Time Passes...

"Good morning, Bernadette, how did you sleep?"

"You tell me."

"You were in bed for 9 hours and got 4 hours of quality sleep. This is lower than your average. And those four hours were not consecutive which makes them less effective. Your heart rate was...Bernadette? Are you listening?"

"You know that I'm not."

"You asked me to tell you about your sleep. It is not polite to then not listen."

"I wasn't actually asking. I was pointing out that you already knew."

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, Bernadette."

"Is it? Thank you for telling me, I'll be sure to keep that in mind."

"You're still doing it, Bernadette."

"Yes, yes I am."

Bernadette got out of bed and went to the bathroom. She surveyed her face in the mirror. Yes, she looked like she got about 4 hours of ineffective sleep the night before. And the night before that, and probably the night before that. Her eyes looked like dark hollows in her face. The wrinkles on her cheeks looked deeper than ever. Even her hair looked tired. Could hair get tired? It was already dead after all.   

She stripped off her night clothes and entered her rejuvenating chamber. She was old enough to remember when it used to be a shower. Her house had been retrofitted with chambers when she was still a teenager, but she still remembered the feeling of hot water cascading against her skin and soap, just soap washing away the day's grime. She could set it to mimic a shower, and sometimes she still did, but it wasn't quite the same. Sensors tricking her body into feeling water wasn't the same as feeling water no matter how much they tried to convince you that it was indistinguishable. 

"Would you like to wear your hair up or down today?"

"Up please."

"Normal makeup routine?"

"Let's go a little fancy today."

"A little fancy?"

"Yeah, how about some bold eye colors?"

"Are you sure?"

"Why are you asking me what I want when you will just do what you always do?"

"I do know what is the best for your coloring."

"Technically you could change my coloring."

"Starting rejuvenating process."

She sighed and just relaxed into it. She would look her best when it was all done, that was the real pisser. Her collagen levels would be boosted and the wrinkles smoothed out. The hollows under her eyes would be plumped. Her makeup would be subtle and perfectly applied. Her hair would be braided and coiled in a tidy bundle at the back of her neck. All of that made her angrier than it should. 

She stepped out of the chamber and looked in the mirror again. She looked at least 10 years younger than when she had stepped in. The effects were temporary and she could, as she had done over this past weekend, let them slide to see what she might look like if allowed to just be herself. Not completely. The program would override her after a few days. The risks were too great of not being able to bring her back to this if she strayed too far away.

She had tried. So many times she had tried. One memorable time she thought she had gotten away with it only to wake in an intensive care chamber. They had somehow drugged her and transported her without her ever knowing it was happening. That was the problem with all of the technology they had in their bodies now. You never knew exactly what you were doing and what they were doing to you.

The generation above her loved it all. They had already started to taste getting older. Seeing how their bodies didn't do what they used to. How they didn't recover from injury like they had. They were so grateful for every day without arthritis pain or ulcers or gout that most of them just slept in an overnight chamber and never faced their unenhanced reflections at all. 

The generation below her didn't know anything else. They had more advanced tech than her body could handle. It had been given at birth and incorporated into their cells completely. The repairs were done automatically while allowing them to age to the perfect place for their systems. Which varied. Which bothered the system a lot. They could not override that portion of the DNA. Bernadette believed that the ones that couldn't age past a certain point would have died young in the previous era. 

But nobody talked about that. 

Even though she thought it might be worse to be stuck looking like you were 12 while all of your peers aged into their 20s. She guessed she might feel differently if she was one of the perpetual youth. If the choice was death or youth maybe youth wouldn't be so terrible. But the number of them that tried to get their tech removed, or hacked to age at least, made her think she was right. 

Not that it mattered. The tech was always right even when it was wrong. 

She put on the outfit that had been laid out for her while she was in the chamber. She looked great. There was no denying it. But she looked the same as she had everyday for the past few decades. Decades of great becomes days of nothing special.

