NST December 2025 A Different December

beanielou

So tough @dustydigger. Sending love. 

You are amazing @grandmanerd. Xx

apple_muncher

Today I am grateful for cheerful people in liddle, for a clear sunshine day, for enjoyable tutoring, for time with Pip, for the shedload of money spent on food shopping meaning we can avoid the shops (apart from one or two things) for a lonnnng time.

DawnW

((Hugs)) @dustydigger

Not a good day yesterday. I was up literally all night coughing, so stayed off work and went to the doctor's instead. I now have steroids and antibiotics for my nuisance asthma and a slight chest infection. I did manage to sleep till about 3 this morning, and got up just before 5. Although I hate taking them (I have to take 8 tablets all in one go), the steroids do really sort my asthma out when it is playing up and my regular meds aren't helping. Doesn't happen often. I was also told that I have a heart murmur, and that this will need to be investigated once I am better / after the New Year. The joys of getting old!

Anyway, I still coughing a bit and have a slight headache, but am definitely feeling better than I was, so have put ingredients for a loaf in the breadmaker. I have sausage rolls to make later for a family get together tomorrow, though I cheated and bought ready rolled puff pastry in the supermarket, so not a huge effort. I didn't think I would be able to go tomorrow, but will try to manage a couple of hours to get to see everyone. The doctor told me that nobody can catch anything off me. Then cold I had went a couple of weeks ago, and this current illness is sort of left over from that and really just a complication of my asthma.

Still at NSD # 8 as we stopped off at the Co-op on the way home from the surgery, and OH went in and bought some bits for lunch plus more tissues and orange juice.

I am not ruling out going back to bed for a couple of hours later today!

dustydigger

Quick note of the days plans.Need to hoover sitting room badly as I can see tiny bits of tinsel glittering here and there .
Wash stairs paintwork and give stair carpet a good brush. 
Bathroom. Mr D must have had a little accident in the dark. Pools on the floor.:(  So glad I hadnt put down the fresh bathmats.yet. Did a hasty mop u at 8am,but it needs a thorough cleanWash the soiled bathmats and bedsheets
Do a general bedding wash. Need to change duvet covers which will knock me out for the day. Mr D used to help me,he would hold the two top corners of duvet and cover and I would wrestle the cover down often ending up INSIDE the darned thing. lol.
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Well DD! came in and we had a nice chat.and I gave her all the xmas goody bags for herself,and my 3 granddaughters family bags to take to hers.. Saves having to drag them all over to DS2 s xmas bash. Xmas Day teatime. They will visit her on Xmas morning,so thats great. Only  3 family bags left to take on Xmas  Day.
Also she brought back money she borrowed money to use for Xmas because she wasnt sure when she would get paid,but they paid early. Last year they waited till 28th which didnt go down well,so she got paid today. Told her to forget the loan,so she was very happy.
Of course I am now best part of an hour behind with my chores plan. I'm ALWAYS behind with my chores plan
 Forget sitting room and stairs. Cleaning bathroom and changing bedding are essential. Have to start dinner at 11am.Will defrost fish now. Duvet wrestling may have to wait till the afternoon.
Its the day of my special tablet for reducing size of red blood cells.I have it alternate days. No food or drink allowed for 3 hours after taking it. Naturally I immediately feel very hungry and thirsty so doing some chores will distract me,and distract from the rather sick feeling the tablet gives me.
Right I'm a full hour behind so off I go.

beanielou

Feel better soon @DawnW ❤️‍🩹

dustydigger

Well got the bathroom all cleaned clean bathmats down,looks tidy for now. Took 45 mins with 3 5 mins rests included. Having a 5 min break now then its doing potatoes and fish stew . Then its back upstairs to hoover and change Mr Ds bedding. Brand new duvet and duvet cover set . Had intended to leave it till Monday or Tuesday but after todays mishaps I need to change bedsheet again - IF I can remember where I tucked away some more sheets. Had to throw away the last one sadly.Hope I can locate another fitted sheet loose ones just end up on the floor too many times..

dustydigger

cant believe it,DS1 turned up and stayed 30 mins,so dinner was very late,I managed hand off his family bag so I'm down to only 3 families bags to take on Xmas Day.to Mr D is eating now at 1.20 and thoroughly enjoying an old VERY old Johnnie Cash Xmas special 1977,but all the people were relics of the fifties,incluidng Carl Perkins singing Blue Suede shoes and Jerry Lee Lewis singing Whole Lot of Shakin',Goin' On. In fact it brought back a lot of memories of singing some of the songs along with the radio back in the 50s.EEK.
One interesting point was that Elvis had just died and  Johnnie sang Blue Christmas in tribute. Made for an interesting morning.,in between  cleaning cooking and entertaining visitors.
Nowdrying the towels and mats ,will wait till tomorrow now to wash bedding.

