Cramp Report - One on Christmas Eve

The only cramp I've had since I put that bar of soap under the sheet is on Christmas Eve. It was a nasty one, too. I had to get out of bed and put weight on that lake, which immediately melted the pain ... which then came rushing back within moments. It's a very strange feeling. The cramping lasted for about an hour. I'd had a banana that day, too. My feet and legs were particularly achy when I went to bed that night, probably from so much standing. Too much standing.

I haven't been eating bananas every day over the holidays. In fact, I've hardly eaten any bananas at all. And yet no cramps other than Christmas eve. Hmmmmm ...

We Don't Call Her Sporty Gill for Nothin'!

Gill is such a good sport. After interest in felt moustaches faded and yet there was still all that wool roving on the table and the tape ... Kayla decided to play "plastic surgeon". It started with applying a woolly mole to Gillian. And then things got a little nutty with the tape. Very lucky that Gillian isn't allergic to tape! Much laughter ensued.

Sorry, Kayla. I don't think these photos will get you into med school. I vote for Gillian BEFORE tape surgery.

The Girls!

My sides still ache from the hilarity that comes with having "the girls" together at our place. Kayla, Gillian, Hannah. They only had one drink. HONEST!

Kayla was interested in learning how to make a felted acorn so we did that. She needle felted and wet felted until she had her very own little woolly acorns. With her newly gained needle felting skills, soon moustaches were being needle felted. I have about 50 photos of the girls in their various configurations of felt facial hair. So funny!

Kayle and Gillian brought me some very cute breast-cancer fighting mittens. I'll wear them like boxing gloves ... beating the crap out of the remnants of breast cancer treatments. I DO NOT have breast cancer anymore but I still have a few ghosts to shake. I'm sure the feeling is somewhat akin to post-traumatic stress. Breast cancer fighting mittens will help.

Hannah and Luke at Christmas

It's a family tradition that Luke and Hannah open their gifts to each other on Christmas eve. This year they gave each other the very same shirts, just different colours.

I do love having my kids home for the holidays. We've been lucky in that so far they've both always been able to come home.

Christmas!

We've had a very, very nice Christmas holiday!

Hannah designed and, with the help of her friend Graham who is in the t-shirt making business, made this t-shirt for her Dad. It incorporates all things Kevin.

Sylvia and Don hosted a fabulous Christmas dinner with all the trimmings and then some.

Mom now has her very own Bellarmine wear for cheering on Luke.

It Just Isn't Christmas ...

... without Hannah's and Luke's friends coming by! Tonight we saw Cody and Matt and Kayla and Mike.

I LOVE seeing them and catching up on their more recent adventures. Cody had lots of interesting stories from his time in Georgia where he's teaching English as a second language. He's grown a mighty stash since I last saw him.

Kayla and Mike's wedding plans are coming along, which I think is very exciting! We reminded them that they would surely need a librarian and a fish nerd at their wedding.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

Cramp Update - NONE TO REPORT!

Could it possibly be the soap? Or the bananas? Or would I not be getting them regardless? Straaaange!

Fingerless Gloves in Five Minutes!

I had seen this idea a while ago and it's so easy, I just had to try it. Hannah likes fingerless gloves. It's not so cold in Vancouver, so fingerless ones are usually plenty warm enough and one can easily phone and text with them.

Hannah and I made these tonight in about 5 minutes. I had a couple of cashmere sweaters with holes in them so I had earlier washed them in HOT water and tossed them in the dryer to "felt them". They hadn't shrunken up (or "felted") as much as I had hoped, so I threw them in again and the blue sweater finally did what I wanted it to. The charcoal grey sweater hasn't shrunk as much so I'll try it again later. It's the one I most wanted to make gloves out of because it would match Hannah's grey scarf. Since the blue sweater shrunk up nicely, all we had to do to make fingerless gloves is cut off the arms - you can make them as long or short as you want - and then make a 1 inch snip with the scissors for Hannah's thumbs to poke through. Easy peasy! She loves them but she'll love the grey ones more.