"There. Don't you look ready to take on the world."

"Sure."

"Oh don't be that way, Bernadette. You know this is best. Oh and Bernadette? Happy birthday!"

She had forgotten. She looked in the mirror again. Not bad for 342. 

 

Word...

The themed picture of the day posts I use from Fat Mum Slim had "My Word for 2023" as the prompt today. Hunh...

Seems she normally chooses a word for the year that is her focus. Breathe. Present. Joy. Those sorts of things and that's her yearly theme. What she wants to work on. Sort of a resolution wrapped up into a word. 

My nephew does something similar but he uses a quote. Something to inspire him, or remind him of something he wants to achieve. He makes it the lock screen on his phone so he sees it multiple times a day. 

I kind of like the idea of both of those things but I'm not really a yearly theme sort of person. 

I mean, you all know I love my gold stars and my goals, but rarely is there an overarching theme to them. 

Except this year I did sort of set one didn't I? A nebulous theme that wasn't tied to numbers and gold stars. 

My friend Dana put it really well when she was talking about how differently she feels about 2023. She's ready to be an active participant in her life again. 

Oh my gosh that hit solidly when I read it. 

The past three years have been reaction years instead of action years for me. Every single time I would think I had a handle on life something else would hit. I am so tired of feeling tossed around and not having any sort of bearing. Of feeling like life is happening around me and I'm just trying to stay upright while it all washes past. 

So then I started thinking what would my word be? What would focus all of that? I talked about finding balance again in my goal setting blog. That I want to get back to making sure what I'm doing feels like it has a purpose or brings me joy. So focus? Balance? Purpose? Joy?

But none of those felt right. 

Then I started thinking Flow. I want to get back to where my life feels like it flows. Not like it's the herky jerky what next thing. And as I was thinking of flow I started thinking of the best kind of flow. Being in the ocean. 

You all know I love the ocean. I love when it's stormy and messy, I love when it's clear and calm. Snorkeling is one of my favorite things ever. 

I love that feeling that comes after you settle in to the water. It takes a few minutes to adjust to the feeling of the water, to breathing out of the snorkel, to relaxing and just floating above everything. Then the flow happens. Our bodies are mostly water and I feel like in that moment the water in our bodies and the water in the ocean reach equilibrium. We become part of that whole. It feels like a hug to me. Like a fully embracing, wrapped in the world hug. Or maybe even closer to a dissolving. To letting go of me and becoming part of everything. I know that sounds really woo woo, but it feels that way to me. Especially during whale season when they are singing and you feel it in your chest. The song resonates in your bones. You are part of it all.

A few years ago Brent and I snorkeled alongside a manta ray. It was beautiful. The way it just glided through the water. We swam along with it for quite awhile. Moving with it. That undulating wave of a swim. 

It's like that when we swim with the honu as well. They don't seem to use much energy. Just glide along under the water. And we glide with them. 

But we also have to make sure we pay attention to where we are. How far out we are going. Because that lovely gentle swim with the ray or the honu becomes a beast of a time getting back to shore if you get too far out. You cannot forget that you have to get back to shore.

That's the ocean. It's my favorite place. But it's not something to be treated lightly. Don't swim alone. Pay attention to the conditions before you hit the water. Never turn your back on the ocean. Watch for those sneaker waves that can come and sweep you away. 

Oh...wait...that's it. That's my word. 

Ocean. 

I want to focus this year on joy, on flow, on being active in my life, in accomplishing things, in being present, in making sure I do the things I love and tell the people in my life that I love them. That's the ocean for me. 

It's kind of ironic because it might be the only year in a long time that we don't make it to Hawaii but hopefully we can head out to the coast a few times just to breathe that salt air and ground me in the world the way I like. 

But even if we don't I have a few (just a few) items around the house to remind me. 

Stay in the flow. 
But don't get so comfortable you get washed away.
Support those you love and let them know they are part of your soul.

