Holiday stuff

*Warning – long rambling post* Less about Banjo and more about being a little stressed out. Feel free to skip the babble.
Banjo summary – he’s good – kicking away.

Yay for Banjo being able to roll with whatever’s going on. I had a very busy weekend. I love to plan things and I as much as I try to allow wiggle room in my plans, I somehow always seem to be a little behind. So here I am on December 14 breathing a little sigh of relief before I tackle the next items on my list. Going back to the end of November we had a great visit with my parents in town. I had somehow thought I’d accomplish more during their visit such as put up Christmas decorations and start moving things from my office – which will be the nursery. But I preferred hanging out and enjoying their company than actually doing work so I didn’t even consider doing it once they got here. And their visit went by so fast. I had planned on taking them to the Oak Park Conservatory and the Frank Lloyd Wright museum but none of that happened either. Oh well. That seems to be the refrain of my life lately – “oh well”

I was also working on a scrapbook for Grandma Babe’s 85th birthday present and that took a little longer than expected – plus I had a hard time narrowing down which pictures to use (because there were so many good ones) so it ended up being pretty big. Her party was December 6 – so I had to have the book finished by then. Luckily I had some help and it all got done.

Then I started planning our Holiday Open house party. This year it was on a Sunday during the day instead of a Saturday night like last year. That helped because I had an extra day to prepare. I also took Friday off of work so I could get things ready and not stress out. I had finished the majority of the Christmas decorating during the week after work so I still had some Christmas stuff to finish up on Friday and I spent the rest of the day catching up on about 10 loads of laundry, washing dishes, cleaning my office and general cleanup stuff. I had planned on going grocery shopping on Friday to avoid it on Saturday but I never got around to it. Dinner was later than I planned and wasn’t done until 8:00 so by the time we finished eating we were then late getting to my brother-in-law’s graduation celebration at a local bar. We stopped by for a few drinks (I had a Shirley Temple and then an orange juice – yum!) I was already behind schedule for the party on Sunday. I hadn’t baked a single cookie, wrapped a single gift or addressed a single non-existent Christmas card. We got back from the bar on Friday night to a chilly house. Pete figured out the boiler wasn’t working and after considerable worrying and research he tried to light the pilot light. The internet is the best thing ever. We used Service Magic and some other searches to find a repairman and one of them talked Pete through the process of lighting the pilot light. It would light but not stay lit. Which narrowed down the problem to a few different things (none of which I remember) and we tried to get one of the 24 hour places to come out that night but that didn’t work. I took a few naps on the couch while Pete was working on all of this and we finally went to bed at 3 am. Someone agreed to come in the morning. Luckily we have separate heat upstairs which is where our bedroom is so we moved the birdcage upstairs (so they wouldn’t freeze) and got a few hours of sleep. Back on the phone in the morning so forget my early morning grocery shopping plan. Oh well. I stayed with Pete as we anxiously waited to figure out what’s going on and I didn’t get out the door until around noon. I hate shopping to begin with so hitting the stores was an ordeal (plus I hadn’t eaten lunch so when I was feeling super homicidal, I stopped for some lunch). Finally home around 3:00 and the temporary fix is done to the boiler and I haven’t made a single cookie. We put away the groceries and I start baking. I had planned on going to a cousin’s surprise birthday party which started at 4:00 and we sadly realized that wasn’t going to happen. There was also another party that night a friend was having that we were also going to have to miss. The good news is we had heat! And I started baking. I had my original planned list of all of the desserts I was going to make. I looked at that list again and started crossing things off. No fudge, no stained glass jell-o, no trifle, no roskie cookies. Oh well. I started with oatmeal raisin cookies. Then while the oven was still hot, I threw in those Pillsbury reindeer shaped sugar cookies. Then I started the disaster of the press cookies. I was going to make 3 different kinds of press cookies. I ended up serving a total of about 3 cookies. The first batch with orange zest looked terrible before they even went in the oven. When they came out of the oven they were not cute little stars, they were flat blobs with sprinkles. Meh. Oh well. A lot broke but I didn’t care at that point. They sat on the cooling rack while I started the next batch. They were going to be little Christmas trees. I missed some step in the recipe (probably out of exhaustion) and I had a crumbly mess which did not resemble a cookie dough in any way whatsoever. So I was wasteful and threw the entire uncooked batch away. I looked at my recipe for peanut butter press cookies and I threw it away without even attempting it. I decided to do something easy and I made some brownies. As I was making room for a bowl, I took the container filled with the orange blob press cookies when my hand slipped and they went flying on the floor. I had already packed the extra 3 or 4 blob cookie sin another container so they were all I had left. I lost it. I screamed, I cursed, I cried and as I went to get the broom, luckily Pete took the broom from me and cleaned up my mess. Time for a break. There was one more batch of cookies I wanted to make – peanut butter kisses. I was being stubborn and not giving up for the night until these were made. Luckily there were no issues there. So slightly behind schedule and exhausted. Oh well.

Sunday morning I woke up at 7:00 and thought I had so much time! The party doesn’t start until 11:00 so I took my time and had that cup of coffee and got the crock pots going and started prepping some food and putting it back in the fridge. Somehow, I got showered and dressed but still wasn’t ready when people started showing up at 10:45. Oh well. It was a joint effort and when people offered to help, I thankfully gave them things to do. I think I was all caught up by about 11:30.

The party was great. I really enjoyed seeing everyone who could make it and I didn’t feel that I talked to everyone enough or got to relax enough or take any pictures. But somehow I had a great time! Later in the day I would sit down whenever I felt like it because my feet and back were killing me. I have been having terrible leg cramps the last few nights (which my doctor warned would be bad if I was on my feet too much and to try to keep them elevated.) I actually woke up crying in pain one night and they lasted for about a half hour and Pete slept right through it all of course. Once I was off my feet I was feeling better. I’ve tried propping my fete in bed and also using a pillow between my legs.

So where does this long rant of a blog post leave me? Still slightly tired, relieved the majority of things on my to-do list are done but frustrated that I still have a new list because I still have Christmas cards, Christmas shopping to do and packing for our trip to see my family on Sunday.

Through it all, Banjo’s been a little trooper – kicking away so I know he’s there but has given me a break with the acid reflux and heartburn. He’s been letting me sleep more and if he could make these leg cramps go away, I’d be super happy.

I don’t know how I will manage to get everything done after Banjo’s arrived.