Christmas...

I hope everyone who might read this had a wonderful holiday season. My holiday season actually started far earlier than the norm, at least in my head! My birthday was in mid November, and though my birthday was not the focus, it was one big party.

Some of our dearest friends, and former neighbors, Vickie and Lyle's daughter got married that weekend. Robert and I were co-hosts for this wonderful event. So, on my birthday we began by decorating the reception hall, followed by the rehearsal and then the rehearsal dinner. What a way to get taken out to dinner for your birthday, huh?

The day of the wedding was one of the colder days we've had in the last few weeks, but it cleared up enough to make it possible to not be too miserable walking the couple of blocks to the church for the ceremony. I cried at the rehearsal, so managed not to weep at the actual wedding, leaving that up to daughter Lyn, who, upon hearing Pachelbel's Canon (which she chose for her music as well) let the tears flow. Then it was off to the reception where we greeted guests and directed "traffic" and so on. When all were full of wonderful food and lots of wedding cake, the dancing began. And we danced until the wee hours. Oh, my feet!!!

I have to say, I looked pretty darned hot for an old lady. I'd prove it to you, but you know, in true style, not a single child of mine thought to take a picture of me when I was all dressed up. Believe me, that's SOOOOO typical. I've been telling my kids for years that one of these days I'm gonna be dead and there won't be any pictures of me for them to remember what I looked like! I've always been the one to take the pictures, so until a camera is invented that works in reverse automatically, I guess I'll just remain Dorian Gray! Kate??? Ah, no images were ever seen of her!!!

Thanksgiving took place at Robert's sister's home about 30 miles south of here. She lives in a big old farmhouse, so there's plenty of room for all of us to sprawl out once we're sated with turkey and fixin's. But...Pam can be a cruel person....she makes us walk a mile to the nearest stop sign before we can have pie! (Yes, we really do know she's right!) So, we waddled to the stop sign, discovered that the county had recently replaced the thing and had placed the sign on a very tall pole. We had to find a long stick to touch the sign, for that is one of the rules. No pie till you actually *touch* that sign!

December was busy. I spent a lot of it in doctors offices, getting checked for various things. Mammogram: okay (I'd found a lump a few weeks ago); Other girl stuff: all okay, in fact, the doc said that she thought I was through menopause, but the Goddess deemed otherwise a week later, darn it!!! Then there was the dentist - major dental work to be done in 2007. I'm not looking forward to that, but am grateful I finally found a compassionate dentist who actually listened to my concerns and will work together with me to gain good results. Finished up with the dermatologist who took some skin problems away from me. Still waiting on biopsies on those. The worst of it all is that, though I'm seemingly healthy, I have gained so much weight through stress eating and boredom that I've managed to shoot my LDL into such a high number that I'm under strict orders to take the weight off or be prepared for a heart attack or stroke. They are willing, though, to let me have a little time to try to do it without medicine, though. I hope I have the determination to do this for myself; there are days, though, even though I'm definitely not depressed that I wonder if it just wouldn't be easier to just continue on my current path. It seems like I've been fighting for life, love and success for so long, I wonder how worth it it really is? But, that's a whole other story, and probably something to be blog fodder some other day.

In view of my health, a trip to the attorney's office was made, and we had wills done. We'd been putting it off for a good many years. Don't know why - guess we can be just like teenagers and think we're infallible! So, that's done; another thing off my check list of undone things that were stressing me out.

This was my holiday to work, so I spent part of the Christmas holidays at the hospital. The patient load was at an all time low, and we had a fairly good, experienced crew this year so we finished in good time. Made it home, changed clothes and headed to Lyn and Jared's for the festivities. Christmas gifts were exchanged, and we got a big kick out of watching Luke and Laney open their gifts. Luke has gotten to the age (4) where it's not a present if it's clothes... watched them get thrown over his shoulder in a mild form of disgust!!!! It was pretty funny to watch!

Robert's mother came to join our festivities mid-afternoon. She'd spent the morning at Pam's and just kind of seemed like a fish out of water this year when she joined us. Robert's dad has been gone for two years now, and, sad to say, she's still not taking his death very well. She came in and cried because he wasn't there to take her to Christmas services this year, and Pam's family had the flu and couldn't take her, either. We didn't know anything about it till then, but it's doubtful any of us would have made the trip to take her to church. She spent several hours with us and then Robert and I took her home, after detouring by here to feed and potty the dogs. She got a little testy with us because we didn't hurry it up fast enough to suit her and she wanted to get home. Sorry. She just didn't get the coddling she wanted from all of us, I guess!

Robert actually got me a Christmas gift this year. He bought me a ring. I was shocked when he told me I had a choice between a nice necklace and a ring for Christmas. I chose the ring because I thought I might get a necklace as another gift.

I'd seen a ring that interested me, and during my shopping, decided to go take a look at the ring to see if the advertisement did it justice, only to find out that the store never had carried that ring in their inventory - "but they would be glad to order it in if we wanted to buy it".

So, I wandered through a few jewelry stores looking at things, seeing if anything caught my eye. I have emeralds, I have CZ, I have tourmaline. What caught my attention, though, in those darned jewelry cases that make everything sparkle was a stone I had heard of, but was not familiar with - alexandrite.

It's hard to explain alexandrite to someone who has never seen it. It shimmers in the range of looking somewhat sapphire, yet also aquamarine. If you look at it in the right light, it glows red as well. The jewelry world has developed a cheaper version of the stone and it's called "mystic fire". Mystic fire, though is a painted stone, not anything natural at all, just an overpriced painted piece of CZ.

I picked out several rings, and left it up to Robert to decide which ring to purchase. He was impressed by the stone, and picked out a marquise cut surrounded by small diamonds. It's a lovely ring.

And, this is what's funny about the stone. I had done no research on this stone, so a couple days after Christmas, I decided to look up the "properties" of the stone to see what things were attributed to it.

Imagine my complete and total surprise when I read that alexandrite is believed to be a stone that works with the duality of both venous and arterial blood! What a fitting stone for someone in my profession! The gods do work in mysterious ways!

Here's an interesting article about alexandrite. I'll bet you'll find it as interesting as I did!

At any rate, I've undoubtedly blithered and bored you all with my long-windedness. I'll leave you be for this round, but never fear that I'll be be back!

Take care, everyone.