Softly Falling

It's supposed to snow tonight, maybe. And to get really cold for us again. Down as low as 6 degrees by Tuesday night.  Many inches at Ski Bluewood.  Nice for the the school break skiiers.

Recovering from Flu A.  And yes, I got a flu shot in September. Spent five days in isolation in the hospital including Christmas Eve.  Thank God for family and a loving kind staff.  I'm home tottering around and opened my Christmas Gifts.  All wonderful.  Sweet smelling little lavender pillows, new jammies, framed photos of faces I love.  So glad to be home.

My new favorite poem.  Author unknown.

I wish I was a glow worm

A glow worm’s never glum

Cuz how can you be sad or mad

When the suns shines out your bum.

Solstice - the light returns

It makes my heart glad that the days are now getting longer.  Sure its still cold, dark, and I am stuck at home with the flu but I like to remind myself that the world keeps turning and the light keeps coming back, and not far off is the spring.

Hope you have a lighter heart on this lighter day today.  I will.   Flu and asthma suck.  Today my fever is gone, I woke feeling I was going to recover and not cough myself into oblivion after all. I have a day gentle day of gift wrapping planned.  Thankfully I got my out of town gifts mailed before the plague hit me.  This morning I'm cooking a veggie fritata.  Yesterday's breakfast was Pepperidge Farm's Milanos and lots of coffee.  I ate the whole bag.

Today, I'll slurp my hot tea and watch "The Avengers" on Netflix, it goes away tomorrow, I love Tom Hiddleston and his hammy Loki.  I finished up Marco Polo yesterday, it was okay.  The last 5 stories were better than the first five.  It was beautiful visually but the plot lines left much to be desired.  Probably best watched while ill and lacking good judgement.  I finished knitting a scarf.  Watched "Inspector Morse."  Years ago when I was sick with the flu I recorded and watched a whole weekend's marathon of the "Red Dwarf" on PBS.

Our weather seems to have been ordered for the "Twilight Zone."  Freezing fog thick enough to dull the buildings across the street. If I drive to the edge of town will I find my town has been moved to another planet?  Still, I can see the bright red ribbons the condo board has put up on the lamps along the walks here.  The neighbors have lights with giant Christmas balls lining the entry to their patio.  Net lights are on trees.


I got the cataract removed from my other eye Friday and am amazed and pleased that I can read and play on the computer sans glasses.  My new eye is still light sensitive so the fog is actually a bonus, gentle on the altered eye.  I took a little drive and noticed that in spite of the density of the fog quite a few drivers do not turn their lights on.  I guess they must think if they can see us, the rest of them must be able to see them.


Getting ready for Christmas. We decided the Christmas menu, and stuff is ordered.  I ordered gifts for my Oregon sisters and their families that hasn't shown up yet.  Last year I got everyone books that were wrapped and sent directly to them.  This year I took a different path.  Did theme gifts for each family but maybe I should have started earlier.  Oh well.  They don't seem to mind if gifts keep coming after the fact.  No little kids there anymore to disappoint.


The first grandchild/niece to go away to college has returned for Christmas. She gets a three week break.  She flew home from Virginia to Portland, Oregon. This will be her only visit until summer break.  She had one paper that needed to be completed and emailed in (what a change from my college years in the dark ages) and is right now sleeping off the trip and the late night paper.  We are all excited to see her, I hope we don't wear her out trying to hug her and talking her ears off.  Next year two more go, and on and on, out into the world.  Lots to think about at Christmas.

Too windy for a kite!

Big winds again today.  Maybe gusting as high as 60 mph. Windy yesterday too but the temperature got to 68° in places, in December, after a week of around 23° day and night. 


Visited my favorite grocery with a huge bulk section.  Came home with bags of beans, red beans, white beans, lentils, yum.  I'm making multi-bean lentil soup today.  Soaked the beans last night and they are ready to go.  I cook up lots of them and freeze the extra in zip lock bags for future use.  Lots of material for more soup, bean burritos, and bean dip. Yum.


Tomorrow I get the cataract in my right eye removed.  I had the left one done about a month ago.  Even with one new lens I can now read without glasses.  I am excited to be able to see well again.  The cataracts seemingly snuck up on me until my regular eye doctor said new glasses were not going to help. 


The eye surgeon is a vegetarian and he sends all his patients home with a basket of fruit, banana, Japanese pear, avocado and a little book called a vegetarian starter kit if you are interested.  And I am.  I doubt I will ever be a true vegetarian but veggies and fruit are my favorite foods so why not learn some new recipes.  Especially since I can now read them easily.


Youngest son came by and resuscitated my PC.  It had some kind of malware and adware bugs. Hooray for him.  He suggested new account passwords but I had already done that on another computer just in case.  I had a password protected user for myself with admin functions and a separate one for grandkids.  He removed the admin functions to a new user for admin only that will keep me from downloading any ugly stuff by mistake.  Nice to have my PC back.