Almost here

Christmas is almost here, yet again! And we are basically ready. I had my week of writing and sending cards, that's done. I had my week of shopping, that's done. And this week was my week of baking cookies. It started out well and then became a bit of a slog, even though I like baking cookies. I think I am getting old. By Friday, when I made the sugar cookies, I didn't think I would survive the process (fortunately Rocket Boy helped). And then on Saturday, making the candy cane cookies, I thought my arms would fall off. So old and weak! But my arms didn't fall off and I also made the fudge.

It all got done. And we have one more day before Christmas Eve. I still need to buy some ingredients for our Christmas Eve/Christmas Day dinner (we have the same thing for both dinners, leftovers the 2nd day). A couple of things need to be wrapped. Oh, and I still need to set up my dollhouse. But it's so minor. I feel very relaxed. We might go over to a friend's house tomorrow to decorate cookies that she's baked, as a holiday activity.

Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, I decided that I wanted to have a ham for Christmas dinner. We used to always get a ham, and then we got tired of it, probably because we don't eat anything like that the rest of the year. So I don't know why I suddenly wanted a ham again this year. Maybe because I'm supposed to be eating a lot of protein and it's so hard to get enough from cottage cheese. Maybe because a ham, even a very small one, means dinner is taken care of for at least three nights. I know we'll get tired of it and everyone will say "no more ham!" and then we won't have it for a few years. And that's fine. But we're going to have it this year.

Anyway, since we always eat out on Saturdays, Rocket Boy suggested that we go pick up the ham and then eat out somewhere near there, killing two birds with one stone. We used to always eat at the Chili's that's in the same strip mall, but Teen B has gone off Chili's, so we looked for other choices. Hey, there's a Black-eyed Pea right near there. I didn't know that chain even still existed, at least in Colorado. But apparently it does. So we decided to go there. First we went to the Honeybaked Ham store. It closes at 7 and we got there at 6, in case we had to stand in a long line. But I guess four days before Christmas is too early (or is the chain in bad shape?). There was almost no one in the store. We got a little ham, and some rolls, and a blueberry coffeecake for Christmas morning. And then we went to the Black-eyed Pea.

I hadn't been in a Black-eyed Pea in many years, probably since before the twins were born. So I'd kind of forgotten how it works. When the waiter asked if we'd like to start with some rolls, I misheard him and ordered a fried pickle appetizer (Teen B loves fried pickles). After the waiter left, looking a little puzzled, my family told me what he'd actually said. "I'm sorry!" I said, putting my head on the table in shame. Deafness is embarrassing. Then another waiter brought the people next to us some rolls. "See, Mom, we could have had that," the twins pointed out. Fortunately, when our waiter came back with our drinks, Rocket Boy asked him if we could have some rolls too. So we had rolls and fried pickles and tons of other food, besides. I ordered the vegetable plate, which means you get to pick five of the sides listed in the "vegetable garden" portion of the menu. One of my choices was a Caesar salad. They brought that first -- a huge salad, plenty big enough to be my dinner. But I still had four more things coming. Teen A ordered a stuffed potato AND green chili mac & cheese. The waiter misunderstood him, probably because most people don't order two entrees. But after Teen A finished his massive stuffed potato, we asked the waiter if he could also have the green chili mac & cheese, and pretty soon it arrived too. Huge quantities of food. RB had brought a large to-go container and we filled that up, but we still needed the waiter to bring another container for the rest of our leftovers. 

I ate too much of my food in the restaurant, more than I should have, and by the time I got home, I wasn't feeling great. Rocket Boy and I tried to watch the special features on our latest Christmas movie ("Rare Exports"), but I kept falling asleep. Finally I decided to feed the cats and go to bed. But when I got up, my stomach heaved. Oh no. 

To make a long story short, I didn't throw up, but I was sure I was going to. I could feel this massive amount of food in my stomach and my stomach rejecting it. Also, I couldn't stay awake. Finally I told RB I was going to bed and I would probably wake up in the night and throw up. But I didn't. I woke up about 9 hours later feeling great. Sometimes you get lucky.

This is probably a good place for the Mounjaro report.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 230.4
• Weight this morning (after 26+ weeks on Mounjaro): 230.0
  

Third week in a row with a tiny weight loss. I thought I was going to do better this week, because I exercised more than usual. I took three good walks, and on another day I did a stretch video. So, four days out of seven, on a week when I had all those cookies to bake. It's true that if I hadn't eaten so much at the Black-eyed Pea I probably would have been a little lighter this morning. But it's OK. Honestly, if I could lose .4 lb every week, I'd be thrilled. We'll see how this week goes, but I am going to continue trying to exercise as many days as possible and see if that helps.

Since I finished making the cookies yesterday, we decided that today would be a good day to take Rocket Boy's brother his cookies. Rocket Boy also wanted to go for a hike, and I said that sounded good. He also wanted to go out for lunch, and I really didn't want to do that, after last night, but he loves to eat out, so I agreed. I skipped breakfast, just had Starbucks with the kids, and we drove to the First Watch restaurant in Longmont and had a late lunch (said kids did NOT want to go with us). Then we went to Ralph's apartment. It was as awful as always. The low-income apartment complex is quite pleasant, but his apartment... He was wearing a long-sleeved white t-shirt and boxer shorts, looking ancient and weird, listening to what he calls Krishna music, and the air was full of incense. Mysteriously, there were seven pairs of shoes on the floor (I counted), along with piles of boxes holding who knows what. We gave him the plate of cookies and a King Soopers gift card. He thanked us and gave RB a Krishna calendar. RB didn't seem to want to leave. I was coughing from the incense and started saying, "Well, we should be going," but RB didn't pick up on it. I think it was the Christmas spirit, that feeling of loneliness and sadness and memories of childhood. This is his brother, after all, all that's left of his family of origin.

