You better love somebody. It's late.

Whew! We made it through another winter holiday season with our sanity still somewhat intact. I made it through all of the necessary cooking and baking, despite having a cluster of disasters at every single turn. Somehow the food was all edible and gave no hint at the trauma I suffered in making it. We had our traditional xmas eve meal of pasta, 'meatballs', and gravy. We take that to the family party at my mom's. Then I made up a 'meatloaf', which my mom cooks for the xmas day family meal. Next was the tofu scrambler dish and the bisquits and gravy we have for xmas breakfast. Of course we had to have some sweets to calm my vicious sweet tooth, so I made another batch of my favorite cupcake from the "Vegan Cupcakes" book--the mint chocolate cupcake. I also threw together a batch of puppy chow (or muddy buddies).

We have very set-in-stone family traditions that we do every year with only minor variations. Before we hit our first big family party at my mom's on xmas eve, my cousin Denny and his wife come over for drinks. Initially we started the tradition a zillion years ago, because certain family members who would attend the party are much more bearable after a few drinks. Those individuals have either stopped attending or become more tolerable, but we continue the tradition, because we enjoy having time together. Dej and her boyfriend, Joe, joined us for drinks this year. We were having such a great time that we lost track of time and didn't notice until about 4:20 (LOL), and we were supposed to be there at 4:00. That's also an annual occurence--the lateness of Denny and my families. Oops! We loaded up all our food and headed to my parents' house for the festitivities with my mom's side of the family. I believe I've done this every xmas eve since I was born. The party has had different locations throughout the years, but it always happens. My brother and his family always come to this party, but since they now live in Appleton, they return home afterward and do not come on xmas day.

When we return home from the party, our traditions is that each girl gets to open one gift. It is always socks, undies, pajamas, or something of that nature. Dej and Joe stayed over night at our house. This was the last night she would be spending in town before her move to Fond du Lac. She has transferred colleges and will be attending there next semester. I'm not thrilled about this move at all and feel it will not turn out well. I hope I'm wrong. I do think, though, that she needs to be on her own for a while. She is already sounding and behaving in ways that are more mature and responsible than I usually see from her. Being on her own will, I think, turn out to help her grow up much more than living under my domain. I'm a very strong, controlling person (with my kids, anyway), so it's easy to NOT grow up with me around and my parents always being willing to bail her out of any situation. I wish she could live on her own and grow up in Janesville, or at least someplace closer than Fond du Lac. I'm sure this is just one of many decisions she will make that I do not agree with. It's really hard to make the transition from seeing my child as an adult, rather than my child! UGH! Cthulu knows I made my parents watch oh-so-many bad decisions in my growing up process. Now it's my turn.

We were up much too late on xmas eve, as usual, and I had a hard time getting up in time to get breakfast ready for everyone. I have very unique children, in that they've never been early risers on xmas morning. I, being a night person and NOT a morning person, have always appreciated that my night owls never did what my brother and I did as children. We would be up somewhere around 4 or 5 am, ready to dive into our presents. My parents had to make a rule that we had to stay in our rooms until--I think--6:00. I had breakfast on the table and my parents arrived at around 9. Both children were still sleeping. I woke them up for breakfast, and after that we move to the presents. We all cut way back this year, partially due to the economic situation and largely because I am really trying to get rid of STUFF and simplify our lives. It was especially great to have less wrapping to do--a chore that both Mark and I hate. The kids still got more than enough stuff, so no complaints from them. Everyone got along and was pleasant. It was the first holiday that we have had an 'outsider' join our family xmas, so that was very different for us. I'm sure Joe won't be the last boyfriend that Dej brings to holiday celebrations. As long as I have both of our kids there, that's all that really matters!

After our big xmas morning stuff, M. & I went up for a quick catnap, while L. played with her new stuff. Dej and Joe left to go back to Fond du Lac to have their own 'grown-up' xmas. That left the three of us to continue on to my parents' again for xmas dinner with my dad's side of the family (which only consists of dad's brother and his wife). In recent years, though, my mom's sister and her partner have joined us for the xmas dinner. I'll never complain about Bobbi (mom's sis) being around, as she's my favorite aunt and I'm always happy to see her. After Bobbie & Todd left to go to their next holiday celebration, the rest of us relaxed, chatted, and watched "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", which is something we watch almost every year together. Our family and Norm and Ruth left to go to our respective homes at around 10. It was an action-packed couple of days!