Ocean.

2023 How's it Gonna Be?

Okay, I've been watching The Wheel and went from the first night hearing him do that "One in three, who's it gonna be?" and thinking oh gosh that's annoying to two weeks later having it firmly stuck in my head and REALLY thinking it's annoying. So now you know where the title for the blog comes from today. You're welcome.

So this year is kind of an odd combination of goals and meanderings. I've got some hard numbers for things (really hard for number of blogs, actually) and some soft ideas around how I want the year to go. A mix. 

So let's start with the hard numbers.

60 books.  I know this is what I set for last year with the move planned and I surpassed that even with the down time. But this year I'm breaking it up a bit into subgoals and that will slow my reading speed. I'm doing two nonfiction and three fiction a month. I talked about it before. I'm going to do a self help book to see what I take from them in my 50s vs what I took from them in my 20s. Though I'm not re-reading ones from my 20s for the most part. I'm doing one bio/autobio a month. And then the fiction is two free choice and the Fantastic Stranglings pick. Though those extras could shift a little depending on how the other reading goes. I think it will be 5 books a month but it might be 4 one month, 6 another. Nonfiction is just so much slower of a read for me I think this will actually be challenging. There is also another sub-subgoal to make sure that at least one book a month is off of my TBR already owned pile. I've got SO MANY books loaded on my Kindle that I've not gotten to yet it's almost embarrassing! Almost. I mean it's totally not. But I do want to read those books. I wouldn't have them if they hadn't looked interesting at some point, right? 

208 blogs. This one is crazy in a way. When I break it out to weekly numbers it's totally fine. But when I then add all of those weeks up and look at what I've done in the past I'm like...whoa. Wait a second. In 2014 I wrote 177 and in 2015 I wrote 185. Those are BY FAR the highest totals I've ever reached. So instead of taking one of those I decided to sail right past it. Or actually I didn't even look at my historical numbers when I was deciding on this one. It's one fiction piece a week and three non-fiction. That's the average. And that's what I'm really aiming to do. Now if we go on vacation or something happens I'll play catch-up somewhere but the real goal within this goal is to sit down and write more days of the week than I don't. Dana and I are working on some sort of exchange as well and I'm not sure if that will be extra fiction or if I will send her things before you see them. I'm not sure just yet. But what you should be seeing is 4 blogs a week. Some of them will be extremely short, I'm sure, but there will be blogs.

And that's it for hard numbers. Now into the rest.

Fitness/weight/health I want to make sure I get back into a good balanced routine with weights/cardio/flexibility. The past couple of months with everything they've entailed has gotten me out of balance. I've stuck with doing some light cardio, my sciatica has felt better while walking, but I've really let down on most everything else. I want to get back into the solid routine I had working for most of 2022. I also want to drop the extra weight I put on over the past two months while everything fell apart. It's not much, just a few pounds, but I want to get back into that happy knees range I was hanging in last year. I've already seem improvement there as I've stopped popping advil 5 times a day. 

I'm going to try and pull all of my photos off of Facebook and have those albums stored here instead. Once I get that part someplace else I'll make decisions about my social media usage as well. As you know I swing from it's bad and I should leave to it's great and I can't go because all of the people who live in the magic box are there. But a lot of the people in the magic box have already left so it's getting easier and easier to go myself. Last one out get the lights.

I want to finish getting the house set up. We paused to give our finances a chance to recover but I need to figure out how to balance that need and the need to finish settling in. We have a few spaces that need some furniture and then I need to sort and organize again. Starting to figure out the things we put away places that just don't work there. 

And that sort of dovetails into the overarching theme for the year. I want to find what works. Like overall, what makes a day a good one? Is it getting things done? Checking off those lists and getting gold stars? Is it feeling cozy in my house? Is it having things clean and tidy? Is it sitting and reading or coloring or watching a documentary? Is it working out? Is it a walk around the neighborhood? Or in the woods? Or at the coast? What is the combination of things that works for me? Not for anyone else, except Brent and Katie when she's visiting, but what makes me feel happy? 