But we did finally leave, and we drove to Sandstone Ranch, an open space park on the east side of Longmont where neither of us had ever been. There was a feature about it in the paper this morning and I thought it would be fun to explore. It was fun. We took the loop trail, including the overlook offshoot, and it was just under a mile. There were several other people there -- I was glad the place does get used, since it's very nice. The trail goes through a natural area (no dogs allowed), but ends up at the old mansion that the guy who moved here in the 1860s built out of sandstone. So a neat combination of nature and human history.

Rocket Boy is having a hard time adjusting to the twins being teenagers. He wants them to be little boys, always happy to go on trips with him to explore new places. I feel bad for him. I realized that the last couple of years, almost every time we've seen him we've been going on a trip to Arizona or Yellowstone or whatever. And so of course the boys have been willing to do things with us, because we're on a trip. But in regular life, they prefer to do their own thing. They don't want to go out and about with their boring parents. This breaks Rocket Boy's heart. 

I've reminded him a few times that I warned him about this. "I told you that you needed to come back sooner!" But the pleasure of "I told you so" gets old. Mostly I sympathize! I wish they were still little boys too. Just last night, when I was feeling sick, I was reminiscing about when they were toddlers. When I felt myself needing to vomit, I would quickly put my hair in a ponytail. The twins saw me doing that a few times and then when they felt sick they asked me to put their (much too short) hair in ponytails too, like they thought that was a requirement for vomiting. Funny little boys.

What I think RB and I need to do now is remember how to enjoy each other. Not feel bad when the boys don't want to come along. We met in 2000. The boys were born in 2008. So, for seven and a half years, we had fun together. I think we can learn to do that again! We'll have to -- or we'll be miserable. Teen A at least is going to move on as soon as he can. Teen B might stick around a little longer, but eventually he'll go too. RB and I have the rest of our lives to spend with each other. We need to get used to that. Going on a hike together was a good start. We had fun, and at the end of it, Rocket Boy acknowledged that he had enjoyed it and that sometimes it was nice to do things without the twins.

I can't remember much else about the week -- it's just a blur of cookies. The boys took their finals, with some successes and some failures. Teen B ended up with 3 As and 3 Bs, which is fine. He blew his math and history finals, but still ended up with Bs in both classes. Teen A ended up with 4 Bs and 2 Cs, which isn't great, but it's what he deserved, based on effort. If he wanted better grades, I think he could achieve them. It drives RB crazy. I tell him to let it go, it's their life.

Almost forgot about the stress of the Continuing Resolution debacle. For a while there, after EM started meddling, it really looked like Congress wasn't going to pass a CR, and we would have a shutdown. We've gone through this many times before, first while I was a government employee, here in Boulder, and then while Rocket Boy was (at China Lake and in St. Louis). But this was the first time we'd gone through it with one of us working as a government contractor. Employees always come out of shutdowns in good shape -- you get some time off and then you get all your back pay. Contractors, well, that's a different story. Depending on what his contracting firm wanted to do, Rocket Boy could have been laid off. He could have needed to file for unemployment. He almost certainly would not have gotten any back pay, ever, even if he was able to go back to work at the end of the shutdown. So all of a sudden we were looking at a big loss of income. At Christmastime, right after I just gave away a lot of money to charity. My hatred of the Muskmelon grew by leaps and bounds.

But then they managed to pass the CR. And on we go. It was a taste of what's ahead. We must be ready for anything.

Oh, I know one other thing that happened this past week. A flock of magpies came to visit! On Friday afternoon, Sillers was looking out the front window, seemed very interested. And then we heard what sounded like a tiny knock at the door. Rocket Boy went to the door and opened it, but there was no one there, just a magpie on the lawn. "Did the magpie knock?" I asked. RB didn't know. He had a medical appointment, so he left to drive to Superior, but I kept looking out the window. "There's another magpie," I said to Teen B, who was not interested. "And another! And another! There are EIGHT MAGPIES on our front lawn! I couldn't resist, I opened the door. The magpies flew up into the tree and then across the street. But for a brief span of time, there were eight magpies on our front lawn.

Later, when RB returned, I told him about the magpie invasion. "They were pecking the ground all around the tomato plant pot," I said. "I don't know why. No bird has ever been interested in that area before." "It must have been the rotten food I threw out there," RB said. This is a thing he does, that annoys me. When there's something icky that needs to be disposed of, and it seems too liquidy for the compost bin, RB throws it on the lawn. "I WALK on that lawn," I tell him. "I don't want to step in that goop." But this time, his behavior led to EIGHT MAGPIES coming to our lawn, and one perhaps even knocking on the door. I decided to forgive him, this time and maybe every other time.

Magpies on the lawn. Could Christmas get any better?