L's big gift was an Ipod Shuffle (the cute, tiny one) and an Icat. She loaded it up with music and has been entertaining us with her Icat's dancing and her gymnastic performances for the past two days. I have to admit, that Icat is pretty cool! She got some very nice, thoughtful gifts from Dej, which made me so happy. It's not that I care about the gifts, but L. so looks up to Dej and is absolutely tickled with any attention from her big sister. Dej, in the selfishness kids that age are prone to, hasn't always been thoughtful or kind to L. L. felt very special after receiving the gifts and getting lots of good attention and interaction from Dej. Dej's big gift consisted of gift cards to various places that she would find helpful in establishing her own household. Oh, get this, the sloppiest, messiest girl alive now wants to keep her own apartment clean and tidy! I wish the clean and tidy Dej could have appeared here, just once in the course of her 18.5 years, but better late than never!

The cats are convinced that all of the wrapping paper, boxes, bows, etc. are their gifts. They really wear themselves out playing with our xmas refuse. Scraps the bunny is still hanging in there and has been eating very well. She inhales her hand-feeding mix, her medications, and is eating her fresh fruits and veggies. I don't know how long she will be with us, but we are grateful for every day we get!

The holidays were really wonderful, except for the ache in my heart over my best friend's suffering. Her partner was in a bad car accident and injured quite badly on Monday night. He was finally able to come home Christmas evening, but is in significant pain. He will be unable to work (and thus make money) for quite a long time, due to his injuries. I HATE that Austin and Allegrea have to go through such a horribly difficult time--they are some of the most wonderful people alive and are always trying to make the world better and help others. It sucks to be helpless and unable to fix things for them. All I could do is take them lots of good vegan food, so she doesn't have to worry about cooking or shopping. I so wish I could make the whole mess go away for them!

L. and I had a great bonding experience. I was cruising Netflix last night, looking for something M. & I would enjoy that we could watch instantly. I found that "Under the Cherry Moon" was available to watch online. Unless you have loved and followed Prince for most of your life, you have probably not heard of this movie. It was after "Purple Rain". Of course I've already watched Purple Rain with both girls multiple times, as we own that movie. I really liked "Under the Cherry Moon" but it's not available locally as a rental, and I had never thought to check Netflix for it. I love that movie, not necessarily because it's a fabulous high-quality movie, but more for nostalgic reasons. I absolutely adore everything about the pre-religious-freak Prince. The Prince of today, well, not so much. Anyway, L & I watched it together. She enjoyed it, and I loved that she did. I don't think Dej has watched it with me, as it was never available, and that is something that I must fix as soon as possible. I cried at the end, just as I do every single time I watch it. Her response to the kissing love scene: "I find it quite disgusting when they put they're tongue in someone's mouth". Good, baby! You should find it quite disgusting, at least for another 7 or 8 years, I hope!

I swear we must have just skipped a few days between last Weds. and today. My last post was Wednesday, it's already Monday, and I cannot believe five days have passed. I'm starting to panic now, because it is much too close to xmas, and I still have way too much to do! I spent today baking, and everything that could go wrong did go wrong, causing it to take twice as long as it should have, and I have a batch of ugly cupcakes that I can't give away as gifts now. They taste good, at least, so we have plenty of mint chocolate cupcakes to eat, but they are certainly not going to win any beauty awards.

I have a full 8-10 hours of cooking to do tomorrow, in order to get ready for xmas eve/xmas day. Before that (and before the blizzard starts), I have to run to the grocery store to get a bunch of stuff I need before I can cook. It will not be a fun day.

Beth, Dan (M's brother), Carolyn (M's mom)

The in-laws were here yesterday for our xmas celebration. We had a very nice day, and the girls were thrilled to get to open presents, of course. We typically go to the Rotary Gardens light show with them, but it was cancelled yesterday due to the extreme cold. We stayed in and ate jambalaya, which I made at Dej's request. It's her favorite and a good winter meal.

The next three days are going to be crazy busy, and I'm already very tired and trying not to panic. For that reason, I will be brief tonight.

Saturday night we had a very productive date night. We had to run out to Target to pick up a few last minute items. We came home and enjoyed a rare splurge--our stuffed Tofurkey loaf. After that, we wrapped the kids' gifts. It is very nice to at least have the majority of the wrapping out of the way. We cut way back on gifts this year (not that we've ever given huge elaborate gifts), and realized that yet another benefit of a smaller xmas is less wrapping for us. Total bonus, as we both loathe wrapping. I did indulge in one wasteful, pointless item at Target, which I will share with you. They had a little reindeer costume for cats, and I tried to walk away from it; I really did, but I just couldn't. We've gotten a few pictures of some of the cats modeling it, but I haven't had time to dress each one up and take a good picture yet. I will, though, before this weekend. I care for them and love them every day and will continue to do so for the rest of their lives, so the least they can do for me is sit there in a reindeer costume for five minutes so I can snap some photos!