I chucked the new duvet pack down the stairs and the new duvet set left them bottom of the stairs to wrestle with later. Just gone to get them and My dear lad had carried the back upstairs. Does anything ever go as planned.lol.

DawnW

Take it easy @dustydigger

I made my sausage rolls, but my silly steroid brain forgot till half way through that you need to have the seam side underneath or they burst open. So I also have sausage unrolls 

There are plenty of 'good' ones to take to family though, and OH is very happy with the rejects.

Did a little bit of cleaning and wrapped the final presents. Still no tree or decorations. Not sure it will happen this year, but the tree is happier outside in its pot anyway. We will see.

grandmanerd

I've slept for most of the day. I had a slightly awkward conversation with DS1 (I'd only been awake for 13 minutes). He was asking if I was going there or not because if I was he would buy extra food for Christmas Eve and Boxing Day. I'm pretty sure that one big meal (with leftovers) is enough for me and that I may sleep for a day or 2 to 'sleep it off'. my symtoms are changing but I have no idea where I will be up to by next Thursday (Wednesday actually as I'd be travelling then). So I've said I'll stay home. I won't need to apologise or coughing or sneezing my head off, or if I fall asleep, am not a sparkling conversationalist etc. Last week he was asking me about 'puddings', refused to acceot that I wouldn't need one and got cross at my atempts at simple desserts (buy me a bag of frozen mixed berries and I can have it with ice cream or yoghurt, add meringue baskets/ kisses to make it fancy).

He's going to bring me food and presents on the evening of Christmas Day. My remaining parcels were due to arrive by today so I've not gone far away from the door. Predicted to arrive between 2.15 pm and 5.15 pm. Arrived betweeb 6.30 pm and 7 pm. I don't care, they are here. I told the delivery man to just put them down in the vestibule as I had lurgy (most of his customers had it).

So slothing on the couch (couldn't face making up the new bed with mattress covers and layers) eating remnants from the fridge (pickles, cheese and celery twice, 1/2 portion of spinach and cheese canelloni, box of chocs). I have cleared the radiator and draped 3 towels on it and hung some items up to dry. Going through tissues and toilet rolls like nobody's business. Must check on how many rolls they have upstairs. Was planning to order before the end of the year, may do it anyway then I know it's done. Sorry I can't make that into an adventure and we did toiletrollgate many years ago (I was obsessively counting the rolls in the bathroom and calculating how many they were using and how long our supply would last (Beloved is an exponent of the 'Mummies hand').

Things to be grateful for
As already mentioned, that I didn't spend the morning clearing up broken glass and spilled beer in a pub

2 That I didn't have to stand, heavily pregnant, at a cold bus stop with a toddler, a pushchair, bulging bags of presents, clothes and baby supplies for a weekend and an extremely useless and aggravating parter who'd been DJing the office party all day whilst the ale flowed (at one point he was swinging round the bus stop pole and I wouldn't have cared if he'd fallen into the road and got run over. All for an exciting weekend with his parents (him sitting at the kitchen table chatting to his mother, me being ignored whilst running round after the toddler and not contributing to their family dramas). Not to mention the arm-wrestling and other petty bouts of competitveness.

3 That I didn't get dragged out to a local community centre party when what I most wanted was a bath, to wash my hair and put clean clothes on. Then being taken to task for being miserable and not enjoying the party (I was dirty, smelly and not drinking - just what every girl dreams of). You never know how not funny all those drunks are until you're the one remaining sober throughout.

Too, too negative so some happy memories - getting an unexpected Rotary Club parcel, the year the local unemployed Centre/ Food Co-op lost most of it's volunteers to a temporary homeless shelter. Some of the food donated by local businesses was not suitable for the homeless so once they had what they needed and it had been taken to the school they were using, a friend of mine and her partner divided the leftovers into sacks and drove round in the Community Centre van leaving parcels on the doorsteps of families they knew (lots of it was weird things like sweet and sour nik naks - the boys loved them. I also loved doing the boys stockings. We always took them to the midnight service at church to tire them out. One year DS3 (age 3/4) insisted in sitting on the front pew with the vicar's wife who was reading the sermon. She was lovely about it but after 5 minutes he decided to go back to his dad, brothers and grandma in the middle benches, leaving me looking like a divi.

apple_muncher

Ooh, Nik naks! Loved the lemon(?) ones!

Today I am grateful for getting stuff to the tip, for enjoying doing 30 mins of soil shifting and moving my garden plan forward a smidge, for not clocking my head on the stubs of apple tree branches as I soil shifted, for the only thing needing doing was taking Pip to his first (and possibly last!) ever teenager party - a friend's 18th - and dh doing the pick up at 11, for tosco having Pip's nuggets in-stock and the lovely man delivering them to our door - I gave him a pack of chocolate digestives and he was sooooo chuffed 🤣