Cruising along toward Christmas

So, it's December 15th, 10 days before Christmas, and I am feeling totally on top of things. I'm staying on schedule, the schedule is bearable -- it's all good. But in an email this week, my older sister said she wasn't finding any joy this Christmas (due to the election results and their aftermath). And I thought, joy? Why would anyone feel joy at Christmas? Christmas is just a lot of work. You try to make other people happy, you go through the motions, you respect traditions -- but joy?

But yeah, joy. I mean, why am I going through all this nonsense if not for the hope of a little joy? No one (other than my immediate family) requires me to do all this stuff. I'm doing it because I feel an intense need to do it. And fulfilling an intense need should bring something like joy, right? Maybe? I think usually what ends up happening is that I feel intense nostalgia for times gone by. Which is a kind of joy. A sad joy.

Another thought: One of the things that people like me hate about Donald Trump is his total lack of respect for this country's traditions. He appoints people with no experience or skills to important jobs, he breaks rules, he spits in the face of long-standing tradition. Observing the traditions of Christmas feels like one little way to oppose his nonsense. Maybe?

***

We got the German cards mailed this week, so cards are 100% done. The Christmas tree is up and has lights on it -- I will work on ornaments today and through the week as necessary. I shopped all week, mostly fruitlessly, but I did it, and so shopping is done (mostly). I don't have anything for Rocket Boy, so I will probably go out again at least once. But the bulk of it is done. This is how the shopping week went. 

• Monday: the Flatirons Crossing mall. Spent two hours walking through it, bought one present for each kid. Serious waste of time, but at least I did it and I know there's nothing there that I want to go back for.
• Tuesday: Barnes & Noble (walked around the store for 30 minutes, bought nothing); Target (bought a couple of things); Trader Joe's (bought a couple of things, plus some groceries); World Market (bought a couple of things). A lot of driving -- well, mostly a lot of parking -- and a lot of bother, with some success.
• Wednesday: late start day, book group day, not really enough time for a big shopping trip before the kids came home. So, in the afternoon, Teen B and Rocket Boy and I went to Pearl Street together and bought calendars at the Boulder Bookstore, plus then we walked way down the mall to Rocket Fizz and bought 8 bottles of weird soda (from Fitz's and the Indian Wells Brewing Company) just for fun. The kids drank all the soda within two days. (This is why I don't normally buy soda!)
  
• Thursday: JoAnn's, Grandrabbits, and McGuckin's, spent a couple of hours total. I bought several things, but mostly things for me, decor and such. It's OK. It was fun. At JoAnn's, I was wandering around not picking anything up, and then I spoke to myself sternly (and silently): just choose something. You can afford it and once you choose one thing, it'll be easier to choose others. So I did, and it was. This was especially true at McGuckins, where I ended up with about 15 things in my little cart. Not junk -- things I'll eventually use, like candy canes and poopourri and a notepad. I'm just not much of a shopper and I needed some encouragement to start shopping.
  
• Friday: I was mostly burned out by then, but I did go to King Soopers and get some gift cards.
  

All the presents are in bags stuffed in my closet, and I don't have a clear sense of what all I bought. I just know it isn't much. This coming week I will try to get things wrapped and then I'll know for sure. The main thing I know is that I'll need to wrap using our largest gift bags and lots of (endlessly reused) tissue paper, to make the presents look more impressive than they are.

Tuesday was Colorado Gives Day and so I gave away a bunch of money. I gave to Hillside School, three Humane Societies, and a couple of organizations in Park County (where our cabin is) that help keep seniors in their homes, provide mental health care and a food bank, stuff like that. I still have to make my yearly donation to Mission St. Louis, mustn't forget that one. I tried to get Rocket Boy interested in the donations, but he wasn't, really, and I felt slightly guilty about giving away all this money that he had earned. Especially since he had a phone call with his boss that morning and she basically told him to stand down and stop bothering the people at the agency where he's a contractor. If he has nothing to do, don't worry about it. That does not seem to bode well for his continuing employment there. But it's OK. If he gets laid off, we have other options.

The main thing I got out of the week of shopping was exercise! I didn't use my walking app -- really should have, then I'd know how many steps I took -- but I know I walked and walked and walked. I decided to keep it up after I finished shopping, and I took my normal walk on both Friday and Saturday. It felt good! I am going to try to continue this coming week, since our weather is supposed to be mild. If I leave for my walk by 4 pm, it won't be dark by the time I get home, half an hour later.

This seems as good a time as any for the Mounjaro report.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 230.8
• Weight this morning (after 25+ weeks on Mounjaro): 230.4
  

So, once again a tiny weight loss (.4 lb), but a loss is still a loss. I was really hoping for more, because most days this week I weighed 229 or so. But we eat out on Saturday nights, so my weight always goes up a little on Sunday. It should even out, over the weeks. The bottom line is that I am down 24.2 pounds in 25 weeks, and I'm happy about that. And I'm still trying to figure out the clothes problem! One of the days, I think Thursday, the pants I was wearing were so loose that they kept falling down as I walked through stores. I kept stopping to hitch them up, which is not a good look. I think I need to go through the pants in my closet again, try them all on, put away the ones that are so loose they look awful. I may need to get the boxes of clothes down from the closet again, pull out some pants I thought were too tight. The current situation is ridiculous.

