God Rest Ye Merry Sjogren's Gals

Many of my fellow Sjoggies have been quite busy posting about their Christmas capers: baking cookies, concocting crafts, decorating homes from top to bottom...not to mention shopping and shipping, and I'm pretty sure it's just a matter of time before someone goes caroling!

I'm proud to say, I did get something done these past few weeks, working the internet machine to take care of some shopping.  Unfortunately, I have to have packages delivered to my mom's (they seem to *walk* from my apartment so UPS/FedEx won't even deliver here anymore), and for some reason many of my orders shipped each item separately.  My poor paernts kindly gave a foster home to my growing gift pile until I could get there on weekends to empty their "storage wing".

Naturally that didn't go entirely smoothly...something I was excited about sold out before the paycheck from which I had budgeted the purchase, and the item ordered for our dear little midget grandmother was way bigger than it appeared online (which prompted a manic attempt to exchange that led to a return and a mall-wide hunt for a replacement).  Shawn's always a bit tricky (as evidenced by the bag of his birthday presents from June sitting next to my coffee table), and the men in his family are wonderful guys but a disaster to shop for.  But, at this point, there's just a few odds and ends to still pick up and you can rest assured they will make it onto a full-blown Honey Do list tomorrow:)

This week isn't quite as crazy at work as the past few months have been.  I'm working on 3 clients, yes, but because of engagement timing I'm actually getting home at normal-people hours!  Yesterday that meant dinner at home with my husband at a NORMAL TIME for the first time since the summer - an increasingly rare treat that we both needed desperately. 

Tonight, Shawn was running his usual shift at the firehouse, so I decided to be productive.  I had driven to the subway terminal this morning (the *lovely* bus that picks up half a block from my house ran early, and thus I ran late), so I took advantage of having to drive home to stop at the drug store and wipe out the balance of our health flex spending account.  I'm kind of proud, actually, I thought to stock up on seasonal essentials - TheraFlu for me and Mucinex for Shawn (store brands, of course), plus some Sjoggie essentials (nighttime eye gel, enamal-repairing mouthwash, and pain relieving cream).  Now had I thought to buy tissues, I could have called myself "smart".  Oh well, can't win 'em all:)

Given the freezing weather, that would have been enough for me, but when I got home I found a puppy with a slightly upset tummy who desperately needed a good saunter around the block.  We'll save the details of how she got spooked and made me carry her half the way, only to drag me around an extra block when I put her back down.  When we finally came back in I went to change, but when I took off my work slacks and reached for sweatpants, I was shocked to see my knees and lower legs had turned an intimidating shade of red from the frigid night air!  I have one of those nifty thermometers that takes your temperature just from your skin (they advertise using it on your forehead, I find behind my ear to be more reliable), and have found the added benefit of being able to get a reading on parts of my body to try and link up circulation problems with specific pains.  So, I took my temperature (a little low from the cold, 97 point something)...then that of the skin on my knee...71 degrees!  I'm literally surprised I don't get frost bite sometimes.

As if all this hullabaloo of drug-store visiting and puppy-walking weren't enough, I was determined to do at least one more thing.  I desperately wanted to wrap presents (especially the ones for my nosy husband).  So, out came the paper, scissors, tap, metalic ribbon, and every box that had been convoyed from my parents' house in the past month.  I have a thing for making little decorations or unusual wrapping techniques out of odds and ends of the wrapping paper, so I let my Christmassy spirits soar for an hour or two.  I have to say, I didn't do half-bad:)

But wait, I think I forgot something...the shopping and driving and walking and freezing and sorting and wrapping plum tuckered me out, before I could pick up the mess I made in the process.  I believe this picture captures the scene my husband walked into after his shift:

For some reason, Things Remembered felt the need to pack that tall box you see with a teeny box you don't into the big brown box with all that paper as the filler.  I swear it was like pulling a clown's hankerchief getting it all out!

The thought occured to me, I really should clean this up.  That would be finishing the job, afterall, and I do love a job that is complete.  But...I shopped and drove and walked and froze and sorted and wrapped...and, well, as they say in Blazing Saddles, "damnit, I'm exhausted"!  The puppy's too sleepy to get into it...and Shawn does have off tomorrow...and I don't have room in the recycling bin to fit it right now anyway... it's clearly the only option to leave it be for now!  I have to work tomorrow, afterall, and those nearly-frost-bitten knees are starting to now feel hot to the touch.  (I can rationalize with the best of them:).)

And so, in true Julia form, I leave you with one more picture.  I call this, "A Sjoggie at Rest Will Stay at Rest; or, 'God Rest Ye Merry Sjoggie Gals'"!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........