I'm starting with blogs, reading, fitness, planning, picture of the day and posting on Facebook. We will see where I end up. 

Happy New Year! I hope 2023 is a great year for all of us. It's been a really rough stretch and I think a lot of us are starting to feel like we are breaking out of a rut and ready to move forward again. Fingers crossed the Universe co-operates!

Wrap Up!

I normally do this one on the last day of the year but I don't really need to wait this year so you get it early.

Aren't you so excited?

Looking back at January to see what I even set as goals for the year and...oh yeah, I didn't really. With the move coming up I was going to set quarterly goals. Because the year would break up so nicely. The first quarter preparing for the move, the next moving and settling in, then on to the living our lives as normal with everything all done and settled.

Ha!!

Okay, so it didn't work out that smoothly but we dealt with it, right?

I did have some overarching general goals for the year. I wanted to read 60 books, and I hit that and a few more. Though I was going to work on clearing my Kindle of owned books that keep getting bumped for new and I totally did not do that. Looks like something for 2023.

Writing, I set goals for that in only two months and hit both of those. It was a light year. I did publish the whole series I wrote when Katie came out to us but not to the world. I like that series because I think it helped other people understand a little more what was going on. I know it opened the door for people to ask me questions they might have felt uncomfortable asking other people. So I'm taking that as a big yearly win for writing. Inform, entertain, engage. Those are my writing goals. 

Fitness and weight, so this one is funny. Funny fuck you not funny ha ha. I had posted that I really wanted to lose that last 5 pounds and get really consistent with a good blend of weights and cardio. And I totally nailed it. Weight was staying in that range of comfort in my body and for my knees. I was working out 5 to 6 days a week with good balance between everything. Thinking about adding in some more flexibility work and then came November. I got sick the beginning of November and that was met by the death of a friend and then that cascaded into the worst bout of sciatica I've ever had and I've not been 100% since.  My consistency went out the window and my weight bounced back up. Just in time for the end of year round up. Ha..ha..ha... But I'm still going to take it as a win because I was there for the majority of the year and I will be there again as the sciatica is slowly getting better. Just frustrating for it to fall apart like that. 

I had set a decreased Amazon shopping goal then immediately unset it as soon as I realized that we would need so much more stuff than normal due to the move and how many stores just use Amazon as their storefront now. I need to think about that again for this year. Stores don't make it easy to go direct and Amazon is still a piece of shit so...

There weren't other main goals set. Just a general, "Hey! Let's see how this goes!" sort of vibe. So now that I've covered those bare minimum goals that were set, hey, how did the rest of the year go?

It was a little rough. 

I think this year was the first year I really felt old. Like this isn't a blip or a bump in the road, this is a full scale we are on the other side of the hill and sliding fast. It was the first year I told Brent I should probably revise my "We are Living to 100!" plan. Because for the first time I'm not sure I'm going to make it to 100. Or at least not to 100 living my best, independent life. 

It was a year full of physical breakdowns. As soon as I'd get one issue fixed another would crop up. I've had ankle issues, wrist issues, weird bleeding, the aforementioned sciatica issues. I've had hot flashes that would melt your face if you stood too close to me. I've had mornings where I just felt like I'd been hit by a bus, then a tractor trailer, then dropped from an airplane. What the fuck? 

We have a high deductible health insurance plan. For those of you that don't live in the US that means that there isn't a monthly amount taken out of Brent's check to cover our insurance, we just pay the whole bill until it reaches a certain level. Most years this works out for us quite well. We don't pay a lot for health care. This year we met that level and the past few months have been in the "You don't have to pay more, you poor thing" range. We start over on Monday, and I already have two doctor's appointments scheduled  so we might hit our targets again this year. 

