Sean came over yesterday and started phase 2 of putting up the Christmas tree. I was able to snap this picture from my wheel hair:
Once he started putting the lights on, I HAD to put my song on!:
We talked as he was putting the lights up and I told him about posting my ALL-TIME Christmas Faves and adding the last song which is NOT my fave but it’s my cousinT’s so intern, I love it too:
As we continued to talk, he told me his favorite. I like that song as well! I KNOW that I have had that in my Christmas Faves list before but now I love this one even more now because Sean likes it!!!:
After he laughed and just before I went to bed, I took this picture of my tree. My Mom was impressed that for his first time, he did really well!
I was super excited yesterday that today was going to be the day that I could start using my, ”Ginger Spice” Chapstick. I thought about what I was going to write about when writing about it! When my brother, Ray, came over to make the pies, I laughed and reminded him that he and our cousin Alex commented a couple years ago when I originally wrote about it that they thought it was disgusting because it reminds me of the candy she always had in her house.
I showed my Mom this picture on my phone yesterday to tell her about the post I was going to write. She looked at my phone and her eyes softened and she just said in the most tender voice, “My mom.” I enjoyed seeing her reaction to the picture and I told her that it’s her (my Abuela’s) time because it’s ginger spice time.
It wasn’t even Christmas when we took this picture and we were at my aunt Rita’s house but I love it! It makes me think of the jar of candy she had on the entranceway table around Christmas time.
This was the candy she had:
They didn’t especially taste good but if that was the only candy there, with them. So this morning, I was super excited because I was going to put some on for the first time in a year. I carefully peeled the steel off of the chapstick to release the smell of Christmas at my Abuela‘s house! Once I peeled it all the way off, I was surprised to NOT be immediately flooded with smells that remind me of my Abuela’s house was confused! I looked down at the tube this and I saw that it was not Ginger Spice but my LEAST favorite Halloween flavor! It was Salted Caramel.
I talked to Sean today and I told him about the, “Terribleness.” Then I told him that, luckily, I had already placed a Target order for a Shortbread Cookie chapstick that I can use in conjunction with the Cocoa Mint and the Vanilla Bean one. I put the vanilla bean on today. Sean was amused at how much of a big deal I make all of this but what I told him about the order coming from Target, he said, “Oh good, crisis averted.” I replied with, “I know!” and then, he started to laugh because he was just joking but I WAS and AM totally serious
It’s a little bit of a risky move but I hope that I like the shortbread cookie one end it really has gotten me thinking about pitching the idea to them that they should have a BYOC kits! it’s a build your own chapstick grouping!
I think this list was getting too long so I have decided to just include the basics. Songs that I have heard my whole life! Let’s start with a Christmas that I decided this was my favorite song, I think it was seven, I was climbing into the backseat of our station wagon just as mass finished:
Wham! “Last Christmas”
This year, Sean put my tree up before Thanksgiving and I put Wham! on as he was fluffing the branches. He requested this song that has been part of my Christmases for my entire life:
Jose Feliciano “Feliz Navidad”
Gayla Peevey “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas”
Judy Garland “Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas”
Karen Carpenter “Merry Christmas, Darling”
Mariah Carey ”All I want for Christmas is you”
Alabama ”The Christmas shoes”
Train ”Shake up Christmas”
Jon Bon Jovi “Please come home for Christmas”
John Secada “Oh Holy Night”
Sarah McLachlan ”River”
U2 “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)”
oops!!!
Cee-Lo Green “Mary, Did you know?1
Kelly Clarkson ”Underneath the Tree”
Band Aid “Do they know it’s Christmas?”
Barenaked Ladies ”God Rest Ye, Merry Gentleman
Andy Williams ”It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”
James Taylor “Have Yourself a Merry little Christmas”
Bing Crosby & David Bowie “The Little Drummer Boy (Peace on Earth)”
Added in 2021:
Stevie Wonder ”This Christmas”
And this one for my cousinT, Shannon! I don’t like this song but because she does and I am putting it in Because I love her and I ALWAYS have to listen!
I woke up this late morning to the smell of my Mom‘s apple pie. Mornings are always difficult for me and as I was trying to wake up I had a big coughing fit. I cough and choke on nothing now. It’s a little bit alarming but I’ve been doing it so long that my Mom knows just to let me, “Choke it out.” Sean would always say, “Hands up” (which is what I always used to tell him when he was young). My Mom told me that today as I choked and Leia got up and out of her warm bed by the heater vent to report for duty see if I was okay!
Seeing this, made both my Mom and me laugh as I finished choking. Choking on nothing takes a lot out of you! I am still sitting in my wheelchair trying to wake up. It seems that MS does not care if it is Thanksgiving! The sides have always been my favorite part of a Thanksgiving meal. But I am a little bit concerned that and during Thanksgiving dinner will be difficult. I’m #ChronicallyIllAndNotSoFestive.
Yesterday, I had a piece of my Mom’s, “Reject” pumpkin pie and I didn’t seem to have a problem with that because I’ve been eating it my whole life! I’m just going to be positive about this and chew very slowly!