Petey

Ivan


Tica

Art fun

L. has discovered a new website to spend time on. Art.com has added an art pad that allows you to draw your own masterpieces. Once you finish them, you can print or send them to others. The coolest thing about it (to me) is that it saves the entire drawing process, so when you view the completed picture, it redraws it exactly the way it was originally done, allowing you to see the process of creation. She's made some very neat pictures on it. Here's her latest: cat.

Sad news :(

Poor Scraps has to tidy herself up after our messy hand-feeding session.

Here we go again. We spent the day yesterday up at the UW-Madison Veterinary Hospital with Scraps. For the second time, I am going to have to guide a beloved family member through a fatal absess. It's a hideous ailment that rabbits can get but rarely ever make it through. Because their pus is so incredibly thick, once they get an infection, it's a huge problem. Once it hits their little jawbone (hers has), it's basically a death sentence. Our beautiful young girl will have her precious life cut short because of this. It's the same thing that took my Pinkerton's life. Pinky was the first rabbit I had the pleasure of sharing my life with. I'm heartsick over this, because I know it's painful. At this point, all I can do is give her the antibiotics, ear drops, pain medication, and handfeeding that she needs, along with a ton of love and cuddles. Once her pain is such that it interferes with the quality of her life, we will take that horrible last drive to see Dr. Nelson. They did the best they could to fix her up and improve her life by trying to knock the infection back for a while, but despite our long discussions with the head vet of exotics and the head of the animal dentistry department, there's nothing more we can do for her. This just sucks!

I'm so glad that I have the rest of the month off work, so I have extra time to spend with her. The biggest problem lies in the fact that she can't communicate with me about her pain and the quality of her life, and prey animals are so very good at hiding their physical distress. I DO NOT want her to suffer at all! I know after her CAT scan and the manipulations of the vets yesterday that she was in pain and is still showing signs of being in pain today. That pain should be abating soon, but if not... The other main problem with the whole thing is that rabbits can't take any good pain drugs. The strongest thing they can be given is about the equivalent of aspirin. Think about the intense pain from an absessed tooth that has spread to an ear and bone infection and only managing that pain with aspirin. That is the primary reason that I know we won't have too much time with her. The antibiotics will, hopefully, slow the infection down and briefly improve it, but that's about the extent of it. Given that I won't let her suffer, her time with us will probably short.

Because I have a great 'regular' vet, he is willing to work with the UW on cases that they can handle better than he can. He worked as a team with their vets way back when Pinky suffered from this. Rabbits are strange little creatures, and require a good amount of special knowledge and special equipment. My vet is the first to let me know if he feels that a problem could be handled better by another vet. The UW vet hospital is cutting edge with top-of-the-line equipment. Dr. Nelson (Mt. Zion Small Animal Clinic) is wonderful--he knows his stuff, he's honest, and he cares deeply! He scheduled the appointment for me, faxed all the information they would need, and they also work well with him. They faxed him all the results yesterday. It's nice to have a team of vets working together, and I have the utmost faith in Dr. Nelson and his staff. I'm also fortunate enough to have a kick-ass avian vet, too. Most 'regular' vets don't know much about birds at all, and they are very different from the other animals. Dr. Chaudhry (So. Beloit Animal Hospital) is an avian expert, a great guy, and a vet who really cares about the animals. I have encountered enough sloppy, greedy, careless vets to know that we are extremely lucky to have such treasures to care for our family members.

I snapped this shot while we were in the 'bird room' cuddling Scraps. Botswana gets a little hay whenever we refresh Scraps' supply, and he immediately starts moving it around to his preferred hiding spots. He's a very cute, very busy little guy who loves to redecorate his environment.

Despite our heartbreak, I giggle everytime I see the clip of Bush being pelted with the shoes. I have cheered myself up a bit by re-watching that on You Tube. Damn, that man has some snappy reflexes for a worthless drunk. Here's my question on the whole thing: Why, after eight years of his terrorist regime, is this the first time something like this has happened?!! I'm glad to see at least one man in the world has retained enough balls to stand up, speak out, and take action. I love the non-violent, yet extremely insulting nature of the shoe toss. I would love even more to see this happen at every single public event this piece of shit attends. That would make the statement that this pile of pus needs to hear. He can ignore it from one man, but if people threw shoes everywhere he went, maybe he would actually get the message!

