5 things I did during my Christmas break
- Completed transitioning the blog from Blogger to self-hosted WordPress…and if this your first time seeing the new place, welcome!
- Ate (probably too much) yummy food, including some that I cooked myself
- Saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens twice in two days (and am probably not done yet)
- Spent five days of once-a-year time–most of it quality–with my son
- Hosted a three-generation houseful on Christmas Day
We had two grandparents–my dad and my husband’s mom–and all of Paul’s and my children together on December 25th. My husband and mother-in-law missed the gathering with my side of the family at my sister’s house on Christmas Eve–they spent it in the emergency room, after Mom tripped and fell at the bottom of the stairs in our front hallway and cracked a couple of ribs. She was treated and released with a painkiller prescription (which couldn’t be filled right away, being Christmas Eve), and we expected to put her up on our sofa for a few days till we could drive her home, as she obviously wouldn’t be making the 150-mile train trip on the 26th as planned.
There’s not much that can be done for broken ribs except rest and time, and they can be very, very painful until the healing gets well underway–hence, the prescription. Unfortunately, my mother-in-law is one of those people who has a bad reaction to certain medications–this one gave her double vision and some seriously disturbing psychological side effects, and on top of that, it didn’t really help with the pain if she made any attempt to move at all. Not really knowing what else to do, we brought her back to the hospital on Saturday morning; they’re still trying to find a satisfactory pain med while they start her on physical therapy. Right now, we’re not sure how long she’ll be there, and we have absolutely no idea when she’ll be ready to go back home.
So we had one elderly parent in the hospital at Thanksgiving, and the other at Christmas. Between that, melanoma, and leukemia, we are not going to be all that sorry to send 2015 on its way!
5 things I didn’t do during my Christmas break
- Read more than five pages of a book (despite having a stack of them set aside on my desk)
- Write any new posts for the blog (until the weekend, when the break was practically over, so I don’t think it counts)
- Work on my year-end recaps–I didn’t plan to put them up till January anyway, but now I’m not entirely sure they’ll happen even then
- Avoid emails from the office (fortunately, there weren’t many, since a lot of other people at work were on a Christmas break too)
- Avoid visiting a family member in the hospital
Let’s just say I’m not exactly going back to work rested and refreshed on Monday. I’m glad it’ll only be for a four-day week, but I suspect that I’ve only got about two days’ worth of brainpower for it.
How has your holiday been? I hope you’ve had good times and good books!
Except for your mother-in-law’s fall, it sounds like a wonderful holiday. Carl & Vance saw Star Wars on opening day and Vance went back the next day. He says he wants to see it one more time in IMAX. I probably won’t see it.
Actually, except for that, it really was pretty good! I didn’t get some of the things I’d planned done, but the things I did instead were worthwhile.