I’m finally making a dent in putting away the Christmas decor! It’s been weighing on me heavily as a task that needs doing. We never take it down before Mr C’s birthday — but once that passes, it’s just such a chore. I come down from work, I’m already a bit depressed, and I’m just overwhelmed. I can’t relax because I gotta do it — but I also don’t want to do it — so I just nap instead.
Not today, Satan!
Last night I had Mr C bring in all the boxes and started packing up. Today I took down the tree. The downstairs is officially de-decorated. HA! And Mr C took all the front decorations around back for me too. So I don’t have to feel ashamed about the neighbors judgement. This is a huge victory against depression! SUCK IT!
The upstairs trees are not as much trouble and they’re not in “my space.” So I’m not looking at them feeling weighed down. Moms room is fast as I just stick the whole tree in the closet. Then the office tree is small. The bedroom tree is a bit of a pain, but not as bad as our main tree. So yeah. I’m doing it!
I’m seven weeks post op tomorrow (tummy tuck and arm lift). Nothing really new to talk about on that front. Yes, I still have my cursed drains. I saw the doctor yesterday for a regular followup and he said they remove them at 8 weeks. The nurse replied with “not when they’re at 40!” and he didn’t reply. So he scheduled to see me in 2 weeks. That’ll be almost 9 weeks post op. I have faith that he’ll take them out at that appointment no matter what. I honestly think at this point, maybe the drains themselves are making the wound not heal up faster. They were on a steady decline to 35/40 until January started. They’ve not moved since (except one day number 2 shot up but it was just that once). So I’m scared they’ll have to drain fluid with a needle if they remove them, but I also haven’t been laid since NOVEMBER.
At least he took off my 10lb lift limit. I can pick up things now! Rather than stare sadly at them and ask someone else to do it.
Mr C’s birthday was yesterday! The big 40! I made him the lemon tart (recipe here) that he loves because he got chocolate mousse for Christmas. I made it all — the giant pain in the ass. I used M’s tip to mix the crust pastry in the food processor rather than by hand — GENIUS. I juiced all the lemons, I zested, I custard-ed. I clean up all the dishes and then went to put the beautiful tart in the fridge and saw one and a half sticks of butter on the counter. Fuck fuck fuck. I had to dump out all the custard, put it back over the heat and dissolve all the butter then pour it back in. It doesn’t seem to have suffered for it but damn. Close one. I was so pleased with myself before I saw that butter too.
For those who don’t know, mom died last Christmas day. Now.
We’re putting up the Christmas decorations. I need to get everything ready before my surgery. Getting moms room done was easy. I didn’t take down her tree last year, I just shoved it in her closet. So All I did was get it out, change out the blankets and pillows and get a few more things from her closet. Easy-peasy. And I actually liked seeing it back the way she left it.
Last night we did one of the Christmas trees. The living room tree. And it sucked ass. She gave me like a third of the ornaments on there (if not more). The cat ball. The jelly fish the year I was a jelly fish for Halloween (she was so proud of that one, perfect find). Even the ones she didn’t give me, I remember showing her proudly or picking out with her. She’s always been around when we do the Christmas tree. Mostly she’s usually here as we put it up. Even if not, I’m always excited to tell her about it and for her to see it when she visits. We always go to at least one Christmas market and pick out a new ornaments each year.
The nativity wasn’t bad even though she’s given me pieces of it. She was so proud one year to give me the very coveted shepherd and camel set. I guess it wasn’t bad because she got to see it hit peak glory last year. I built a creche for it and we had a sideboard in the dining room for it. It spreads out beautifully. I’ve got it lit with LEDs. I added the beautiful mercury glass trees she gave me. I adore it. I don’t know of a more beautiful nativity that anyone else owns.
So mom saw that and that pleases me. I guess that’s why her room was the same. She knew what it looked like. She was super proud of the ribbon window swag I made her for her bedroom window. She told me exactly what she wanted and supervised the whole thing. I only added one thing: A beautiful cardinal that I know she would have loved.
There’s two more important boxes to go grab and decorate with. One of them being breakables and one being soft things. Soft things like Christmas stockings. Like moms Christmas stocking. What the fuck do I do with her Christmas stocking?
I’d lay it on her bed, but my sister-in-law will be staying in there while I recuperate from surgery and she’s very emotional. But I don’t want to just leave it boxed up. I don’t want her to be gone. She can’t be gone.
*Tears up* So it’s just been easier to lay here on the couch and not go get that box.
