Saturday, December 13, 2014

Ho, ho, ho…part one

Christmas is coming. Yikes! I got started in our Christmas letter mailing (for those not on email) on Tuesday night this week. By Thursday AM, I had sent them all, and wrapped many gifts and boxed them for mailing for busing. Currently, my halo is glowing. Can you not see it?

On the recovery front, things are not so good. Walking is generally OK, apart from freezing rain that makes the sidewalks treacherous. I’ve had one fall, where no sand was spread on an intersection. Nothing broken; lovely yellow bruise!  The problem is with swimming. Open heart surgery has left with chronically short of breath in extreme exercise. In “the old day” I could run for two hours without a break. Today, I can often not make one length of the pool without gasping and restarting swimming. When I get so breathless, my legs won’t work, and they just flutter, rather than kick. Pain in the butt. Swimming with flippers made me fast, and thus able to reach the end of the pool with ease. However, the extra pressure pinched a nerve in my lower back. Can’t use flippers at the moment.

‘Swimming without flippers is incredibly slow, and causes me to collapse from oxygen loss before I make 25 metres! Very frustrating. At the moment, I have decided to forgo swimming for a week let my back settle down. I’ll walk every day, even on icy streets, rather than try to swim and almost drown!

Today, with some encouragement, Beatrix phoned her Dad and Sister to come for Christmas dinner. It looks like they will come! This is a first! Family for Christmas. Not mine, but hers!

This week, the tree goes up. Probably the last one on the block. Some have been up since mid-November! I’ll cut the bottom for soaking tomorrow, and we’ll go from there. It requires two of us, since I can’t carry the tree, according to my doctor.


Many people have seen the announcement in the local paper about my birthday celebration on January 4. I’ve gotten more than a few congratulations. How many people will come for coffee and pie is anybody’s guess. I’m saying 20 or 30 max. I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’m thinking about the logistics of 10 people for dinner. More plates, more cutlery. Logistics is my job. The Pastor is super busy at this time of year. Not me. I’ll manage to get things organized between visits to Tim Horton's. I hope!

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