L. spent the day at my mom's, working on a gingerbread house. It was very nice for her to have a day with grandma and get to do something fun after the unpleasant day we had yesterday. The three of us--M., L., and I, all took Scraps to the vet, so she too spent much of the day sitting in the waiting room, only to get bad news. She's very sad about Scraps, so I'm happy that she had a day away to hopefully forget for awhile. She had a lot of fun and was very excited to show me her very detailed gingerbread house. H. is here tonight, so they are off playing and making messes until 8:00, at which time he will go home and get ready for bed, and L. and I will medicate, feed, and visit with Scraps. Then she will go to bed. Then I will be able to hang out with M. and watch the Sarah Silverman dvd that just arrived from Netflix today. We are ready for a little bit of escapism.

This antique xylophone is one of those small, silly things that makes me happy for no apparent reason. The last time I went 'junking' this summer, I picked this up for $1.00. I saw it sitting on the shelf and was drawn to it. It made me smile for some strange reason, so I bought it, not having a clue what I was going to do with it. I'm trying to simplify and get rid of stuff, so I hesitated and argued with myself about acquiring another completely pointless object to dust. I decided to hang it on the cupboard over the sink, so I can look at it when I do dishes. I can't explain why, but I've gotten much more than $1.00 worth of enjoyment out of this pointless toy.

We had another Petland protest on Sunday, and it was awesome! We had about 30 people there. That is just unheard of for a protest in Janesville! Let alone a protest on a cold winter day during the very busy xmas season. I couldn't stay out there for too long, as I still have a hard time standing/being on my feet for very long. I got out there for a while, though, and was so glad we went. There was so much community support. We were spread out all over Hwy. 14 & 26, and there were almost non-stop horns, thumbs up signs, and several who stopped to get literature. Petland will not make it through 2009! Here is a rare photo of M & I together, taken by Allegrea.

It is so unbelievably nice to have a router that works all the time! Our old one has been having problems for so long, I had almost forgotten the luxury of having Internet whenever I open the machine. Until we got our new one, it was always a great craps shoot as to whether we would have it or not, and if not, how long before the router would choke and drop Internet. I am still thrilled when I open the machine and Internet is reliably working.

How cute is this! This is the card and gift she brought me when I was in the hospital. These aren't the best photos, but I really don't feel like waiting for a sunny day and trying to get a better photo. The front of the card says: "Turn them upside down", and if you look closely at the daisies, you'll see she drew frowny faces, but when turned upside down, they are smiley faces. Inside the card says: "I hope you don't mind Ivan by your bed mom" and, "Ivan has been missing you already but I miss you more". The photo was taken a month or so ago at my parents' house. She's never seen Tim Conway's Dorf, but we looked up to find her kneeling in her shoes in a perfect imitation. After we finished laughing our asses off, my parents took a pic of it. She also painted a chipboard container and filled it with candy for me. On the top is Ivan, and around the sides, she has several different types of birds, a dog, and another cat. I just adore that child and love her creativity!

Yesterday, while waiting for the plumber to finish up in our upstairs bathroom, I made a new batch of catnip toys for the little furballs. We see our plumber way too often these days, by the way. He's a nice guy, but I hope we don't have to see him again for a good long time! Anyway, back to the catnip toys. Of course I had to make more toys than we have cats in order to prevent fights. Sometimes I just toss the catnip out on the living room floor and let them party with it, which is terrifically entertaining. Sometimes I give it to them in toys. I like to give them a variety. Petey is never content to play with the toys and enjoy the catnip like the rest of the cats. He has to rip his open and spread the catnip around, leaving the 'toy' (really just socks that Luciana has outgrown--I stuff the end with catnip and tie a knot) useless and a mess on the floor. He can't just do that with his. No, Petey has to wait until all of the other cats have finished playing with theirs, and then go and rip those up as well. Tica was having so much fun playing with her toy, and Petey was standing there politely waiting for her to finish up so he could destroy yet another toy.

The cats have also started their annual tree redecoration process, which some people might refer to as trashing the tree, but I'm trying to be optimistic here. Lila is the only one we've caught 'red handed' in the act of climbing in the tree, pulling ornaments off, and knocking over the little tree that Luciana and Hunter decorated and put on the mantle. The others are probably doing the same thing she is, but are smart enough to wait until I'm sleeping when they do their naughty deeds.