I’ve been up since 4:00. Couldn’t sleep. Partially because I took naps yesterday (multiple), partially because of bad dreams. Most of the bad dreams were the night before last — hence the naps yesterday. I knew I was dreaming but I kept waking in a house that wasn’t my own. It would seem like mine but I’d figure it out and then be tortured to death. I’m pretty sure my hand was grinded off at some point with a powertool. I’m trying to forget. I was stuck in a loop of dreams. I think I even had to forgive my father at some point trying to figure out what whoever was doing this to me wanted just to get out of the loop. It was rough. I’m not joking about grinding a bloody stump arm either. I’m trying hard to forget that part. Did I mention I’ve been depressed?
I had some maybes for coming to the pool to hang out with me but I got stood up. So I just napped instead. Me and Mr C hung out though. And I cooked chicken for supper. I went to bed late but woke at 4:00. Lame.
I changed out the litter closet this weekend. Yes, my precious has his own bathroom. It even has a cat door and a bathroom ventilation fan. He is my precious, after all. I completely changed out one litterbox for a new one and cleaned the second one up. Yes, he has two litterboxes in his swanky litter closet. He likes the pee in the left one and poop in the right one.
I did this so I could switch cat litters. I’ve mentioned a million times that he tracks cat litter all over the place. Ugh. A work friend suggested I try Fresh Step: Clean Paws. Well, I’ll try something new, sure. So I cleaned everything up and switched out to a completely new cat litter. Even put in new carbon filters. Hope it works. So far it clumps OK enough. But it’s much heavier and harder to sift through to scoop since the pieces are so much bigger. But I hope it keeps him from tracking a small white line of litter down the hall.
Did I mention when I was carrying out the cat litter, the bag had a hole and left a trail of dirty cat little from my back door to the pool gate? Cause it happened.
At least I was up early enough to give him his medicines and breakfast with no screaming banshee over my head. It went alright until he barfed it all up on the rug. Complete with undigested expensive kidney pill sitting right there on top.
Fuck me.
The things we do for the little fuzzy shits we love.
Sorry for the lack of post this week. My Bro-In-Law is visiting. So far we’ve been to a Trash Pandas baseball game, a hot air balloon festival, and played a shit ton of games. So many games. It’s a cold snap so lame that we can’t use the pool.
I’m gonna need a vacation after this long vacation weekend. I need more zone-out time!
And my whole family is coming up for Memorial Day on Monday! So much stuff I gotta get done today!
Look at how perfect this is! I have an umbrella anchored in the middle of my pool and now it has a table on it! No bugs crawling on our drinks. No moving the drinks and tables to keep them in the shade — they’re always in the shade now! And it’s huge! It even holds my 32oz insulated thermos!
Five out of five stars. I am thrilled with this product! It even came with a completely unnecessary but high quality carrying bag. Let me tell you, this is PERFECT for the pool. I might buy more for my other pool umbrellas. It’s perfect for having coffee on the tanning ledge. It’s perfect for parking your cold water or wine while you drift on a float. Throw some extra sunscreen on there so you don’t burn. You never have to get out of the pool now! It’s perfect.
I’m even going to amp it up to 11. I got out my dremel to add drainage slots to the snack trays and am spray painting it lime green to match my pool furniture.
I’m so happy with this purchase (Amazon link — clicky clicky)! I was afraid it wouldn’t hold my favorite beverage containers, but everything fits great! It’s wonderful. Did I mention perfect for the pool? All the stars.
1) I painted my pool chairs “Key Lime.” It was like living in a Rust-Oleum commercial! Look at this before and after. The chairs were originally bright green when I bought them. However, five summers have faded them to nothing. Note the small green area on the unpainted chair. That’s because they always have pillows in them so the sun didn’t bleach there. It took two coats — so three and a half cans of paint = approximately $20.00. It’s nice to have revived the old ones rather than buy new ones. Even if they are dirt cheap, it’s still nice to have put in a little effort to revive something I already had. They REALLY pop against the dark fence too! K and I will be sitting in them on the tanning ledge soon.
2) I counted ninety three (93!) bats leaving the bat house on Saturday. Ninety Three! My little bat army. Go forth and murder all the mosquitos! Muah ha ha ha…
3) Mr C and I got our second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine Friday! I couldn’t sleep and had a headache. Poor Mr C had a fever and felt like absolute shit. But here’s to having pool days with our fellow vaccinated friends this summer! *cheers*
1) A family friend posted a devotional on the Facebook page (she does daily). It started with how sometimes you have friends you have to kick out of your life. I can relate to that. I’ve had to kick friends out of my life. Mostly people who I thought were true friends. Then circumstances revealed it was really a one way friendship with nothing coming back. So yeah, fuck those people. They’re users. They only contact you when they need something or it’s convenient for them. Or maybe they somehow think they are really your friend and somehow justify that you’re too fat to be in their wedding but you’re still their best friend! Yeah fuck you.
