New Year's Eve

Happy New Year's Eve everyone! 

Today has been a day to get Christmas put away and laundry to be done. Yesterday Bill took down the tree and the outside lights. Today, I put the TV back where it went, and all the Christmas decorations went back into their bins and into the basement. Rebecca helped put some stuff away in the garage for me and she and Ben cleaned out the game closet.

The kids and I watched Strange World. It was okay. Not really one of the best movies, but it was okay. 

 

Tonight, was our fancy appetizer dinner (where we eat appetizers for dinner on our fancy china). This year we had sweet chili and grape jelly meatballs, wings, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers, colby jack cheese and crackers, taquitos, potato skins, and a fresh veggie platter with cucumbers, red bell pepper, carrots, and celery and dill dip. It was all super yummy! 

Tonight, we will probably watch the Ohio State football game, play a game of Scrabble or two, and stay up until midnight. We are also planning on making smores with an indoor smore kit that the kids got me for Christmas. 

I just wanted to hop on here while I was taking a break and keep up with the streak of blogging. I will be back tomorrow with my goals for 2023. 

I hope everyone has a safe, happy, and healthy New Year's Eve! 

Ears pierced, walking, and out to eat

Happy Friday! The last one of 2022...

First of all, thank you for all the well wishes for my current health struggles. Thankfully insurance covered my phosphorus medication so we shall see if that helps. I started taking it last night so we shall see.

Yesterday, was a monumental day for Rebecca. One of the things she wanted for Christmas was to get her ears pierced. She has been wanting them pierced for a while, however there was no place close to have them done. We would have had to drive over an hour away to get it done. That changed in November when we found out that they now offered ear piercing at the salon that we get our hair cut at. For Christmas she received a box of earrings, and I told her she also had an appointment to get her ears pierced. Last night was the night... She was excited but nervous to get them done, but now she has holes in her ears!

Today was supposed to be a day for taking down the Christmas decorations and getting the house back in order. Well, Mother Nature and sleeping in had other plans. The kids let Bill and I both sleep in this morning. Then we decided that since it was 60 degrees outside that we would go take a family walk. It was a nice walk on the bike path and while we were walking the sun broke through the clouds. (On another note, the temperature today was a 100-degree difference from the real feel temperature a week ago when it was -40 degrees! Crazy Ohio weather!) 

 

After coming home, showering and eating, I focused on folding some laundry, while Bill took down the outside lights and the Christmas tree from the living room. Then we both kind of ran out of steam. So, I will finish tomorrow. 

Tonight, we went out to dinner at our local Mexican restaurant. It is our tradition to go out to eat on Christmas Eve and to leave the server a nice tip (above what we normally leave). Well, since we were under a Level 3 emergency on Christmas Eve which didn't allow any driving, we had to postpone. Tonight, was our makeup night. A story about this, is that we had some help with funding from a Secret Santa. About a week before Christmas, we received a card in the mail with no return address and in it was money and a note to enjoy our Christmas Eve dinner on Santa. It was a true blessing. I swear the handwriting on the card looked familiar, but I can't place it, but it is obviously someone who knows about our tradition. I am thankful for that person, and it made our dinner even better. 

For the rest of tonight, I am going to be working on my goals for 2023... they are mainly going to be health related. I am also thinking through some other challenges I might want to do in 2023... Another blogger mentioned trying to blog for 365 days and I am thinking I *might* try that, as I have enjoyed being able to blog more these last 2 weeks. 

What about you? Are you thinking about goals for 2023? Blogging more? Do you have your ears pierced? Do you still have your Christmas decorations up? 

  

Good news and Bad news (and a new recipe)

Happy Thursday everyone! 

Two pieces of good news today to share. First the temperatures are trending in the right direction. Right now, it is 53 degrees right now. Last week on Friday it was -36. That is a huge difference in the span of a week. The boys were happy that the temperatures were going up as they were able to get out and play in the snow. 

The other piece of good news is that the oven is fixed! Yay! It got fixed yesterday morning. I made brownies and then made rice for dinner. 

Speaking of dinner, I tried a new recipe yesterday that was totally awesome. It was for air fryer chicken and broccoli stir fry. Oh, my word, it was so good! The kids and Bill, all loved it as well.