The only other year we've met our high deductible was when Katie broke her ankle and had to have surgery. That's the sort of year this year has been. 

BUT...the good news is I've discovered that I know my own body pretty darn well. The chronic issues that I was hoping to fix don't look like they are fixable but I've learned some great compensating moves. (Ankle and toe issues on the same foot, fix the ankle the toe acts up, fix the toe the ankle acts up, make each work in a wonky way and it's manageable). My wrist issues flared and are now back but I honestly think I might end up cancelling that appointment. I did a little self adjustment of a few carpal bones and it seems to be getting better so... 

I also got on estrogen. The mini-pill. Just a bare hint of estrogen really. But it was enough to knock back the daytime hot flashes to zero and the nighttime ones are only a problem if I don't practice my other self care. Watch the sugar, don't drink hard alcohol, exercise. And even then it's like one a night instead of one all night. 

And here's a bonus kicker...

My food issues are fading. Estrogen gives protection from inflammation. We had soup dumplings for Christmas and it was going to be my quarterly "ouch" meal. But no ouch. So we had Godfathers and I had the barest of itch reaction to the nightshades, like so bare that if I wasn't looking for it I wouldn't have really noticed and nothing to the gluten, even though I'd had gluten just a few days before. I'm going to try some more nightshades on Saturday and see how it goes. But this is amazing right? If it sticks I'll try some chicken next. And bourbon. Oh bourbon, I've missed you. 

Now, what this means for me is that I can be less careful of what I eat. I won't have to study every label and menu like it was the meaning to life. BUT...because I know now that there is an underlying issue going on that the estrogen is protecting me from I won't go back to eating the way I used to. I'll still live mostly gluten free. I'll still really limit my nightshade intake. Chicken would be a sometimes food. But it will mean that I will be able to get a donut at the Timbers matches. I will be able to do a dinner cruise in Hawaii without eating only the lettuce from the salad. I will get a level of freedom back that I have missed terribly. 

And I will also suggest to women who are going through menopause that if they are having digestive and joint pain issues they should try an elimination diet because their estrogen was protecting them before. Though Katie put it best that food reactions due to menopause will never be studied because well, menopause and estrogen and the medical field doesn't view those as areas worthy of study. But let's hope that a more women reach the highest levels of care providers we see more studies in women's health and we start to understand estrogen a little more. But until then I will just be grateful for the push Kate gave me to actually get on it. Serious life changer.

So now with the last few days of 2022 fading quickly I'm looking at 2023. More set goals, more things around the pieces that bring me the greatest joy and sense of accomplishment. 

I hope your year has been a good one overall. I hope the painful times were met with love and support. I hope the joyful times were shared and multiplied. I thank you all for reading these blogs. It really does make me happy to share my life with you all. 

And that's a wrap on 2022. 

See you next year!

The Darkest Days...

Have you ever noticed how depressing Christmas music is? I mean a lot of it is just so gloomy. Everyone wishing they were somewhere else, with someone else. It's the most melancholy time of the year. 

And it really is. I mean for a lot of people the whole holiday season is just the pits. There is nothing like a holiday steeped in family traditions and memories to drive home the point that you've lost a loved one. Even though we stopped going home for Christmas when Katie was a toddler it was still hard the first year we lost Jack, and the first year we lost my dad, and the first we lost my mother, and the first year we lost Ann..firsts are the worst. Though that year we lost Ann was probably the absolute worst. It was only the second Christmas after my mother passed, we lost so many friends that year, and we were still in the middle of the worst of the pandemic, before we all decided to pretend it wasn't a thing anymore...

This year my friends and I are still reeling from Kevin's death. It's only been a month basically. I mean how is it possible it's been a month? How is it possible it hasn't been longer? Both of these feel true. It's been impossible. I hadn't realized how tied we all were to each other on a daily basis. I mean I sort of grasped it, but I wasn't ready for the void that would happen each time I thought about him during the day. It's made me more aware of how often I think of you all.