Then the further in the devotional it turned out the friends were worry, doubt, and fear – not actual people. My bad. Sometimes people gotta go too though.
2) There’s this guy at work who has a weird accent “problem.” He’s from England but I think both of his parents were American. So he sounds normal American English, but every once in a while he throws in proper British English accented word. Sometimes he’ll say the exact same word a way an American would, but sometimes it falls out in more of a British pronunciation. Accents are usually nice – but not this. This is jarring. He sounds like he’s faking being fancy. Especially when he’s talking to you. Because it’s only a few random words it sounds like he’s trying to correct you on their pronunciation. It’s just really weird. He’s married too and I bet his wife loves it. But every time I hear him slip in a weirdly accented word, I cringe. I know in my brain that he’s not doing it on purpose but in my heart I feel like he’s faking and being pretentious.
I can only compare it to bilingual people. When they’re running along in perfect English but encounter a word in their native language and pronounce it correctly. Like Giatta (Food Network) talking about food and then really going hard on words like “mozzarella.” Or my Puerto Rican friend who has a dad from Wisconsin – so he sounds American but pronounces Puerto Rican or Latina dishes in their authentic way. These cases do not bother me. I find them nice, actually. Like I could learn from them.
But this guy flipping between two different English accents is really annoying. I want to CORRECT him. Like dude, no one says “task” like that. You’re killing me. It’s usually his “A” sounds. He’ll say it hard when it should be soft or soft when it should be hard. SAY IT RIGHT, THOMAS.
3) The pool is OPEN! It’s freezing cold though. Like below 70 degrees. So I haven’t been in yet. Just stood on the tanning ledge and let my feet go numb.
I mentioned in my last post that we upgraded the privacy fence around the pool. Well, it’s the same fence but new paint, details, and hardware. I’m especially excited about the new gate latches. Our old ones were so confusing and weird. Plus why were the hung so high? So kids couldn’t reach them? We don’t even have kids. And the pull handles were at a 45 degree angle — it was just a mess. So having some nice hardware I chose is *muah* very nice.
The only problem was, one of the gates didn’t quite have enough clearance for the new hardware. You had to slam that baby closed and it still scratched the metal. Easy fix, just countersink the hardware. I watched a youtube video, I can do this. So I borrowed some chisels from K‘s boyfriend and went to work.
Look at that beautifully sunk piece of metal. It’s perfect. Well, a little paint touch ups and it’ll be perfect. It was not, however, as easy as that fucker on youtube made it look. But the hardware works perfectly now. Go me! And it was only a $20 copay to get a tetanus shot after I stabbed my finger with the chisel. Score!
Our pool fence just got a major glow up. It’s just a plain six-foot privacy fence. Natural wood, five years old. We had someone come stain it this weekend. Not just that, but we added post caps and all new hardware too. It looks so good! The old hardware was confusing and ugly. And the post caps give it a nice finished detail that makes it look all expensive and fancy.
I’m not sure when it will be open, but I contacted my pool guy and he knows I want it open by Memorial Day. He’s super busy, so I have to work with when he is available. I sure as fuck can’t get that heavy ass pool cover off by myself! It’s expensive and extremely heavy. Plus pool guy cleans the pool and balances the chemicals for me to get it going. Then I take over from there until time to close and put the cover back on.
The only thing is, I’m insanely excited because I’m a pool girl all the way. (Obviously, or I wouldn’t have installed one). But this year I’m afraid to be excited. You see, the pools pretty boring by yourself. I can spend all day out there with a friend having a ball. But when it’s just you, it gets boring fast. Well, mom knew this so she’d come up as much as possible in the summer to spend pool days with me. Don’t worry, it wasn’t just for me. Mom was a water spirit herself. I’d wake up to find her out by the pool listening to the bubblers. She’d happily stay out there by herself. Mom loved to be outside.
So I guess I’m just afraid that without mom… the pool will just be really… sad. Empty. Lonely. So I didn’t want to let myself get excited but I can’t help it. I’m excited now. I just hope it doesn’t lead to heart break. Not NEW heartbreak, but just a reminder of that huge hole mom left behind.