So that's a nice problem to have. And I think it was all the walking I did this week that really made the difference. Must walk more.

***

This was a less busy week, which was helpful since I had to do all that shopping. On Tuesday night, Teen B, Rocket Boy, and I went to the choir concert at the high school, which I enjoyed greatly. Having been in my high school choir, I just love choir music. I think my fellow attendees were less impressed, although Rocket Boy gamely said it was very nice. I'd really like to go to the choir concert at the other high school this coming week, but I don't know. Maybe Rocket Boy would like to (be willing to) go with me.

Wednesday my book group came here, and that was lovely too. Rocket Boy was beside himself with worry about the state of the house, but I tried to ignore him. We got the card table cleaned off (the tree wasn't up yet), I vacuumed, I cleaned the bathroom, and I baked some chocolate peppermint bread (a Trader Joe's mix). AND we even took that trip to Pearl Street the same day. There was time for everything. It was all fine. And it was NOT necessary for Rocket Boy to throw a fit. But what can I say. He has this issue about people coming over. Realistically, it helps give me a little push to do more cleaning, and that's a good thing.

None of us liked the book (Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean). All of us agreed that it would have been much better if the author had focused more on the dog and less on the promoters of the dog. And chopped 100 or so pages. It is unusual for us to agree so thoroughly on a book! We didn't spend much time talking about it. We talked about our families and Christmas preparations and Mounjaro/Zepbound. I love my book group, even though we are down to three people. Next month we are going to read a mystery about a midwife in 1789 Maine. I am currently #49 out of 62 on the hold list, so that's not looking good. I think I may have to buy this, but since we're not meeting until January 15th, I can probably wait a while before doing that. I'll revisit the problem in January.

***

This coming week the kids have finals, so it's a weird week. Teen A has finals on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning. He'll be free every afternoon. Teen B has finals Monday morning and afternoon, Tuesday morning and afternoon, Wednesday morning, and Thursday morning. Neither one is interested in studying, which freaks Rocket Boy out. I'm spending a lot of time trying to calm him down.

I'm trying to find ways to enjoy the season. Usually I read Christmas books, but so far this month I've only read one (The Mistletoe Mystery by Nita Prose) and it was DREADFUL. I mean, so bad I wished intensely that I hadn't read it. I just looked at GoodReads, and everyone there seems to think it's delightful. It isn't.

I've had more luck with Christmas movies. Every year I read that "Die Hard" is a good Christmas movie, but I'd never seen it. This year I got it from the library and Rocket Boy and I watched it. I thought it was pretty good! I mean, ridiculous, and violent, but fun, especially since it came out in 1988, which is a long time ago, and the datedness of it was interesting. Rocket Boy had seen it before, but he's always willing to watch movies again. He did not like it, but that's OK. Then this week I got "Office Christmas Party" from the library and we watched that. Again, I thought it was pretty good and RB did not. In fact, he was horrified. It's extremely raunchy, and I think he doesn't have much experience with raunchiness, seeing as how he mostly watches film noir from the 1940s.

I've put holds on two more Christmas movies at the library. The kids may or may not watch them with us, but RB and I can enjoy them.

I need to get off the computer and go decorate the Christmas tree in a minute. But what I'm really enjoying this year is decorating the spider web on the front porch. I found some little plastic creatures at Grandrabbits (a praying mantis, a ladybug, a bee, a butterfly, etc.) and I've attached them to the web. Maybe there'll be something in our ornament boxes that would be good too.

The other thing I still need to do today is plan the Christmas cookies. I'm going to start baking tomorrow and I've already promised Teen B that I'll make peppermint meltaways first. But I need to choose the other five batches, one of which I will make each day this week. I'm really looking forward to this week of baking. It will be a chance to commune with my mother and grandmothers, all of whom look over my shoulder as I bake cookies. Possibly my favorite part of the season.

***

Well, the day didn't turn out quite like I planned. Rocket Boy needed to go to McGuckin's, so I went with him, and we bought our Christmas frying pan, in addition to some other needed items. When we got home, Teen A wanted to go out, so RB taped up the back bumper of the Prius which had come loose. Then Teen B needed to record his band final IN PRIVATE, so RB and I left again and drove to Louisville, where we hung out in Paul's Coffee & Tea for 45 minutes, killing time. We got home again a little after 5 pm, but Teen B wasn't done, so we went to the grocery store (and got into a fight in the parking lot over RB's fondness for (and my intense dislike of) plastic bags). NOT the peaceful Sunday I had envisioned, although hanging out at Paul's was kind of nice. I didn't get to take a walk, but the wind is terrible today, so it wouldn't have been a very fun walk. It's OK. Now it is 6 pm and I am going to finish this post and go do some of the things that haven't gotten done yet (breakfast dishes, litter boxes, putting away the laundry). I have not yet hung a single ornament on the tree. Dinner is leftovers, so that's easy.

The Christmas season is tiring, no matter how well you plan. But we're doing OK. And tomorrow I get to start baking.

Busy December doings

The first week of December is over (see how my weird little German Advent calendar has 8 windows open?) and I feel very on top of things. Last week was card-writing week, and I got 46 written and mailed, plus one we'll give to our next-door neighbor with a plate of cookies, after I bake the cookies. 

