December 7, 2025 Sunday

Greetings!  

Late last Sunday night Leah came down and worked on the blind in the living room.  Allie seemed totally perplexed... 

...as to why Leah was standing around in the living room and we weren't even talking because she needed to concentrate.  That remote just didn't want to work.

Meanwhile, I came across a box of the last things I had in the studio before I moved!  Dagan and Leah had packed up all the final things for me that week after Allie and I moved.

Put them in the art rollie carts, too.  So I even have my Tombow markers and a set of colored pencils to play with if I ever feel decent enough to play on my unpacking break--lol!  ;) 

Leah finally decided to put an app on my cell phone that I can use to operate both the blinds!  TaDa!  I had cleared off the dresser by the window, as you can see.

Moved the winter garland over with the other one under the TV and put the Christmas cactus up on the taller dresser.

Since Monday morning...I can see the sky every day!!  Whoohoo!!

I've had Christmas music videos on.  Caught Allie watching one.  (I do put on ones with birds and squirrels and such for her, too.)

 She always seems to notice when I am taking her picture.

But she was so amazed when I put her up on the dresser by the window--she didn't even notice me taking pictures.

I have no doubt she was hoping to see birds--lol!

But she contentedly fell asleep all afternoon on Monday.

I got a picture out the back patio door upstairs.  We have a little snow.

McFamily put the tree up together right after Thanksgiving.  I wasn't feeling very well so didn't go up to join them.

Every day since the blind has worked I've lifted Allie up to the dresser so she can snooze on her cat bed up there.  She goes along the bottom of the window to lick up any condensation she can find...but then she settles in to sleep.  I have to help her down, but she is up there most of the afternoon...every day!

I do think that is enough motivation for her to learn how to get up there herself once the cat tree is together.  (Came on Saturday--going to try to get it together one night this week, they said--so I need to get busy on those drawers.)

Finally got up another shower curtain.  Winter scene with snow seemed appropriate.  :)

I had two more calls from the front door of the old building to be let in.  Left another message earlier this last week with Goldmark to change the telephone number on the intercom system over there.  (Can never get a human being.)  But have had another call this weekend.  *sigh*  Was the usual week otherwise...laundry, dishwasher, cleaning, and the end of the month stuff (banking, bullet journal set up).  The new thing was Allie up by the window every day.  Even though they were mostly cloudy and cold.

But Friday I went up to spend time with the boys while Dagan and Leah went to the work party.  We watched A Christmas Story and then some weird game show on Netflix called The Floor Is Lava.  It was wildly entertaining, I have to admit!  LOL!  Ian was tired a little after ten.  They were told they could stay up as long as they wanted.  Ian went off to bed.  Liam helped me carry some things down to my place.  I thought he was going to bed, too.  A few minutes later--ding dong!  Liam decided he wasn't tired enough yet and wanted to spend a little time with me.  I think he wanted to surprise Dagan and Leah and be awake when they came home.  But Dagan texted me that they went off to play pool after the Christmas party...and Liam figured he wouldn't last.  So he went to bed close to 11pm.  We do have night owls in the making.  Figures.  It runs in the family--lol!  ;)

While he was down here he played around with the magnets on my frig...as he does almost every time he's here for any length of time.  :)

The main project for me this past week has been working on Christmas cards.  I don't know how I pulled the muscles or irritated the muscles in both sides of my mid-back--but I have been pretty well laid up.  I think I overdid it unpacking.  Carrying too much stuff, you know?  So I worked at the cards little by little.  Got out the satchel with the Christmas cards.  I do have enough leftover cards to last through a couple more years at least.  

I plan to use up the leftover birthday cards in 2026, too.  Keep using those up also.  That way what card energy I have I can finally get back to making sets of just because regular cards that I haven't been making for years!  Used to make them all the time to tuck letters into or to just have handy.  My health has not been great for so long that it was tough enough to just make the Christmas and birthday cards for the year.  Anyways, that is the plan.  Use up all the leftovers and just make regular cards for a good long while.  Whoohoo!!

