Anybody Home?

Sorry I've been out of commission for the last few weeks--seems like I would never get caught up.  And I almost didn't.  We had our Christmas this morning, since I have to work Christmas night, and didn't really want to get up, have Christmas, then go back to bed before going to work, and then come home to DD leaving on Sun. morning.  At 10pm last night, I declared the tree finished, even though only about a third of our ornaments were on.  When DD went off to bed at 11pm, I began wrapping gifts.  By 2am I had lost 3 gifts, one pair of scissors, and all my creativity. Found the gifts, got to bed by 3:00, but haven't found the scissors yet!

Here's what I ended up doing for ICU/Telemetry decorating this year:

These were repeated over all the doors in both units.

One wreath over a wrapping-paper covered bulletin board in ICU, one in Telemetry.

A little tree behind the nurses' station in Telemetry,

and a bigger one in ICU, because they had more space.

And wreaths for the glass doors on the rooms in ICU.

My sewing room is a wreck.

DD came in on Monday, and we've had a really good time with her and the animals (she brought both the dog and the cat.)  She set her alarm and we got up at 3am to view the lunar eclipse, but it was overcast, so we hurried back to bed. We've watched Sleepless in Seattle, Scrooge, other movies, finished shopping, cooked a little, and just hung out.  Wed. we all went to a very entertaining Christmas play and then out to eat. It's been good family times here at the Scraps  household.

There have been a couple of glitches, though.  I remembered my car registration hadn't been renewed and needed to get my emission test done first as well as an oil change, so I swung by on my way to the store and had them do it all, including rotating my tires, which was also overdue.  One of the mechanics came in very apologetically to tell me he'd broken off the stem under one of the lug nuts.  It was stripped and just broke off, and I don't even remember who rotated them the last time.  I've been so busy, I forgot to call the place the next day so they could make arrangements to fix it. They said it would be okay to drive with 4 lug nuts/stems, but it would need to be fixed soon.

Then Jack's car has been haunted.  (You'd think it would have been mine, right?) It's been locking and unlocking itself, and sometimes the inside lights go on and off.  He was going to take it in next week to be checked, but last night it apparently stepped up the pace, and when Jack went to make a trip to the grocery store for me, the battery was all but dead, and the security alarm was making weird noises.  Our roadside assistance service sent out a repairman, who managed to jump start it, but said we really need to get a new battery.  Right.  5pm on Christmas Eve.  Last year on Christmas Eve, there was snow and ice on the ground and I scraped my daughter's car as I backed out of the garage.  I think we are going to refuse to drive any car on Christmas Eve ever again.  As it is, I'm supposed to work tomorrow night and of course, it's supposed to start snowing tomorrow.  Keeping my fingers crossed either the roads won't be bad, or we'll be able to start the car.

Oh, and one other thing: I went to see my doctor last week, and my A1C, the 3-month compilation of blood sugar averages, has come down from a moderately dangerous 8.6 to a high normal of 6.5 in the 4 months I've been on the South Beach diet. I've also lost 35 pounds and lowered my cholesterol a little.  Still got lots to work on, but the progress is encouraging!

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and that you all make wonderful memories tomorrow!