All that's left is the German cards. We send three cards to the German relatives and those take a while because we write them in German, which neither of us knows very well, despite Rocket Boy's years and years of study (and my year or two of study). First we have to stress about them for a while, then very slowly and painfully (with some help from Google Translate) we write them, then we feel bad about how lame they are, and then we have to go to the post office and get special stamps, and finally we send them.

I enjoyed the (English) card-writing process -- it didn't feel like drudgery. I broke it down into steps, and there are a lot of steps: (1) order the stamps, (2) buy the cards, (3) draft the letter, (4) get RB's approval, (5) make the copies at Kinko's, (6) finalize the list of recipients and print out a hard copy, (7) mark on the hard copy who gets which card, (8) pull out 10 cards at a time and put stamps and return address labels on the envelopes, (9) write the addresses on the envelopes, (10) write those 10 cards, and continue back and forth with envelopes and cards until they are all done. Oh, and (11) make Rocket Boy sign them too, 10 at a time. And then (12) go to the post office and mail them.

There were only one or two cards that I had to pause over, think about what to write. One friend of Rocket Boy's, in his 80s, has been a problem for a few years: we haven't heard from him in a while, though RB did call him a few years ago. Once or twice our card to him has been returned by the post office and we've had to search for a new address. Last year it didn't get returned, so we had hope that this year's card would get to him, but first, just to be safe, I googled him. Whoops -- here's an obituary from January 2024. Oh well.

I know this is going to happen more and more, as we get older and our friends and relatives get older. Unless we suddenly make some new (younger) friends, our list will shrink. It's OK, it's life.

***

It was a busy week, in general, with some sort of activity every day.

• Monday: Teen A came home from school at lunchtime and I took him to his eye appointment at noon. He's doing well with his contact lenses, and we went ahead and ordered a bunch more (he has to use a new pair each month).
  
• Tuesday: Baby Kitty got his nails trimmed at 1:45 pm and Teen B got his hair cut at 5:30 pm, after which we went to the boba place nearby. According to the FlyLady, December is pamper month -- you're supposed to give yourself little treats every day, as a way to not get frazzled by all the extra work that the holidays cause. So I got myself a mango boba, which was good, but then I was too full to eat Rocket Boy's dinner (mahi mahi burgers). I just had some salad instead.
  
• 
  Wednesday: the wreaths had come in (band fundraiser), so I went to pick ours up around 5 pm. It's hanging on the front porch now, looking a little lopsided, next to the Halloween spider web which is still up (complete with spider).
  
• Thursday: I went in for my 3-month blood tests in the morning, and in the afternoon Rocket Boy went to Golden to attend the holiday party of the agency he's working for as a contractor.
  
• Friday: I got my Covid shot at 2 pm (the new Novavax shot), and at 5:30 pm RB and I left to drive 40 miles south during rush hour to attend the holiday party given by his actual employer, which was held at TopGolf Centennial, a very very weird place (see below).
  
• Saturday: RB, Teen B, and I went to the library for the annual holiday harp concert, which was very lovely as always. My favorite piece was "Tame Her When the Sna Comes," which we've heard them play before. We skipped the Parade of Lights in the evening, though. I was sorry, but the kids weren't interested, so we didn't push it. Another year RB and I can go alone.
  

A little more about that holiday party... I was kind of excited to go to it, since I haven't had the opportunity to go to a work holiday party in many years. I suppose the last one would have been in 2018, when I was a research assistant. I can't remember where we went that year, out to dinner somewhere. Brasserie Ten Ten? It wasn't very good, as I recall. By December 2019 I had quit my job, and after that my only chances to go to holiday work parties would have been with Rocket Boy in St. Louis, so that obviously didn't happen.

Since the party was at a golf place, we knew we shouldn't get super dressed up, but at the same time, it's a holiday party, so you want to dress up a little. I thought I'd wear one of the sweater sets I've recently been able to fit into, but when it came time to get dressed, I waffled. I decided to wear my purple velvet sweater instead (something else I haven't fit into in years) with a purple t-shirt, but when I put it on, the combination looked frumpy. The main problem was that my pants were too big and made me look huge. So I poked around in my closet and found my one pair of non-sweatpant black pants. They were too tight last year, but this year they were loose. And then I pulled a dark green cowlneck sweater out of the closet and decided to wear that. It's stretchy, so it was OK, even though big.

I cannot remember a time in my life when I had this problem: all my clothes a little too big. Yet, I must have -- I've lost weight before. I lost 50 lbs the year after the twins were born. But I don't remember... Anyway, I haven't lost enough weight to start buying new pants -- for instance, today my stomach was bloated and sticking out (more on that below). But hmm, maybe start thinking about it...

The party itself, when we finally got there (traffic was terrible) was really weird. At the golf place we were directed to go up a steep flight of stairs and then to walk "all the way to the right." What we were walking past was a long series of "bays," open to the air and overlooking a huge "green" with different colored areas. The bays consisted of low tables and couches, and beyond each one was a little putting green sort of thing and a lot of consoles. You were supposed to sit and eat and drink, and then one at a time people could go up and hit golf balls out into the air. I didn't try it, but Rocket Boy did.