Doesn't our kitchen make a good modeling background? We should rent out the space to photographers.

Meet Dexter!

Dexter came on Monday to spend the holidays with us. He's Dwayne and Shelley's bearded collie and we love him! He's the breed of dog we would like. One of the breeds we like, anyway.

He had a cute little top knot in his hair when he arrived but that didn't last long. He stuck his nose in some weeds and came out with a bunch of burrs stuck in the fur around his face so Kevin spent some time pulling them out. He crushed each burr with pliers first and then they slipped out relatively easily.

Dexter helped Kevin with the Christmas tree lights and then made himself at home on our bed. If I get up in the night to use the bathroom, when I come back Dexter has taken my place. I snuggle in beside him and in a while he moves to the bottom of the bed. He's much more attached to Kevin than me.

Hannah took him for a big walk and play at the park today.

She's Ho-ome!

Hannah. She's home. She flew in from Vancouver on Monday afternoon. *sigh* It's wonderful to have both she and Luke home for a while.

We finally got the tree decorated Monday night. We are SO behind in our Christmas preparations. I'm running on fumes.

Mom and Gary were here from Thursday until Sunday. They came in to see Josh and Noelene and for Graham's birthday. They'll be back on Friday for a little bit of Christmas with us. I took Monday off work to get some things done before Hannah arrived. It also turned out to be a wonderful opportunity to meet Kathleen, who is the sister of a couple of my Splurge Club Angels. She's actually an "angel", too, in that she was so helpful to me when I was first diagnosed with breast cancer. I had never met her in person and hadn't communicated with her for over a year. She brought her Mom by our house to do some "guppy club" business with Kevin, giving Kathleen and I some time to catch up. It was so good for me to hear more about how Kathleen is finding life after breast cancer treatments. While I'm sorry that she still feels the fall-out from that experience, it was very good for me to hear that perhaps I'm not just crazy and that the mental and physical fatigue I still feel is very common. The lingering chemo brain ... the cognitive challenges ... the memory issues ... I'm not alone. I felt so much better after meeting and talking with Kathleen.

So ... tonight I wrapped and am feeling happy to be a little more on top of things than I was. As long as I don't try to think too far ahead and just do one thing at a time, I don't get so overwhelmed. As long as I don't think of all the things I would like to get done in the next day or two. Baby steps. Baby steps. Christmas will be wonderful no matter how much I don't accomplish.

Josh & Noelene - Wedding Plans

Josh and Noelene visited the city last week. They work over the holidays so they had early Christmas here with Darrel, Lynn, and Kathy and on Thursday night with extended family, we had a bit of an engagement party!

The wedding will be here in April. Noelene and Josh were able to make many arrangements while they were here. Very exciting!

Could the Soap be Working?

One has to wonder. I haven't had a night time cramp since I stuck those two bars of soap in my bed! Hmmm ...

At the same time I also got back to eating a banana every day so maybe it's the banana.

Maybe I wouldn't have had a cramp these past few days anyway.

It's a cramping mystery.

I do get hints of cramps during the day if I twist my foot sideways for any reason or if I go up onto my toes. I can usually catch them before they take hold. "Warning cramps", I call them. But, so far, no night time ones since those nasty ones earlier this week.

And now ... off to a Christmas function, which is pretty much what I (we) have been doing every night this week.

Do I have a tree up? Nooooo ...

Do I have any baking or cooking or food planning done? Noooooo ...

Do I have all my shopping done? Nooooooo ...

Do I have ANY wrapping done? Nooooo ....

Have I sent ANY cards? Nooooooo ...

Do I care right now? Well, maybe a little bit. Yes, I do, in fact, but there's no point getting all bent out of shape about it.

Christmas comes whether you're ready or not and it's always a great time anyway. I hold on to that theory.

Happy Birthday, Graham!!

Happy Birthday, Dawson!