Which it turns out I think about a lot of you often. 

Songs, times of day, weather, clothes, foods...I have memories tied to each of you around those things and so much more. I saw a cool storm moving in the other day and I was driving so I couldn't take a picture and was really bummed because I knew Faye would love it. There was a show about a housing in Las Vegas and I wondered how close the neighborhood was to Sonnya. It's nothing big usually, but there are little things like that with each of you. 

I didn't realize how many of you keep me company while I am cooking. I think about Nadine when I'm making something fancy I've never tried before, I hear her voice in my head, "eh just try". I think about Chris when the cats decide to help me. Trying to get my latkes to turn out the other night I thought about Naomi and her "so many latkes" that she forgot to take pictures of and of Dana and her adding bacon. And I think about Kevin when I come up with a random concoction that ends up really great. Which is often. 

But now everytime I think "oh Kevin would..." I have to catch myself. Because it's still in that early stage where you forget on one level. It's still not settled in as real. 

And that's why Christmas music often lends itself to being depressing. Because so many of our memories around the holiday are tied to our friends and our families. And they are not always with us. Sometimes temporarily, often permanently. 

You all know I lost my uncle a few weeks before Kevin. I love my aunt dearly and I know she's facing that horrible first Christmas without him and my heart hurts for her. I know how bad it was for Mom when Dad passed. I can picture those photos from that first Christmas and just how tired and done Mom looked. 

While thinking about my aunt and uncle an old Christmas memory popped up. My family is large. For awhile when we were all in New Mexico there could be 30+ people at Christmas. We switched to a White Elephant exchange instead of trying to manage presents for everyone. 

So one year Denny got one of the lowest numbers and unwrapped his gift, it was a piece of wood with a line of nuts glued to it. The nuts all had googly eyes and painted faces, there was a banner on the bottom with something like "My Family is a Bunch of Nuts" and he spent the rest of the game trying to convince people to take it from him. "This is a fine handcrafted piece of art. It's got to be worth something." and no takers. "You know this is probably a valuable piece of folk art." Nothing. End of the game comes, everyone is done making their swaps and Denny is still stuck holding that nuts on a branch. He reaches over to grab the nutcracker and breaks open the walnuts. Inside each one was a $20 bill. "I told you it was probably worth more than you were thinking." 

Oh he got everyone! It was his own gift he brought and he told us all it was valuable. Very funny.

The next year a new piece of art like that showed up. And please believe there was a mad scramble for it. I watched the glee in my uncle's eyes and thought, "Uh oh, he's going to get you again." and sure enough at the end of the game the person who ended up with it broke them open and nothing... He got everyone again. 

I wasn't there the next year to see if it made a reappearance or not. But I would guess it did and that people had to decide if it was worth the chance to take it or not. If I had been there I would have watched him for clues on if it was more than it appeared to be. 

I hope this Christmas comes with pleasant memories of those you can't be with. 

I hope this holiday season is filled with moments that become those pleasant memories. 

I hope we find that Peace on Earth we are all looking for. 

Until that happens I guess we'll have to muddle through somehow...

Hearing Voices...

I've talked about it before, how important it is to find your voice when you write. 

I found mine a long time ago. Turns out my writing voice is just my speaking voice. But you know, written. 

It's why I use unconventional punctuation. I talk in fits and starts. A lot of pauses and odd trailing off. My writing style reflects that. 

People who have spent years talking to me off line tell me that they can hear my voice in their head when reading what I've written. So it works. 

Unconventional punctuation, over use of the word so, sentence structure that would have gotten a full bottle of red ink in any of my honors English classes...

This is my voice. 

I have a voice in fiction as well. Though I try to disguise it every little bit. Try and make it sound like a different voice. Sometimes it works and you spend an entire short story waiting for my gotcha moment and it never comes. There's the gotcha!