We introduced ourselves to RB's boss (who he had only spoken to on the phone before), ordered drinks (Sprite and an Arnold Palmer), and then found a place to sit. I noticed an older couple sitting alone looking sad, so I asked them if I could sit in their bay with them. It was a good choice. I think they were about our age, and after several false starts, we managed to have a conversation. The background music was terribly loud, so "conversation" is maybe a little too generous. We shouted at each other for a minute or two, and then took breaks. They turned out to be Republicans, so that was a little worrying, since we obviously weren't. But it's my goal these days to find ways to connect with Republicans (since I refuse to believe in the narrative that says half the country hates the other half), and I did my best. And we ended up getting along fine. It's all about staying off politics and not mentioning Donald Trump.

There were trays of appetizers all over the table, and we sampled those. Chips, dips, veggies, fruit, that sort of thing. I ate some carrots with a crab-cheese dip. For dinner there was a buffet, not very exciting. I had some salad, some roasted veggies, a little bowtie pasta with a cream sauce, and a roll. There was also chicken and beef. Dessert was donut holes, which you could inject with Bavarian cream, chocolate sauce, or raspberry sauce. Very messy. But it was fun. I'm glad we went.

***

Two other mildly interesting things happened this week. There's been a trailer parked across the street from us for a week or two, and we've been puzzled by it. It was big, and a little junky looking, and when we backed out of our driveway we had to be careful not to hit it. Just kind of annoying. We couldn't figure out who it belonged to. Anyway, Thursday evening, while Rocket Boy was away at his other work party, a tow truck came and took it away. There was a car with a City of Boulder sticker on it parked behind it too, I think Parking Enforcement probably. Teen B and I watched through our front window with great interest. If Rocket Boy had been home, he would have gone out and talked to them, but I was shy.

Friday was mess day: we discovered that Sillers, overnight, had vomited and pooped all over the living room and dining room, and was continuing to do so that morning. So I put her outside on the patio while we cleaned. We washed a couple of rugs, sponged off others, sponged off large areas of the floor, and in general had a fun time. I had just vacuumed everything the day before, so I recognized the accidents as brand new. Someone on the neighborhood listserv mentioned that a bobcat had gotten one of their chickens that morning, so I brought Sillers back inside. But by then her problems seemed to be over. I didn't feed her until that evening, and she hasn't had any trouble since. Must have eaten something weird (she loves plastic, so it could have been something like that).

Also on Friday, our next-door neighbor was having some tree-trimming done, and after a while the tree trimmer came and knocked on our door. He explained that our dead aspen in the backyard was leaning against the fence and needed to be taken out and did we want him to do it? I had been in the backyard the weekend before and the aspen wasn't leaning on the fence, but Rocket Boy went out and looked, and sure enough, the aspen had come unattached from the ground and was attempting to fall over, taking the fence with it. So he called the guy who took our other collapsed aspen a few weeks ago (for firewood) and asked him if he wanted this one too, and the guy came, and the two of them managed to get the aspen to fall into our yard, not the neighbor's. The photo shows them pulling on the aspen with a rope.

***

Last night, it being Saturday, Teen B and Rocket Boy and I ate out at Shreddy's, our neighborhood taco place. The kids and I had eaten there twice before, just after it opened, and had two bad experiences, but we had heard that it had gotten its act together, so we tried it again (Teen A was out with friends and didn't want to go). They've changed the setup so that now they have a waitress and they bring your order all at the same time, so that was good. I ordered horchata and a cheese & bean quesadilla. The quesadilla came in 3 pieces -- I ate one and took the rest home. 

Late last night, the part of the quesadilla that I had eaten came back up. And today I have the worst diarrhea I can remember in a long time. So I don't think I'll be going back to Shreddy's, and I've already dumped my leftover quesadilla in the compost. Teen B and Rocket Boy enjoyed all their food and are not sick today, so it's probably just me. Maybe it was the horchata? Diabetics should probably not drink horchata (nor mango boba, by the way). But I really like it.

Time for the Mounjaro report.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 231
• Weight this morning (after 24+ weeks on Mounjaro): 230.8
  

I am cross about this -- only down .2 lbs after throwing up??? -- but it's not worth it to be cross. Friday and Saturday when I weighed myself I was 229. Eventually I will move on from this "stall." I think the main thing I could do to help myself is exercise. I just haven't wanted to go out and walk in the cold. I need to work on that: shorter walks, a new route that keeps to the sunny side of the street -- anything to get me out there, moving.

And on the plus side, the results of my 3-month A1c test were great! In September my A1c was 6.7, and this week it was 6.3! That's out of the diabetic range, finally, and into the pre-diabetic range. Next goal: the normal range, which starts at about 5.6, I think. 

***

This coming week should be much less busy, with only two things on the calendar so far: the choir concert at the high school on Tuesday night, and the book group coming here on Wednesday. But it's the last week of school before finals, which means there may be projects to complete and whatnot. We're supposed to get a little more snow on Monday, but probably only an inch or less. Our last snow still hasn't melted completely.

For me, it's going to be Shopping Week -- I will attempt to do all my holiday-related shopping. Christmas shopping has gotten very difficult, with the twins not really wanting anything and yet wanting things to open on Christmas morning, and this year I can't buy Rocket Boy a shirt! He has so many shirts, they don't fit in his closet. So shopping will be a challenge, but at the end of the week I will say, DONE, it's OVER, and I can go back to enjoying the season.

