Thank you! I would say that we are more enthusiastic and adoring hosts of the festivities than thoughtful and gracious, but still. It’s just a lot of moving parts. Plus work is chaotic - people wanting to reschedule or cancel entirely because they’re overwhelmed, too, while others are popping up after absences because the holidays are triggering stuff and they’re falling apart.
But it’s only two weeks out, and this is the nature of both big families and working as a therapist. As of next Friday it’s all fun all the time for a week, culminating in a blended family bonanza, after which we say a grateful goodbye to our loved ones and I have a week of just-as-joyful quiet.
CG Max R2 D18/50 - banded hip thrust, upright row, banded RDL, pullover, fwd tilt rear step lunge, flies, diamond press - with 12 minute cardio warmup. This was a good day. I was fasted (forgot to eat again), but things went smoothly and I continue to increase weights. Felt like a good antidote to all the craziness of the holiday, e.g. yesterday it snowed more heavily than expected, so my last two appointments of the day had to be rescheduled into next week, which means the paperwork time I was trying to hold for myself is gone and it’s going to be a crushing week. But it’s just one week and then a two week break.
Tomorrow will make everything better, because I will (as God is my witness) get my house in order, which will make everything better. Currently we’re tripping over boxes and it looks like Christmas has puked all over everything. Finishing the decorating and clearing the clutter of it will go a long way toward alleviating my internal chaos. Also tomorrow will see the end to shopping hopefully.
Then I can puke presents and wrap crap all over the house. :-/
I was DEVASTATED to discover when I got home from work yesterday that my husband has scheduled a truck rental to move a big ass tractor home today, which it sounds like will take all day. We can go Saturday, but Saturday? ALL THE PEOPLE WILL BE THERE! Whereas on a Friday only some of the people will be there. I can - and may - go alone, but there are a number of talk-about things and the shopping is an hour and a half away, so we generally go together with our list of needed things, some of which turn out to be for ourselves. (We get dazzled when we go out into the greater world. “My God, they have EVERYTHING at Target! Let’s buy some of it!”)
We do all of our grocery shopping together. Last week I asked my husband if he would mind going alone as I had a large list of things that needed done around the house. He literally sulked and said “but we do the groceries together”. So I went to the store and he helped me get my housework done. Lol.
I absolutely loathe shopping for ANYTHING on Saturday. And this Saturday is spoken for as we are going to tour a college for my oldest. Today is strictly for Christmas shopping so I will be hitting only small business stores. We have so many around here and they usually have the coolest stuff. Hopefully I will excell and get it all done by 2:00. We shall see.
Ha! I went without him on Monday, and he was like ??? I had other errands to run and didn’t want to feel like I was dragging him around, for both our sakes. I wonder if he’s thinking I sulked last night? I was like “how long will it take?” and “but there are decisions” and “Saturday is so people-y.”
I still don’t know what I’m going to do. There are apparently several Amazon boxes in the garage and I need to get food if we’re to avoid starving, so I could busy myself here and go tomorrow. I’ve reached the point of complete indecision and overwhelm. I did opt out of an ice cream factory tour on Monday that’s 3 hours away. I’m sad about it because now they’re all going without me, but I want to go into the work week fresh, because man, can people be intense at this time of year. And reasonably so! One woman’s mother is actively dying and should be on hospice, but her father is refusing to “kill her” and so she’s freaking out that they’re torturing her and also don’t have any idea whether the mom will make it to Christmas or what, so how to plan, and also had just gotten a promotion that she’s absolutely in no condition to crush at the moment. Another’s husband had a medical crisis recently that’s left him unable to walk unassisted or be left alone (“what if there’s a fire”), and he has an ostomy that keeps leaking and spilling and she’s worried and tired and wants her kids to come home, but everything is so crazy already… And so on. The 22-year-old who has developed schizophrenia. Christmas is just so big, even when things are well.
What was my point? Oh yes. Shopping. I guess I’ll wait until tomorrow. I was up at 3-something this morning (I’m doing paperwork, NOT merely goofing off).
Ok. I have to see this. I’m actually kinda excited about it now.
I’m not like a super tractor guy, but the guy I did the church window stuff for- Huge tractor collector. Reportedly one of the largest in PA. Does a big ole thing every year with steam engines and old tractor stuff.
I am feeling very little stress this year (at least so far). Over the last few years I have stopped shopping out of obligation. I always felt that there were certain people I had to shop for. Now I buy things if I find something that I feel someone would like, rather than searching for something to buy. If that makes sense. It has significantly reduced my stress. That, and I refuse to shop for my father-in-law. He has returned 2 separate gifts to me with notes explaining why he was returning them. I think he thought he was being funny, but after the second one I told my husband he was on his own for that gift. The next year my husband bought him a bunch of specialty coffee grounds and in February his mom gave ALL OF THEM back to my husband because his dad apparently “quit drinking coffee” directly after Christmas. Last year I gave him a tin of homemade cookies and he actually seemed to enjoy those. So that’s what he is getting from now on. Lol. But my Christmas expectations are pretty low. We will host Christmas Eve with my husband’s family. I will make homemade cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning as is out tradition (they are so very good). We will go to Christmas day with the other side of his family. No gift exchange on either gathering this year (thank goodness). That’s about it. My husband and I don’t generally exchange gifts and my children are exceedingly easy to please (years of setting the bar low has paid off:rofl:). I’m just looking forward to good food and some quiet time with the three men who fill my life with love and joy.
