The Cat Peed On My Needlepoint and Other Tales From The Past Ten Days

... and then the cat peed on my needlepoint. The End.

How has Christmas come and gone already? Here's the recap:

There was much rain.

Many UPS, USPS and Fed Ex deliveries and the only thing late was my Yankee Candle from my parents but I got another (yay for taking my blatant Facebook hints!) so it was ok.

Much wrapping paper and empty boxes afterwards.

I posted about a hundred pictures on Facebook - link for those who aren't active on Facebook.

We had another basement flood that exhausted me right when I needed to not be exhausted but I survived. (And we're hiring a contractor to waterproof the basement once and for all because we just can't...keep this up).

Mom made it through Christmas without having to go back to the hospital (despite insisting on helping with the wet basement). She goes tomorrow for a scan with her surgeon so he will know exactly where to cut... or whatever... to get Pat out. (reminder, PAT is the pancreatic tumor).

Check out the legs on this baby girl! 

We had all the happiness you would expect with two new babies and the kind of happiness you don't expect (or, at least I didn't) with a new puppy (my son Ryan's, Luke, who was good except for chewing on my Ikea stepstool and the bathroom vanity). I didn't manage to get a picture of Luke but I loved his sweet, goofy enthusiasm.

We had a lot of rain or have I already mentioned that?

I got lots of stuff that says, "Nana" as one enjoys receiving when they are a Nana.

I got lots of stuff period but I had as much, if not more fun watching everyone else open their gifts.

I gave my niece Jamie an early birthday gift of the Wicked Snowglobe that a blog reader gave me a few years back. Jamie has loved that snowglobe and would disappear into my room to retrieve it often when she was hanging out here afterschool. I promised it to her in my will but decided I'd rather see her receive it from here, rather than from the beyond. Plus, I don't have a will. So there's that.

Jamie also got an amazing book called Wicked: The Grimmerie. It's basically a Wicked encyclopedia. I had seen it in Barnes and Noble back in 2003 and at the time it was priced way beyond my budget. I found it on Amazon for a fraction of the price while looking for a snowglobe. I loved the book so much when it came that I could hardly stand to wrap it. So Jamie basically had a Wicked Christmas. (It's not worn on the edges, it's made to have that weathered look).

I think the other favorite gift I gave was the makeup brushes for my daughter-in-law Marquee. She's always gotten Disney stuff from me because, well, she loves Disney stuff. Earlier this year I made note of the fact that she enjoys makeup and makeup brushes. Sometime this fall I asked her advice for, "really good makeup brushes" to buy for myself. She told me which ones were the best and so I bought them. For her. They were pricey enough that I had my parents go in with me on the gift but I knew she could get good use out of them.

The Bearded Uncle, Baby Ollie and Aunt Sara

Tasha had the great idea to get scrubs for Ryan's girlfriend, Sara, who is hard for me to buy for because I don't really get to spend much time with her. She's a Vet Tech and she loved the scrubs.

I guess, for me, a great gift is one that you know the person will get a lot of use out of ... or a lot of pleasure out of from a limited use. There were a lot of those things this year.

More stuff about the past ten days:

Austin and Tasha got engaged! I helped him pick out the ring while shopping for other gifts. He gave it to her on Christmas morning. Not sure when they'll get married....

My hip is majorly screwed up. I think moving furniture at 2am on Christmas Eve to get everything out of the water may have done it in. That, plus the evil gut pain had me curled up in a ball early yesterday morning, trying to find a comfortable position. It's discouraging and it's made me a little grumpy over the past few days.

I bought Cosette these two light up Frozen dolls... when you move their left arm up, they sing. Cosy has figured out how to "hold their hands" to make them sing. She has developed such an attachment to "Bobos" or "Oh-bos" that I've put together a big box of them for her to play with. She's 8 months old tomorrow.

Ollie and I both chewing on our fingers

Ollie likes to bounce and has the most beautiful eyelashes and is just the sweetest little bundle of joy, in the full sense of the word. He turned 5 months old last week.

Ollie and Cosy are still completely fascinated with each other. Neither has *quite* mastered the concept of "gentle" yet so we haven't turned them loose to play together unsupervised yet but soon...

I thought I had figured out how to dog sit with minimal pain... and brought Lady down to stay with me while my parents are down South overnight to go to mom's scan in Atlanta first thing in the morning. Ten minutes after they left, Lady went upstairs. It never occurred to me that she wouldn't want to stay down here with me, duh!

One side effect of my pain issues is that I have become introverted to the extent that it's very draining on me to have constant light, sound, conversation or any kind of continual stimulation. I'm learning to say, lovingly I hope, "I need to introvert". Just being quiet and still helps more than you would think. I only mention that because some of you have chronic pain... or love someone with chronic pain... and I think it helps to see that someone else is like your crazy aunt... or your grumpy mom... or, whomever. You have no idea how much energy it takes to just keep breathing sometimes. It makes me feel guilty, to enjoy introverting so much but it's more of a need than a want.

I'm sick of this mild, wet weather. I am also sick of major weather fronts coming through because those are no friend to folks with arthritis. I want a little cold... maybe one good snow event as long as it happens when Austin has a day off so he doesn't have to try to get to work... and I want things to dry out.

My tree is already put away. Didn't make it into a Valentines Day / Easter tree this year. We had a contractor coming out to give us a quote on waterproofing the basement and I thought it would be good to get it out of the way. My mom also really has wanted projects to keep her busy so we knocked it out together this morning.

Anyways... I didn't want the year to end without getting you caught up on things. Not sure when I'll have more to share but... heck, it could be tomorrow, who knows? The cat really did pee on my needlework today. He was mad that I hadn't fed him lunch yet. Not my sweet Little Kitty... it was Edison the Kangaroo Cat. He's a tyrant. I guess that's about it.

Hope you're all warm and dry and hope you all have a really happy 2016! Love and hugs!