I'm still working on recovery. I'm surprised I still have pain at this point, but I most definitely do. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, because I was told that I would, but I somehow always just assume that my body will behave better and heal faster than anyone else. I really don't know why I always think that, because it pretty routinely lets me down, yet I still persist with my magical thinking. I can stand up straight and walk fairly normally--not very long and not very fast, but at least I don't have to hunch over and shuffle anymore. I'm still very tired. I'm feeling very quiet these days--not depressed, grumpy, or sad--just I guess, enjoying my cocooning time in my house with my family. I'm sure I'll be back to my overly loquacious self shortly, but for now my posts may be less wordy than usual.

And on a totally random note, I love Sarah Silverman! She is hilarious--I would love to hang out with her! Laughing cases me quite a bit of pain since the surgery, so when we got the Sarah Silverman cd from Netflix, I really suffered. It was side-splittingly funny, but so worth the pain it caused me!

Okay, now I'm really back

Just when I start feeling up to opening the computer and blogging again, our router decided to die. It's been going for a while, but we of course try to limp everything along to get as much use as possible. So once the router crapped out, we lost Internet of course. It's been hard. I finally had to give in and get dressed in real clothes to go out and pick up a new router. Our first date night in a long time consisted of running out to Best Buy to pick up a router, coming home and getting it configured, and then watching Netflix videos while I whined about my pain. We should be set for a few years again now. H. informed me today that he likes our new router better, because it looks 'high tech and stuff'.

Friday night we had a B-D family craft night, trying to get into the holiday spirit. We decorated chipboard (thick, stiff, cardboard) birds to hang up on the garland in the living room/dining room doorway. M. was being a party pooper and didn't decorate a bird with us. He hung out by the fire and kept that going. My parents each made one, L. made one, H. made one, Dej made one, and I made one. We used different color themes on each side of the bird, as one side will face the living room and the other will face the dining room. I think we all enjoyed ourselves.

We finally got our tree up today. For the first year in, well ever, I think, I didn't have to put the tree together and do all of the god awful arranging and fluffing of branches. M. put it together and L & H helped him with arranging. M. put on the lights as always. Also for the first year, I didn't do most of the decorating. L. & H. put the flowers and most of the ornaments on the tree. I was so proud of myself for not ruining their decorating fun. L. came up with a decorating 'game'--throwing the flowers, as if they were darts, into the tree. They had lots of fun with that, and all the flowers made it through intact. They got bored with putting ornaments up after only about 60% of the ornaments were up (couldn't really throw those onto the tree like the florals), so I did the remainder, and then put up the pearl garland and ribbons. It definitely looks a little different than it usually does, but the kids had fun and are very happy with the way it looks. It will look totally different by the end of the season anyway, as we repair and redecorate every morning to counteract the cats' nightly damage.

Luciana carries Tica in her 'sling', showing her all the new xmas decorations.

I am alive...

and at home working on recovering. Recovery was slowed a bit by one of the nastiest intestinal viruses I've ever encountered. One of the most wonderful experiences I've ever had was returning home from the hospital. I have rested better, improved faster, and been infinitely happier since coming home. Hospitals are so very, very unpleasant.

My cats are so noble. They've sacrificed ;P by lying in bed with me to help me recover. They are really quite the little givers. We've had lots of good bonding time. My mom picked up a lap tray for me at a yard sale prior to the surgery. It has worked perfectly for protecting my abdomen from the cats, who have a tendency to launch themselves from the floor directly onto my chest/abdomen. We've only had one little incident with Oliver landing on me when I was leaning too far back from my tray with exposed abdomen. It hurt in a way that words are inadequate to describe, and I screamed in a way I've never heard come from my mouth before.

I still get very tired, very quickly. I'm working on my stack of books now but didn't even feel up to reading until recently. I really didn't anticipate the post-surgical lethargy of being unable to do anything but sit and stare. I brought all kinds of books, books on cd, and my laptop to the hospital. Despite having free WIFI available, I was just too miserable to do anything. I watched a lot of CNN, slept, and just stared at the wall for a good chunk of time.

My family and friends have been wonderfully helpful and supportive and are making this experience as easy as it could possibly be. Thanks all!

I would typically never show a picture of myself in which I look this repulsively grotesque, but since I was only three days post-surgery, I have an excuse for looking this way. My girl came up to the hospital and snuggled in bed with me while we watched a movie. This was the first night I had really felt well enough to pay attention to the tv or have anyone on the bed near me.