I plan to go to a different store, or shopping area, each day. Here are some of the choices:

• Flatirons mall (Old Navy, Macy's, the store with anime things, etc.)
  
• McGuckins, Grandrabbits, JoAnn's, Petco (all in the same general area)
• Target and Barnes & Noble (across the street from each other)
• Downtown -- Pearl Street, the Boulder Bookstore?
  
• Hmm. Out to Walmart and Kohl's in Lafayette? somewhere else?
  

I may be forgetting something. Also, I may end up taking two days to do one or more of these. It is harder for me to shop than it used to be, because I always need to go to the bathroom after a little bit, and not all these stores have bathrooms.

Oh, and the other thing this week is Colorado Gives Day, which is the Colorado version of Giving Tuesday. I will have to figure out who I am giving to this year. I usually give to Hillside School (the dyslexia school where Teen A finally learned to read), the local humane societies and the one in Park County where the cabin is, and an organization in St. Louis that helps poor people there -- Mission St. Louis. Then beyond that I do different things. Sometimes I give to a Desert Tortoise organization, but I've forgotten which one -- there are several. One year I gave to a group that tries to bring music back to Denver schools, and I will forever get their emails. 

I'll have to give this some thought before Tuesday, or perhaps on Tuesday. Rocket Boy may have some ideas too.

Welcome, December

I feel as though November went by so quickly! The election already seems like a long time ago, although it continues to keep on giving. What do you think of Trump's pick to lead the FBI? Whew. That's all I can say, really. Hoo boy.

Anyway, November is over, and now we have December, the holiday month. Actually, October, November, and December are all the holiday months, so we have only one left, and it will speed by.

I have the month plotted out already. 

• The first week is for writing cards. I'm all set -- got the cards, the stamps, the printed letters -- and I started addressing envelopes yesterday. I figure I'll do 10 a day. We also have some appointments (eye for Teen A tomorrow; hair for Teen B on Tuesday; bloodwork for me maybe Thursday; Covid vaccine for me on Friday). We have some activities (a field trip for Teen B on Friday; a work party for Rocket Boy and me on Friday night; the harp concert at the library on Saturday; the lights of December holiday parade on Saturday night). And we'll be doing a lot of cleaning.
  
• The second week is for shopping. I've already done some online shopping and will probably do more this coming week, but the second week is for in-person shopping (assuming it doesn't snow, which is a lot to assume). There are also some activities that week (the choir concert on the 10th; the book group here on the 11th -- that's why we'll be cleaning the week before). We will also probably put up our tree that weekend, maybe the 14th.
• The third week is for cookie baking (though I might do one batch the week before, for the book group). I hope that's not too late. It just seems like the cookies get stale if I start too early. I plan to make six batches this year. That week is also finals week, so the kids will be in and out. They can help bake or not, won't matter.
  
• The fourth week is Christmas, and the fifth half week is vacation leading up to New Year's. Nothing planned, but I'm sure we'll do things, depending on the weather.
  

So that's December! A busy, busy month, but it'll probably be fine. It helps to be organized, although you can't organize disaster, and you never really know what will happen from day to day.

Not to be a downer, or anything, but Christmas. You never know.

***

This was a busy week, with Thanksgiving and all. I felt very sick for the first couple of days, due to the stupid shot, so didn't get much done. It was supposed to snow on Tuesday, but it didn't get started until that night, and then it snowed until mid-afternoon Wednesday. Quite a lot of snow, really, more than was predicted.

I'd purchased expensive tickets ($25 each) to go to Blossoms of Light at the Denver Botanic Gardens that night, and oh my, did I ever regret that decision. Heavy snow on the ground, freezing cold. 

The twins thought this was possibly the stupidest idea I'd ever had. Teen A went out with his friends after the snow stopped and I had to text him to come home in time for us to drive to Denver. 

Me: We need to leave by 6 pm, so be back before then

Teen A: It's too cold though

Me: No, it's colorado

Teen A: Yes it's too cold

Me: Be home in half an hour

He came home in time, very very grumpy. Teen B was not in a good mood either. I managed to get us all out of the house (Rocket Boy drove) and all the way to the Gardens without anybody killing anybody. Being a mom to teenagers is not for the faint of heart, as they say.

And then of course we had a great time! Stupid twins. It wasn't that cold (30-ish probably), the walks were fully cleared of snow, the lights were beautiful, and everybody there was in a good mood. We stopped at one of the cafes and had "loaded hot chocolate," which consisted of a paper cup of hot chocolate, plus mini marshmallows, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and sprinkles. A little over the top! We stood around a fireplace outdoors and sipped our treats. 

On the way home we stopped at Great Scott's for dinner, and that made everybody grumpy again. Teen A just wanted to go home. Teen B wanted to go to some unknown "better" restaurant in Denver. I pointed out that it was almost 9 pm, and on the night before Thanksgiving most restaurants would already be closed or would be closing soon, and anyway, we didn't know of any "better" restaurants in Denver. Teen B was not impressed with these arguments. Pretty soon I felt like getting up and walking out of the restaurant. But the food arrived, and we ate it, and tragedy was averted.

I promised I would never make them go to something like this ever again (I'll wait until they're older and actually ASK to do something like this). But we got to do a fun winter holiday activity, so I'm happy about that.

