December's Golden Hours

Not counting my eyes, which are now doing very well (yay) and hopefully will be in good shape into the future, December sped by with a few bumps in the normal rhythms.  Golden Hours.

Go to the bottom of the post to click on the video-lovely music-  and then come back up here to continue reading.

While I was living on tenderhooks thinking about surgery and possible outcomes the furnace broke- it was repaired the same day, but boy is it cold to wake up to a house with no heat in the middle of a cold December.  One thin wire, about 14 inches in length was the culprit.

Lucy needed extra care and attention for a painful ear infection- her ear is all better now, unfortunately I found out she has cataracts in both eyes.  They're small, but it wasn't news I wanted to hear.  Anyone know if there are any foods or lifestyle choices to help Lucy's cataracts grow very slowly? She just had her 11th birthday on December 15th.

Yarn Wreath was Coca Cola showered and broke into three pieces. A little soda goes a long way when it's airborne.  You can picture that, soda all over the walls and floor, what a mess.  Thank goodness I was out of the direct hit on that one. lol  Scrubbed 3x- stains still there.  Wall painting next week for someone...  

I didn't see this one coming:  with the new healthcare bill, our prescriptions are going up in price by 300%, that's right, a whopping 3 times more than 2012.   Then, to add insult to injury, the cable company sends its annual, "your rate is going up" letter, this time they blamed it on Congress.  What?!

But the mother of all breakdowns was the refrigerator on Christmas night.  With a freezer full of uncooked food, bags of veg and assorted other foods- well you can imagine.  I spent most of the 26th cooking and baking what had thawed.   One recipe I came up with was a chicken and hot sausage stew/gumbo with spinach, carrots, and potatoes.  That was nice and hot after shovelling snow.

The bright side is that it has been so frigid and snowy that we haven't lost any food.  It's out on the deck and we have to go back and forth in the cold, but that's better than the alternative; it could've been summer and we'd have bags of ice to buy and pour off the melt; plus me worrying about the insects, chipmunks, and squirrels coming through the doggie door and finding the food.  This is as close to camping as I ever want to be!

The repairman made it here on the 27th, we had a snowstorm on the 26th so no one was going to come that day.  He said the compressor would cost more to replace than to buy a new fridge which should be delivered on the 2nd.

(It was delivered and we are now back to normal fridge wise.)

If that's the worse to handle for a while, I'm very grateful, either way, I'm thankful.  I hope that the beginning of January and the new year will bring hope, comfort, and relief  to everyone dealing with hardships, especially Sandy Hook families, Superstorm Sandy survivors, and  people needing encouragement and help.

I'll leave you with the poem, "The Flower" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

Once in a golden hour

I cast to earth a seed.

Up there came a flower,
The people said, a weed.

To and fro they went

Thro' my garden-bower,

And muttering discontent

Cursed me and my flower.

Then it grew so tall

It wore a crown of light,

But thieves from o'er the wall

Stole the seed by night.

Sow'd it far and wide

By every town and tower,

Till all the people cried

'Splendid is the flower.'

Read my little fable:

He that runs may read.

Most can raise the flowers now,

For all have got the seed.

And some are pretty enough,

And some are poor indeed;

And now again the people

Call it but a weed.