December 1-15, 2021 Week? of COVID

Happy St Nick's Day! Happy Hannukah! Happy Advent! Dec 6th, St Nick's Day landed on a Monday. We decided to celebrate Little Christmas over the weekend. Scott already had his "stocking" when he came home over Thanksgiving-lots of survival items for the last few weeks of school. Allison stopped by Sunday morning, Dec 5th,  so we could all enjoy our "stockings" together. We usually get some ornaments and fun snacks, Christmas themed jewelry or socks, tshirts. Things that we can use before Christmas. Tom got some Hershey hockey tickets so we can all catch a game when Scott gets home. Just hope they will be playing in a few weeks since they had a COVID outbreak and the league had to halt their games. I also found some Alexa outlet cords for the outdoor lights-voice activated for Tom to try out instead of the usual timers. He is just not sure the WiFi will work outside the home from the inside devices. It will be interesting to try-if he decides to put out any Christmas lights. I think he has been looking for an excuse to skip it this year. He did put up his Star Trek themed Christmas tree over Thanksgiving weekend. Scott set up the artificial tree, and Tom decorated it with all his Star Trek spaceships and figures. He even changed all the batteries in the talking ornaments or ships that light up. And of course he topped the tree with his Star Trek Enterprise I got him last year that plays one of the old tv shows. Last year I bought him a few characters and added a new one this year-Spock -to the collection. So we get to hear more of the show. He can't wait to get all of the characters to hear the entire recording. Hallmark even has a Star Wars version with a Death Star Tree Topper. I am just amazed how long both of the recordings are-Allison made the mistake of hitting the Star Wars button in the shop one day. But it is pretty cool. Unfortunately, the tree does not look decorated! All the ships are grey or white and they just get lost in the branches. I tried to help it out with Mom's old red and gold bulbs from her previous tree. I think it looks a bit better, but I still don't think it is as festive as our tree full of my Rocking Horses and Glass Blown bulbs. If I get up enough energy I may pull out one of our 3ft trees to decorate. If not, Tom previously purchased a second 7ft tree just for his collection, but that is a lot of work! 

I also took a "stocking" over to my mom on Sunday. She opened her treats while I decorated her room with her Christmas collection. I set up her nativity with the ceramic pieces her mother made when we were little. I finally found them this summer packed away on the bottom of a box of photos. So glad I was able to find them-I have been looking for them for 7 years! That's how long Mom has been with us in Maryland. I had picked up all of mom's Christmas decorations from her storage unit, so I packed up her Fall decorations and got busy decorating her room. I had to make two trips out to my van. I was just surprised the lights were out on her little Christmas tree. So I had to pick up a new strand the following weekend. I switched her ornaments to a blue theme and I also had picked up a cute black and white door panel complete with a big bow and hung her wreath with Mickey and Minnie Mouse. So now her room is very festive. Probably more than our house! We shared a baby coke and some shortbread cookies while I put away her clean clothes and finished the last touches on her room. I also discovered that my little Alexa Dot works in her apartment, so next time I will have to play some music while we visit. Since a few COVID cases keep popping up, I am not allowed to visit with Mom in the public areas at her facility. But you can visit in the apartments. Now they are asking us to keep our masks on all the time. 

I really keep running out of days to get everything done, especially on the weekends. Finally the weather cleared enough to get out and start bagging up the leaves. I spent an entire Saturday leaf sucking with my portable leaf vacuum, clearing out all the Fall decorations from the front door and bagging up tons of leaves that accumulated around our garage. And still I did not get to the piles out in front of our house. Tom had managed to cut the lawn one more time at Thanksgiving, and blew all the leaves into the street so I could pick them up. I just have not had the time. Can't do it after work since it gets very dark by 4:45 and I don't get home til 6pm usually. Then it's time to take Cookie for a walk in the dark with my flashlight. So I waited for one more beautiful Saturday and started bagging leaves by the road. Naturally I ran out of paper leaf bags and have had a hard time finding more. I cleaned out the few they had left at Sam's Club, but Costco was sold out. Hope they are still picking up yard waste! I set out 8 bags already for pick up and added another 8 this past weekend. I  have a lot more to clean up, but it was a very good start. And Tom even joined me outside to put up some lights on the bushes. He was just frustrated to see so many of the LED lights had burned out. I added candles to our windows and at least we have a more festive look to the place. I was actually impressed by how many homes in our neighborhood decorated this year. I really don't mind taking Cookie for her walks after dark since all the Christmas lights look so cheery and really light up the streets.

My work load continues to fluctuate from extremely busy to a bit lighter. I took advantage of my Saturday off when no new patients came in for me to treat to stay home and clean up the leaves. But other days I am working late. And I finally told my coworkers and manager that I will not be returning after the end of the year so I can get my hip surgery. They were all surprised, but then again not so much since we are all therapists and it is obvious now that something is very wrong with my leg. Even my dementia patients notice I have a significant limp! Needless to say, my fellow OT's are not too happy. We work for a contract company that doesn't offer much help. Not sure who will cover for me while I am out for 3 months. I also started my presurgery medical check ups. So far, so good. I just had a major screw up with my paperwork-trying to get Family Medical Leave-and the paperwork got stuck in the computer system since before Thanksgiving. I had a very hard time trying to track it down through our medical record department and it was due Dec 2nd. Just got it turned in to the HR Dept in Illinois on the 11th of Dec. Now waiting to hear back.  All very frustrating. I also ran back to the dentist to make sure everything was ok since I had been having some pain in one of my upper molars. I have a root canal in that tooth, and any time I get a stuffy head it starts to ache since it runs into my sinus cavity! I have to make sure to get any dental work done before my surgery to avoid infection traveling to my new hip. Fortunately everything looked fine. I'm just trying to get all my medical care in order before surgery.

We did start to get in a more festive Christmas mood by attending a show "White Christmas" at our local dinner theater with our wonderful neighbors Dan and Gloria. They treated us to the dinner and show, we treated them to our drinks and desserts. They have a buffet dinner before they put on the show-we had a terrific meal and it was a great performance. Even Tom who is not a big fan of musicals enjoyed the whole experience. 

We also spent a lovely afternoon visiting with friends Barry and Beth watching the Ravens game. Had a great visit but would have been more enjoyable if the Ravens won! Our team is very hard to watch!

Beginning of December also brought some birthdays! We took one of Tom and Allison's coworker and her sister out for dinner to celebrate her special day. And our very own Cookie turned 13 on the 13th! She got a chew toy. Tom also got together with some of his coworkers after work at the Guinness brewery. I was at home on a zoom call-GS Planning Meeting for our Camping weekend scheduled next May. Not sure if/when we will be meeting in person again. Zoom actually can be very convenient-more efficient with our time.