I hadn't managed to do any Thanksgiving prep ahead of time, due to feeling lousy from the shot, but it was OK. I just got up early on Thursday and got to work. I made the cranberries and the pumpkin pie (Teen A helped, grumpily -- I told him he didn't have to, but he obviously wanted to, he just wanted to be sure I didn't think he was enjoying himself -- ah, teenagers). Then I made the spinach dish and the sweet potatoes. Rocket Boy made the mashed potatoes and gravy. Teen B observed the gravy making for a moment or two, after Rocket Boy insisted.

We had a bit of a logjam, as usual, right at the end, when we were trying to heat everything up AND make the sauce for the fish AND broil the swordfish AND bake the rolls. There's something wrong with our oven, or maybe it just needs cleaning -- anyway, it set off the smoke alarm while we were broiling. So there's always something exciting about Thanksgiving. But really, it was about as easy as it could have been, and dinner was pretty good. The swordfish was undercooked, so we put it back in the oven for 10 minutes and then it was tough. Still tasty, though. The cranberries were HORRIBLE -- I was trying a new recipe. I should just go back to my tried and true recipe next year. But it was good to experiment, too.

After dinner we took a break and then had pumpkin pie and whipped cream while watching "Ghosts" (I had gotten Season 4 of the British version from the library). I wished we could have taken a post-dinner walk, but the sidewalks were so icy that we didn't. Another year.

I guess this is a good place for the Mounjaro report, but I am not happy about it.

• Weight the morning I took my first shot: 254.6
• Weight last Sunday: 231
• Weight this morning (after 23+ weeks on Mounjaro): 231
  

OK, I realize it was Thanksgiving week, and I ate two pieces of pie (Thursday and Friday). We also ate out twice (Wednesday and Saturday), although both evenings I just had scrambled eggs and toast. And I had that "loaded hot chocolate" Wednesday night. But I was also on the 7.5 mg dose and felt terrible the first few days, and certainly did not overeat at any point during the week. I had very small helpings of each dish on Thanksgiving and did not have seconds. 

So I'm pissed. I'm trying not to be, but I am. Why do I have to feel so nauseated and tired all the time if the shot's not doing anything for me? There was a guy who posted on the Mounjaro subreddit a day or two ago, and he'd lost 100 pounds in 24 weeks. A hundred pounds. I just don't get it.

I'm going in for bloodwork this coming week, my 3-month A1c test, so we'll see how that goes. If my numbers are down again, I'll be happy with that, I promise. If they're not, I don't know what I'll think. But I must admit that I don't want to gain back the 23.6 pounds I've lost. If I just stayed right here at this weight, it would be about a thousand times better than gaining it all back. So there's that.

***

Rocket Boy and I went to a funeral on Friday, for someone I used to work with. It was held at Rocket Boy's old church (where he went with his mother in the old, old days), so he knew where to go and where to park and whatnot. I had somehow imagined that lots of my old coworkers would be there, but I only saw ONE, and I'm not sure he recognized me. I was going to speak to him afterwards, but he ducked out as soon as the service was over. There were other old men there who might have been people I used to know -- after all, it's been a while, and people change. I don't think I've changed much, and people always seem to recognize me. I still have long blond hair (blondish, but close enough). Anyway, none of them spoke to me. 

But really, the whole thing was weird. The church was full, at least the main floor pews were, so that was nice for the family. The man who died was a very cheerful, sociable sort -- I liked him a lot -- so these were probably friends (all with white hair). I enjoyed listening to the people who spoke about him, especially his son. Everyone who spoke kind of made fun of his work, on radio spectrum management. It had never occurred to me that it was funny. Apparently most people think it's so boring that it's funny, funny that anyone would be interested in it.

I kept thinking about other funerals I've been to in my life. The thing about funerals is that often the person who dies has outlived most of their contemporaries. This man hadn't, I guess -- he was 85, and many of the people attending looked to be around that old. But where were the coworkers? He retired 18 years ago, so I guess people had forgotten him. Or they don't get the paper anymore, and so didn't see the obituary. That's probably it. Or they didn't care enough about him to come? Hmm.

***

Well, it's the last day of the twins' vacation, so I must be mindful of that. Tomorrow we all have to get up early again. Helpfully, my body woke me up at 7 am today, so I'll be in good shape for tomorrow, even if no one else is. I'll be tired early tonight, and so I'll try to go to bed at a decent hour. I seem to have remembered how to sleep in our little bed with Rocket Boy, even with all the tossing and turning we both do, even with all his extra blankets and pillows, even with the two cats attempting to sleep with us, even with the temperature in the room higher than I like, even with the window closed. He's not sleeping as well, but then he's never been a good sleeper. 

It's also the first Sunday of Advent, so I need to get out my wreath, and the candles. Or go buy some, if I didn't buy an extra set last year.

We have a magpie who comes to our back patio and eats the citronella candle that's still sitting out there. (This is a thing that magpies do - I've read about it.) You can watch him through the kitchen window -- he just scarfs down the wax, obviously enjoying it. 

So Rocket Boy picked up a package of suet at McGuckin's (thinking it would be healthier) and we put it out for him yesterday. I just checked, and something has sampled the suet, but it looks more like squirrel paws than magpie feet. Anyway, both the candle and the suet are there, so the magpie could have whichever one it prefers. I hope it comes back. Maybe it went away for Thanksgiving.