this bad happening of 2018 by making a donation to the cancer unit of our local hospital, and the grandbaby got in on the action by donating her hair to be made into a wig for a cancer patient.

While it’s sad to see that beautiful hair gone, I’m so proud of her. And look at that face, she was excited to be able to do it.

This kid seriously has a handle on the season of giving. I have a feeling my blessing jar will have a lot of her in it.

Merry Monday, Christmas Eve

In keeping with my personal holiday tradition, today I’m posting Christmas videos from the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. If you’ve never seen them before then you’re in for a treat.

And just to save you the trouble of checking out my other blog, I’m posting this to both of them so no one misses out. :-D

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Wizards of Winter



Christmas Canon



Christmas Eve in Sarajevo

Molinary Monday

molinary ~ of, like or pertaining to mills or grinding

You know, it’s a little hard to get into the spirit of Christmas when it’s so freaking warm outside! Forget the gloomy grey skies – I could deal with the gloom if we were getting snow instead of rain. But we’re not. It’s been raining off and on for the last several days.

I got new snow boots delivered last Monday and I wore them once, just because I could. But it’s really been too warm for boots. It’s too warm for the flannel shirt I’m wearing too so after I finish this post I think I’ll go change into a tee-shirt . . . like I wore all last week.

Speaking of deliveries…I thought we were supposed to be in the middle of a postal strike? You sure couldn’t tell from the amount of mail we’ve been getting. The post office is even delivering on weekends to catch up to the back log. I’m still waiting on a few deliveries, but I think that has more to do with the companies who’re sending the stuff than our postal service.

And remember that beautiful dragonfly blanket I ordered at the end of August? I’ve pretty much given up on it. Not because of our postal service, but because the company no longer exists. Buyer beware when it comes to the internet. Chose your products (and the companies they come from) wisely.

Just to round out my Christmas angst…I have a sick cat on my hands too. Taz is 18 years old and at first we thought he was just feeling his age, but he started having problems moving his hind quarters so off to the vet we went. He has a compressed disk near the base of his spine so he’s on painkillers for now and we’ll probably start him on steroids this week.

Is it any wonder I’m not feeling the Christmas spirit?

So just to cheer everyone up, here are a couple of Christmas videos:

I'm Climbing Up the Christmas Tree



Animals of YouTube Sing Deck the Halls

Minimism Monday

minimism ~ inclination to reduce a dogma to the least possible

You know, the problem with having a busy weekend followed by a day off from babysitting is that Monday tends to feel like Sunday. And you’d think despite spending the day shopping, followed by making the usual big dinner for the daughter and her family Sunday would have felt like Sunday, but nevertheless, this is why today’s post is late.

Not only does today feel like Sunday, I actually slept in this morning. Okay, not so much slept in as lounged in bed for an extra 45 minutes because it’s another grey, miserable day outside today. Plus I’m feeling pretty grey and miserable myself with a sinus infection. Good thing I get to see my doctor this week.

The Christmas shopping, and most of the wrapping, is done. The hubby and I went up to Peterborough (about an hour’s drive north) yesterday and as we were headed from one mall to another I suddenly realized we were supposed to go to Oshawa (about an hour’s drive west) because Peterborough doesn’t have a Toys ‘R Us and we needed to exchange one of the grandbaby’s gifts.

Notice how all our shopping seems to be about an hour’s drive away from here, no matter what direction you take?

The decorating, such as it is, is pretty much done as well. The hubby put lights outside around the windows, and a row of candy canes in the garden. We also have two of those light projectors – one with just green and red lights, the other with green and red candy canes that kind of dance around on the side of the house. I also sprung for a real wreath for the front door – I’ve been wanting one for years.

Inside the house is not quite as festive. One of the pitfalls of the hubby being retired is that he no longer brings home a poinsettia from the office, so I went out and bought my own. And then, on Saturday morning, after much plotting and planning and rearranging of things in the dining room (mostly just getting rid of crap that didn’t need to be in there), I went out and bought a real, live Christmas tree.

I can’t remember the last time I had a real Christmas tree, but I found one that’s small enough to fit on the drop leaf table that divides the living and dining rooms, and as I proved last night we can still all eat at the dining room table. So far I only have the lights on it, but I’ll dig out the rest of the decorations today and post a picture of it next week.

Meanwhile, the other goal today is to get all of the out of town presents in the mail. Well, all except for the ones for my sisters. I ordered theirs online and I haven’t got them yet.

Sorry, sisters! You gifts might be a little late this year.

Malleiform Monday

malleiform ~ shaped like a hammer

Whew! I did it. I survived another National Writing month. And for my efforts I have another unfinished novel to add to my collection. LOL

So, since I did not have to spend Saturday chained to my lap top frantically writing those last few thousand words, I did what any normal person would do with Christmas just three weeks away, I went shopping.

First I hit the thrift stores where I picked up a couple of Barbies (to go with the small Barbie house I got for free) as a pre-Christmas present for the grandbaby. I also picked up, uh, three ski jackets for myself.

I have a nice winter coat, but it’s not really suitable for when I play in the snow with the grandbaby. So I found a blue, car-coat length one at the thrift store I usually have good luck with coats in, and then I found two more in a different thrift store. I wasn’t really sure if any of them would fit but I figured at least one of them would and I could just donate the others.

Unfortunately, they all fit and they each have their appeal. I like the blue one because it’s easy to move around in and it’s a little longer. I like the beige one because it doesn’t have a hood and it’s a little shorter. And I like the black faux leather one because it’s dressier and it has a hood. Yes. I’m keeping them all.

Continuing my shopping binge, Saturday afternoon the hubby and I drove an hour east to the mall in Belleville to do a little Christmas shopping. Actually, we did a LOT of Christmas shopping. At a rough guess, I’d say we knocked off about two thirds of our Christmas list.

As the hubby pointed out, it was probably the most painless Christmas shopping experience we’ve had … ever. A few things we considered early on and made note of to come back to if we didn’t find something better, and some things we just bought on sight. Surprisingly, the two stores we’ve usually had such good luck with in the past – Winners and Toys ‘R Us – were duds this year. We bought nothing at Winners, and we only bought a couple of things at Toys ‘R Us, one of which was for me. ;-)

Then Sunday while the hubby was at a bowling tournament, I spent the day wrapping what we bought. It took the entire day (minus the amount of time it took to buy more wrapping paper) but it was worth it. No frantic wrapping marathon on Christmas Eve for me!

So how about you? Have you started your Christmas shopping yet?