This week the kids and I have also watched several movies that we have never seen before. We watched Thor: Love and Thunder which I would give a grade of an A. It was really good. 

We also watched the original Avatar movie. Ben has been wanting to see it. It was good... I would say that it was a B+ grade. I think there could have been less cursing in the movie. 

Today, we watched The Jungle Cruise with the Rock. It was a good movie as well. I would give it a A- grade. 

Now the bad news. This morning I had to go to a nephrology appointment. My phosphorus levels are very low and have been dropping for the past 6 months. They are super low... they are supposed to be at least 2.4 and mine is 1.4. She is putting me on a phosphorus medication (as long as insurance covers it. She said a lot of times they don't because it is so expensive.) I also had glucose and ketones in my urine. She is hoping that that was a fluke. However, with the low phosphorus there is a chance that it is a symptom of something else. So, I have to go back in a month to have more labs done to see and then we will go from there. One of the goals I have for 2023, is to eat better and to get healthier. Hopefully, that will help. 

Well, that is all for now. In a bit I am taking Rebecca to get her ears pierced as part of her Christmas present. Tomorrow we will be working on taking down the Christmas decorations and putting them away. I will also be working more on making my goals for 2023. 

What are you up today? How's the weather where you are? Have you seen any of these movies? When do you take your Christmas decorations down? 

Wordless Wednesday: Sibling Love

 

A Cold, lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas

Happy Tuesday everyone! I hope everyone is having a good day. I thought I'd hop on here to read some blogs and update. 

I don't want to continue without expressing my sorrow to Kim over at Out My Window, whose husband Joel passed away unexpectedly on Christmas Day. My heart breaks for Kim and her family. Please keep them in their prayers.

The last time I wrote Winter Storm Elliott had arrived with way below zero temperatures, wind and some snow. Thankfully, we never lost power. However, our boiler system had a very hard time keeping up with it. The house got down to 61 degrees and it was cold. The heater did not stop running for 3 days straight. Thankfully, yesterday it got back up to 70 in the house and it feels much better in there. 

On Friday night, it was snowy and cold. We ended up ordering pizza from the pizza place close by as it was the only place open. Then we had a fun evening playing games--- Bananagrams and Scattegories.  We all camped out downstairs as it was the warmest room in the house. We had a space heater going as well. Bill slept on the couch, Jacob slept in on the loveseat, Ben slept in the recliner, Rebecca and I both slept on mattresses we pulled down from upstairs. It was a family sleepover, and it was pretty fun to sleep with the Christmas tree lit. 

Christmas Eve, we awoke to a Level 3 snow emergency. The roads were horrible and basically it was not safe for anyone to be out. In fact, we could have been arrested for being out on the roads. Bill wasn't able to go to work. We spent Christmas Eve just hanging out. Usually for Christmas Eve we go out to dinner and then look at Christmas lights. This year the roads were too bad (even though they downgraded us to a level 2, which meant roads were bad). So, I looked in our freezer and found a pack of steaks. We had air fryer steaks, mashed potatoes, sauteed green beans and pineapple. It was super yummy.

 

After dinner, the kids found a gift on their beds... new flannel pajamas, which we wore while watching Elf (a Christmas Eve tradition).  Then it was off to bed for the boys, and Rebecca and I got ready to head to midnight mass.

 

Our Christmas started with Rebecca and I attending midnight mass and singing in the choir. It was a beautiful mass. Then it was home to play Santa... putting gifts out and setting up the stockings. 

Christmas morning, the kids were excited to receive their gifts. Ben and Jacob each got a Battlebots arena from Santa. Rebecca received earrings (and notice that she has an appointment on Thursday night to get her ears pierced.) I received the James Patterson and Dolly Parton book Run, Rose, Run. Bill received a 23 and me kit to send off to do his DNA test and see if he can find some of his relatives or at least start to understand some of his background. We also received lovely gifts from each other. 

After opening gifts, we just hung out and napped. 

We then headed out to my parent's house for Christmas with the extended family. It was a wonderful afternoon! We received some nice presents, but it was so nice just to spend time together with a lovely meal. 

Overall, we had a wonderful Christmas! It was truly one of the best Christmases I have ever had. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas as well, and are getting time to rest and relax.