So--baby steps.  First I addressed all the envelopes...then added stamps and return address labels...then picked out cards to use. 

 Used cards randomly from two different years this time...both from over a decade ago!  These were obviously made back when I lived in West Winds apartments and had gotten a Cuttlebug...my first die cutting and embossing machine--lol!

The other one.  

So those of you getting a card won't know which one you will get--lol!  Next time I may force my OCD-side to pick from more years--lol!  

I don't have as many leftover birthday cards, but maybe enough for a couple of years, anyways.  

Well, that's what I got almost done this week.  I still have about six cards left to get ready to mail, but my back gives out in short order.  

I am used to the lower spine type of back issues.  This mid-back thing is pretty new to me.  Doing a lot of rather painful stretching.  Doesn't seem to help much, but I do it anyways.

Been really cold.  Was -2F at noon and warmed up to 2F.  Thank goodness there were only 2-3mph winds today.  That's like dead air up here.  ;)  The boys were still outside playing in my window well as I was working on Christmas cards--lol!  

Leah's been so busy she has forgotten to send me pictures for like two months.  Like this weekend--they had the Christmas work party on Friday,  was first Saturday so Home Depot Kids Workshop and the Plains Art Museum had Kids Quest, and then today they spent the day reorganizing the garage so Dagan can get his electric car inside the heated garage this winter.  Now that it has been so cold the extension cord won't fully charge the battery when it's below zero.  They had removed the big metal shelving and all their stuff from the storage area down here and also they put all the other stuff from the basement in the garage...so there was no room for the cars.  This is the way things are going here--lol!  Move this and that and then move this and that again.  

They moved things out of the storage area so we could pile all the studio boxes in there when I moved in.  I can't work on unpacking the studio boxes until they finish setting things up in the studio.  There is stuff jammed everywhere!  I can't put everything away because I will also have some shelf space once the storage area is cleared out and set up again...and Leah is ordering more kitchen cupboard shelves and going to add a couple shelves in the laundry room.  I said--it is like that number puzzle slider game.  

The first thing I have to do this week is rearrange the dresser drawers so the stuff I don't need to get to very often are in the far drawers by the wall because the cat tower arrived on Saturday and Dagan said they are going to try to put it together for Allie some night this week.  But Ian has two after school Halley's Hope lessons and goes to three crochet classes this week.  There's some bingo event one night and a gingerbread ornament making thing at PAM (Plains Art Museum) another night...and then next Saturday at PAM is the youth pottery classes they've been attending and something about a free Japanese lucky charm after that and then a Manahem Steamroller Christmas concert that evening (not sure who is going to that)--but it looks like the next Sunday they might possibly have some free time.  We have a Google calendar we share.  That's how I try to keep up with all the happenings and events--lol!  

Me?  I am on the unpacking break.  Not in the best shape, but doing okay and working on Christmas cards.  I just need to rearrange those drawers while watching that my body doesn't get too awfully aggravated with me--lol!  Pop an Aleve now and again--lol!  I still have plenty of food in the frig and got the laundry done (carefully and slowly)--so I am good really.  Playing Christmas music videos or videos of squirrels and birds for Allie.  I am still just so happy I am here.  It will all work out.  I will get all settled in one day.  Things will eventually get back to normal.  Eventually.  LOL!  It is all forward motion now, right?  

This week the top things on the to-do list are finish the Christmas cards and move things around in the 12-drawer dresser that will be by the cat tower.  That's the plan.  Come on Aleve and Robitussin...we can do it!  LOL!  ;)  I can see the sky every day now.  Allie is loving the new window seat.  The boys are doing well.  Nobody is sick but me at the moment and I am not really bad sick or anything.  We can't find my other Christmas bag from my garage so I ordered a little tabletop tree that will be here this week.  Sorry if I am repeating myself.  Pain fogs your brain and that's the truth.  I'm just trying to remember what I have to do through the foggy brain--lol!  

I am in that Christmas state of mind I talked about, though.  Just happy and counting my blessings.  Hope you all are, too.  Till next time...