Happy Birthday Again

 

Happy Birthday to Nora - (sorry about her dad's leg in the picture.)  The semester is finished, and we celebrated her birthday today.  What kind of grandmother - I had to ask her if she was 19 or 20.  Twenty it is, she is out of her teens.

There were gifts and goodies, at my house since I'm staying at home these days.  It was just the nicest day for me.

I missed a call from my doctor yesterday afternoon - she will call back on Monday.  Her message said that the MRI showed sacrum fractures, usually treated without surgery but she wants me to see an ortho.  

This gives me time to think of questions before the Monday call, so that's good. And it allows me to relax a little over the weekend since some of the possibilities have been eliminated.

MRI

 I've been having lots of hip pain for the past few weeks, like having to use a walker pain.  So today I had my scheduled MRI.

For reasons that aren't especially relevant, I had it done deep in the Cincinnati Bengals stadium.  Well, ok, it was the first appointment available, and the copay was less that at the hospital.

I thought that might be exciting, but the only exciting thing was seeing a sign on a door saying "Bangals Interview Room."  And a cardboard cutout of Joe Burrow in the scan office.  And maybe the golf cart ride from the entrance to the scan place was ok too.

Getting down and back up my steps, not exciting, but it worked out.  The MRI lasted just twenty minutes, and I'm glad it wasn't longer because my back really hurt on the hard table.

Moving on to other news:  my North Carolina family is picking up a new Subaru Forester Wilderness as we speak.  In a lovely dark green.  They will be traveling for Christmas in style.

A couple of years ago my local family was traveling to Florida for a pre-Christmas vacation when they had transmission problems near Atlanta.  Knowing they would probably need to replace that car soon anyway, and knowing that the repair would be expensive and would take a couple of days out of their short vacation, they hobbled to the local dealership and bought a new car of the same make and model.  The salesman helped transfer everything to the new car and they went on their way.

Happy Birthday

 

Happy Birthday Nora!

If all the grandgirls were lined up in a row, I'd always choose you.

Tradition

 

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If you're lucky, you have some family  holiday traditions  that you enjoy, year after year.

And a few days ago you saw my Christmas tree.  Lots of Hallmark ornaments.  Every year they come out of their little boxes and I admire them.

The back story to that is that I love to give my family members (and myself) Hallmark ornaments each year.  Of course, I'm frugal, and the ornaments are purchased when they are 75% off after Christmas and saved for the next year.  They have the previous year's date when they are received, but no one seems to mind.

I figure that when the grands have their own homes they will have a nice collection of ornaments for their own trees.  They both get one from their mom too.

Last year I missed giving the those Hallmark ornaments because I was in rehab (the PT kind) on Christmas.  My daughter did that year's post-Christmas shopping, so this year there will be at least two of those little boxes for everyone.

We may not celebrate on Christmas day this year because my North Carolina daughter may be on snow removal duty at the arboretum but we will celebrate,

Additional note:  last year my daughters both had Covid (me, too) so they weren't allowed to visit the rehab facility.  They wanted to order some food for me from outside - you can always count on a Chinese restaurant on Christmas Eve when everything else is closed.

Christmas Concert

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What a blessing to watch the Berea College Christmas Concert at Union Church tonight.  Even though I'm not there in person, I still get all the feels.  It's a wonderful annual event, music from many student groups interspersed with scripture, in that lovely old church.

And another feel - they just recognized the midyear music graduates who will be graduating tomorrow.  And I remember another midyear Berea graduation, for my younger daughter, two days after her father died unexpectedly.  We went from the graduation to the visitation.  

We hadn't thought to bring a camera, but her sister asked a random family if they would take pictures for us.  It turned out that the family's graduate had gone on a Short Term camping trip in the Southwest the same year as Sarah.

Final exams were following week, which was a little out of order.  One of Sarah's professors waived her final  And my grad school professor waived my final as well.  People were kind, in so many ways.

Gingerbread Houses

                     

Well, since we know that Nora is 5'8" now, and Aaron is 6'5", this picture was taken a while ago.  During an Asheville visit, at the Grove Park Inn.  

The Christmas tree in the lobby was tall and fabulous, as I'm sure it is again this year.  And I'm sure we saw the gingerbread houses from the Annual National Gingerbread Competition.

This year, though,  the competition was cancelled following the devastation of Hurricane Helene.  However, more than 40 gingerbread artists are displaying their work at various businesses throughout Asheville, with just a few on display at the Grove Park Inn.

It's called the Gingerbread Trail of Giving.  And I've heard that the North Carolina Arboretum is on the list. 

Tree Time

 

I've been laying low these days.  The last eye surgery morphed into unexpected hip pain - don't do stupid gardening things, just saying.  But now I have this lovely tree in the living room and PT appointments twice a week.  Life is looking more hopeful.

Kudos to my daughters and granddaughter for getting the tree up and decorated.

When I was a brat kid I begged to have the tree up early.  My parents always got a live tree that would be planted outside so it didn't go up until about a week before Christmas.  We did have a few decorations prior to the tree happening - does anyone remember those wax candles that looked like choir singers, snow people, maybe even Santa?

My mother made many cut out cookies in the days prior to Christmas and would store them in the big blue speckled canner.  I have her recipes but mine have never compared to hers.  And I've tried many times.

Suddenly it's cold here, like night temperatures in the teens.  I have several containers of outdoor plants inside - we'll see how that goes.