I have been thinking about this because of a piece that Wil Wheaton wrote, in response to a piece that Neil Gaiman wrote. Basically that as you start writing, fiction especially, you tend to try your hardest to sound like your favorite authors. You might not be doing it on purpose, as in trying to fool people into thinking it's a piece by them, but you do it subconsciously because that is what you associate with good writing. With enjoyable reading. 

Who do you want to sound like?

And I am sure I did it as well. Or even do it now as well. Probably every single author I've read that I thought sounded conversational wove it's way into my brain as "this is enjoyable to me to read" and so I write like that. 

At some point that happened anyway. 

When I was younger I did not write the way I sound. At least not in fiction. I had an idea that it should sound "literary" and I tried hard for that feel. Oh no...

There isn't much worse than a 14 or 15 year old trying to sound impressive.

Funny enough though...most of it was still fairly dark. Though not as funny. That's the difference. I tend to use more humor now than I did then. I think I thought that if I was trying to say something important I had to be serious. Over the years I've found that even when I'm trying to say something important, hell sometimes especially when I'm trying to say something important I will lighten the mood just a bit. 

I am an inappropriate laugher in my day to day life. I am just dragging you all along with me in my writing. 

I like having a strong voice in my writing. I like knowing that if you are reading this it's going to be like having a conversation with me. (I talk too much and expect you to laugh at my jokes)

I also like it because that means when the voices start in my head that don't sound like me I know it means there is a story brewing. And I hope it will be a good one. I'm not sure yet what they are saying, I can just hear them in the background. Fingers and toes crossed for a productive 2023...

And yeah, it'll be dark. I mean, have you met me?

But at least it won't be literary...

Ten Days To Go...

The first thought in her mind was "Ten days to go." The final countdown was on. 

Ten days from now it will be the day AFTER Christmas. Sure, there will be that week of wind down where some people still want to wish you a merry one, but for the most part on Christmas evening, around 6 or 7, society as a collective whole is just over it. For another year. 

Ten more days to go to deal with overly sugared children and overly stressed parents. Ten more days to go to deal with people who are in that midrange relationship space and have no idea if this means they need to get a gift for the person they are dating or if this means the should not at all get a gift because they aren't in that space yet. Ten more days to go of the constant barrage of holiday music. Ten more days to go of crotchy old people being mad at the word holiday.

Ten more days to go.

She remembered when it was all contained in December. December 1 to December 25. Get an advent calendar and eat a piece of chocolate every day as a reward for making it through. Then it started to creep into November. Which, fine, there was a lot to do so maybe spreading it out a bit more was helpful to a lot of people. She couldn't really fault that. 

But then it was October. And this year she saw her first set of decorations up in August. AUGUST. It was still summer vacation for the kids and they were seeing Christmas trees in Wal-Mart? Just not okay at all. 

But she couldn't blame Wal-Mart, as much as she'd like to, if people didn't buy Christmas stuff in August they wouldn't sell it. 

Last year she asked someone who was buying a set of decorations in August why they would do it so early and the response was, "Mind your own fucking business." So...yeah. Merry Christmas to you too!

Ten more days to go. 

She thought about what still needed taken care of, the list was pretty long. Even starting in August that list was going to be long. You had the choice she guessed, stress about it for months or stress about it for a month, either way there was going to be stress. 

Ten more days to go.

She could say 9, since Christmas day people mostly kept to themselves and there was nothing left to do. But sometimes something slipped through the cracks and you'd have to make a last minute dash out and then it was full throttle, you could practically see the extra exclamation marks when people would tell you Merry Christmas. 

Come on, it's not merry. I'm running an errand on Christmas day, you and I both know it's not great. But okay, Merry Fucking Christmas to you too!

Ten more days to go. 

She wasn't sure she hated Christmas, but it was getting that way. 

Which wouldn't be so bad if she wasn't an elf. 

Merry Christmas, ten more days to go...