This is a side note. Sorry to throw it in your log, but I feel it is something you would appreciate. One of the teachers at my boy’s school does a can donation competition every year in December. My oldest is extremely competitive. This year he purchased over 1100 items to donate. Now, some of that money came from me, but about 60% was from his own savings from his 4 hour a week minimum wage job. I asked him last night what he got out of winning. He said “first, I get to help poor people. Second, since my class has the most donations, we get donuts”. So he spent about $400 of his own money to get donuts. I love that kid. He absolutely kills me. So just to clarify, at the moment he is #1 in individual donations, but his buddy from cross country is also in his class and has donated over 1000 items and was going out to buy more last night to take my boys spot. I don’t think I can think of a better way to try to one up each other.
Don’t even whisper those words in my computer - I don’t want anyone to get any funny ideas! Altho actually, Hockey Guy feels that each is needed for its own special essential utility. The biggest one, below, is not coming home. That will be a smaller one, which I don’t know that I’ve ever seen, for plowing the driveway when it’s too snowy for the 4x4. But he doesn’t have to rent a more powerful pickup and heavier-duty trailer for the 4x4, snowmobile/s (not sure one or two of these, I think two), or old-timey Ford tractor, with which he mows the field/s (not sure whether one or many fields, lol) on his land. It’s not a lawn tractor, but it’s not a beast at all. Like something you’d see a farmer using in 1940, which may be its era. We had a riding mower/lawn tractor, but he gave that to his daughter because it was too small for our 2.6 acres, which we pay to have mowed (lol). And then there’s the commercial-grade excavator, which I don’t think I have pics of, but which is what you’d see working on the side of the highway. Ginormous by any reasonable standard. But he needs the excavator because otherwise how would he fill the massive dump truck with dirt and rocks and gravel to move from one place to another? There’d be no way. Obviously. So you see? Not a collection at all. TOOLS. For important work.
It makes total sense! I’d like to move away from adult gifts, but not everyone agrees, and probably never will, so we keep trying to find a way to make it easy and fun. Currently we do what we call “stockings,” which means that we buy everyone the same thing, “something that anyone would want/need,” but last year we divided it into men buy for men and women for women. The stuff would never fit in an actual stocking, but that’s where the idea came from. We open everything together - I give my gift and we all open it (usually we get them for ourselves as well, as it’s something everyone wants, so we want one, too), then move on to the next gift and all open. We may rethink it this year, or just mill around in confusion until a year has passed and we agree to just do the same thing again “for this year, and we’ll think about changing up next year.”
Your father-in-law sounds like a…hoot. Lol.
And your son like a darling! It’s the best feeling, maternal pride in your good, good kid. My daughter is a foster mother, and although the kiddo himself drives me crazy (he’s on the spectrum and does literal zoomies from side to side of rooms, making loud, repetitive noises) I’m so proud of her for loving “his good little heart.” I love HER good little heart!
At 20 yo and 220lbs my son still does this. When he first started going with me, people got a little freaked out. I don’t even hear it after 20 years.
He knows to do it outside because people don’t understand. In one neighborhood I had to tell him not to do it because the “fancy people” will call the cops He can control it now but when we get home it has to come out.
Our guy is getting better in a lot of ways. His mom crashed their car high on heroin and badly injured a couple of the 5 (I think, maybe 4) kids and killed the dog when DCF pulled him out of the home, and dad was in jail, so he grew up rough and had very little guidance as a little kid. We’ve had him 1.5 years now, and he’s just turned 9.
I don’t know that it’s so much a problem when they’re here without the rest of the family, but most often when we see them we’re 11-12 people with 4-5 little kids. It’s a lot. But it was a lot without him, too, lol. He really is a sweet kid.
Jed is sooooo much better than we ever could have imagined. I am so thankful everyday for him and how sweet he is.
It was rough when he was around that age. The turning point for Jed was covid (the first, bad kind). I don’t know if it rewired his brain, slowed it down or just scared the crap out of him but, something changed for the better.
It is just my wife and I this year. She works Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Great pay, but a bit solitary. Shopping alone is golden. The last time I have shopped with anyone was two summers ago. We took my parents to Costco. My gaffer had two strokes about five years ago. He was ornery before (has always been…). Those strokes just ramped that up. We get in the middle of Costco and he starts acting like a (I hate to type this…) dick. So my wife, all 105 lbs. of her walks up, looks at him, and says “I do not care how hot it is outside. If you keep acting like this we will sit in the car.” He started behaving. Only she can get away with talking to him like that. So enjoy the Season!
Update. My husband has decided to go Christmas shopping with me. So my budget just got cut in half. Guess I will have to pick another day to finish all the stuff that “we can’t afford” (we totally can).
I was planning to lift today, but I’ve had serious DOMS from two days ago, or am having a huge inflammation flare, maybe both. We’re helping my son move tomorrow, and I don’t want to impair myself for that. I did get in a two mile walk with the dog.
Weight is down, but I had wine last night, so I’m assuming dehydration is more at play than real weight change.
Update on the tractor - it never made it home. Too much snow on the mountain, he couldn’t get it up the first big hill. So he’s got to get chains for the wheels and try again. Wasted truck rental $150.
We went shopping yesterday and are in better shape. Maybe one thing away from done.
I can - and may - go alone, but there are a number of talk-about things and the shopping is an hour and a half away, so we generally go together with our list of needed things, some of which turn out to be for ourselves. (We get dazzled when we go out into the greater world. “My God, they have EVERYTHING at Target! Let’s buy some of it!”)
Today is strictly for Christmas shopping so I will be hitting only small business stores. We have so many around here and they usually have the coolest stuff. Hopefully I will excell and get it all done by 2:00. We shall see.
Guess I will have to pick another day to finish all the stuff that “we can’t afford” (we totally can).