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.