Dec. 26 Boxing day

There are so many memories of Christmas past. Many more to come I hope, though things have changed so much from when the boys were little and our Christmas mornings were filled with piles of torn paper, empty boxes and Lego's everywhere.

I am looking forward to their kids, and mayhem and mess all over again.

The photo above is of my sister and brother, I am the skinny waif in the blue skirt. Brother Bill is in mid rock on the much loved horsie, he nearly wore the springs off of the thing and my sweet sister with her Mona Lisa smile.

This year has been an exceptionally odd and stress filled holiday season, just two weeks ago my sis was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive melanoma, right now she is sporting several huge incisions and multiple staples but she is, for now, and God willing always, cancer free.

Her family has had multiple trials recently but the excellent results of her cancer surgery is a great gift, one of the best any of us has ever received.

Today I am boxing up the Christmas decorations, though it is not the traditional meaning of Boxing Day, that is what I am calling it anyway. So today is for cleaning, boxing up Christmas crap as it is lovingly called and preparing for knee replacement surgery tomorrow.

I am not happy about that I must confess. The idea of bone surgery is a tad freakish.

With a little luck and some hard work, by spring I will be able to walk the dogs and work in the yard, rebuilt my fish pond and do many of the things I have not done for a couple of years now.

I am planning on taking advantage of the pain killers too, usually I don't use them but I think I will this time, happily and with abandon, to hell with the idea of toughing it out!

Somewhere some mom is missing out on her child's creation. I plucked this heavily glittered charmer out of a snow bank near the elementary school. With no name on it, and the zero likely hood of finding it's creator, I brushed the snow off and took it home, it now hangs on my office wall. Kid-art is the best art of all. I love it, wish the camera could capture the true effect of excessive glitter, it's quite nice.

And a few days ago I finished up the quilting on the bird quilt. It used up nearly 15000 yards of white thread. So it is done and put away, the photos sent off for the competition and I hope they send for it so they can see the detail in person. It would be nice to win but I never get my hopes up. Pointless waste of time. Just do it and let it go, if it is meant to be it will be.

Right now as I write this I am having an internal debate as to cleaning the laundry room and really scrubbing things down before surgery tomorrow or just sitting here on my ass and doing nothing. We do need to make a grocery store run to make sure there are supplies for the men in the house to eat and heat up since they are usually fed by yours truly, but other than that I really don't want to do much of anything, so the sitting on my ass idea is winning.

Oh and I have to tell you, another really bright spot this year, was a hand written thank you note from a three year old in the church, I adore this precocious child, she cracks me up, and the tiny toddler in red and white striped jammies who invited me into her humble house with the sweetest little "come-in, come-in" then hugged my leg even though she had never seen me before, and the kindness of friends, the notes in the mail, my family whole and healthy, sons well and all together, bright spots, good things, kindness and love......I am grateful.

May you all have a wonderful coming year, hold your dear ones close and hang on for the ride!