It’s definitely feeling like the Christmas season around here, even though there isn’t any snow. It’s 21 degrees Fahrenheit this morning, so I’m happy! (I don’t necessarily need snow at Christmas, but it doesn’t feel like Christmas to me if it isn’t freezing cold out. So that problem’s solved!)

I’m absolutely indescribably exhausted today, gang. Honestly. I got up at 5am to go down and feed the many scampering cats — who are doing reasonably okay with my mom here in the house. They aren’t totally hiding. Just mostly. Last night, she and I were watching The Polar Express on the iPad in the kitchen, and for some reason, I needed to get something from the other room and I discovered a few of them playing together under the Christmas tree in the dining room. Usually, if another person is in the house, they won’t come out from under the bed.

So, they’re being cute. And I love having the tree up. And all the decorations out everywhere. I’ve even made my bed for 3 days in a row now — probably why I’m so exhausted! Before my mom came, I hadn’t actually made my bed in months.

Actually, for most of this entire year, I haven’t made my bed. It seems like I’m always getting back into it several times a day, so I stopped making it. It’s not that I’m always that tired, but it seems like, in between staring at the laptop screen for hours on end, I always end up collapsing on the bed for awhile and staring at the maple tree outside my window.

Anyway, so I stopped making my bed for the first time in probably 40 years. And started making it again 3 days ago…

My mom had never seen the movie, The Polar Express, so it was fun watching it with her. I just love that movie. It’s better watching it on a bigger screen and not just on an iPad at the kitchen table, but it’s still fun, regardless.

Oh — I thought this was funny. Last September, when my mom was here to take care of my cats, I headed off to NY without showing her how to use the little tabletop jukebox I have in the kitchen.  I meant to do that before I left, so that she could play CDs because my mom loves music as much as I do.  The jukebox is not that easy to figure out, because it plays CDs, has a bluetooth thing, and also plays AM or FM radio — and there are no instructions.

She eventually figured out how to get it to play a CD but she couldn’t figure out how to open it and change the CD.

Yesterday, she told me that one night while I was in NY, she discovered one of my CD racks, that’s full of old Country & Western CDs. My mom loves old Country music, so she just became bound and determined to figure out how to open the thing and switch out the CD.  Once she did, she said she stayed up until 4am, drinking beers and listening to old Country & Western CDs.

I thought back to September,  and then said, “Oh man, does this mean you had to listen to Tom Petty’s Greatest Hits for 5 days?!”

She sort of sighed in resignation and quietly said, “Yep.”

I found that really amusing…

Anyway. We took our walk last evening and it felt really great to be out in the brisk air after dark. Walking around. We didn’t stay out too long, because it was actually quite freezing. But here are 2 photos of neighbors’ houses. Of course, I am a terrible photographer, so the houses actually looked way better than this in real life:

I guess you can at least tell from these two houses, that the architecture around here is really old. I just love the houses here. No two are alike.

Okay. I am trying to adjust to not writing every day. It does feel a little weird. But it’s probably good for me to be having this break from it. Oh, and also, as I was unpacking all the Christmas stuff from the many boxes, I was looking at the newspapers that I’d wrapped stuff in and it has actually been 4 years that all this stuff has been stored away — not 3 years.

Thinking it had been 3 years had felt bad enough, but once I realized it had been 4 years — it got kind of depressing. Not just the rapid way that time is disappearing, but it was sad how much has changed since that last Christmas, when I wrapped everything up and put it in storage. I had no idea it would be 4 years before anything in my life would get settled again. I need to focus on here & now, though, because I am really happy with how my life is turning out. But unwrapping all that stuff, and suddenly having vivid recall of how sad and awful my life had gotten in the old house — it really took a lot out of me, like, instantaneously. I sat on the floor in the dining room, in the middle of all those boxes and just felt like crying. If my birth mom hadn’t been here with me yesterday, I would have sealed the boxes right back up and put it all back into storage for the rest of my life. I really would have.

Oh, and I decided that the broken coffee mug from Christmas 1981 — my favorite one that I had bought at Macy’s back in NYC — I threw it away last night. I think it’s better than trying to repair it and looking at it that way for the rest of my life. Just keep moving forward. It’s time for everything to change.

Okay. I’m gonna go downstairs and get more coffee and sit at the kitchen table with my birth mom and close down this laptop for the 3rd day in a row! Thanks for visiting, gang!  Have a great day, wherever you are in the world. I love you guys! See ya!