It was interesting for me to watch the, ”Changing of the Guard” with Sean putting our Christmas tree up but one thing I really didn’t think about was a, “Changing of the Guard” with the pie making in my family. My Mom has already told me that she is getting tired and I am so sad that I can’t carry on the torch for her!
ENTER: my big brother, Ray. It looks like he will be learning from my Mom how to make her pies.
I learned last year during the holiday pie making that my thermostat has to be set lower because the house gets really warm when the oven is on all day. But, my disease is progressing and therefore, my temperature control is being lost. My house was set at a lower temperature but I couldn’t handle it so I went over to the doorway of my kitchen. I took in a scene that I will never forget for the rest of my life!
My brother put on some music and a song that I had never heard before was playing but I turned the corner to see both my Mom and my brother, with their backs to each other, singing their hearts out because they both knew the song! I started to laugh and I commented that I didn’t know that song. My Mom could NOT believe that I didn’t know it and my brother looked at his playlist and said, in my defense, that it came out 13 years before I was born. When my Mom listens to music, I have to constantly remind her that I was born in 1982! They sat on the couch has the final pies were in the oven and started singing a different song that I didn’t know and my mom told my brother, “She doesn’t know our music!” I laughed at that statement but I do not know, “Their music.”
My brother posted this picture of him and my Mom and I need to explain it. My Mom meant business yesterday and it continues today. My Mom is not used to being picture ready and staging pictures and I explained to her that’s how it goes now. I could feel the tension when I got out of bed yesterday like static or some thing because I knew that my Mom would soon turn into being obsessed! she gets that way when she’s baking a large amount of things! Baking pies for my immediate family is a large amount of things!
So, things are a little topsy-turvy this holiday season but I am smelling pumpkin pies made by my brother and my Mom and my son told me that he completed phase 1 as he walked out of the door today. it’s a really good thing that I am wearing my festive, Thanksgiving shirt to properly be ready for the season!
Events of today were a little bit crazy! I woke up this morning knowing that my Mom was going to make pies for Thanksgiving with my oldest brother. I was most grateful for him to take over for our generation when my Mom‘s generation is gone. I was most appreciative to learn that my house was going to, once again, smell like my mom‘s pies! It is a smell that I Love but never thought that I would smell in my house! with this pandemic persisting, my Mom is still staying with me so our family pie making will commence in my home! I love it!
My Mom got me ready for the day before all of the holiday festivities would begin. I decided to be festive as well! This is me being chronically ill but still festive because I’m excited about the season! Right after I snapped this picture, I put my sweatshirt on. Unfortunately, the life of a chronically ill person consists of sweats. My T-shirt says, “Thanks + Giving.”
What time Sean showed up, since he was here, my mom wanted him to get the tree from the basement. I was concerned about the tree bucks because it is the 16th year that we have had the same box. Sean went downstairs by himself and then I heard it! Sean yelled from the basement that if we have the same tree box next year, he will boycott Christmas!
When he was upstairs, he put the box in the living room and told me that the tree fell out! I started to laugh when I snapped this picture and he told me he will pick a new box for us. I told him that we have a 7 1/2 foot tree and let him do it.
Call Sean thinks that the tree box is dead but he got the Treestand out of the front closet and proceeded to take the tree out of the box! As he started to do that, I told him that things are all topsy-turvy this year and I had to put on the song that will start the Christmas season for me!
I love this song! It completely set me in the mood and I watched and Sean was fluffing the branches. I told him that I am witnessing the, “Changing of the guard.” He only read and talked about my brother making the pies with my Mom but I stopped him and told him that I was witnessing the, “Changing of the guard,” by watching him put the tree up. My Mom has always put the tree up since I have gotten it but now it seems that Sean will do that. I still just sat in my wheelchair to supervise but phase 1 is now complete!
My brother, Ray, will be here soon and then the smells of my Mom’s pies will waft through my house which will make me happy because I AM in a festive mood! I even dressed the part! Before Sean left, my mom had him take the box downstairs. Before he did, he yelled, “Don’t call it a box!” and I immediately thought of LL cool J #JustBecause:
The first time I saw this commercial, I completely thought of my kids (my CCA students). I couldn’t remember who sang this song but I remember hearing it being played during dodgeball for the gym class. My CCA kids LOVED hot Cheetos!!! I remember that for every single Kleenex raffle I had for 12 years, The students ALWAYS wanted a big bag of hot Cheetos as their prize if they won.
I clearly remember my first year teaching and there was something going on in school and the kids had bags of Cheetos that they were eating for lunch that they had to eat in my room. My Mom had just dropped off a smoothie for me because I was eating completely organic back then and I was hitting it hard! The kids were sitting at their tables and eating their lunch. I was drinking my smoothie. I watched them eat as I sipped the straw of my smoothie and I told them, “I could NEVER eat red food!”
I remember a student who sat toward the back responded with, “But, you will eat purple food?!” The shake I was drinking was purple. I looked down at my shake and started to laugh. A student gave me one hot Cheeto to eat and it was completely DISGUSTING!!! I told the class that I will never eat red food again! Artificially red food! It took a couple times for me to watch this to remember who sang it.
So when I found out it was Fall Out Boy, I had to search for a video and I found one that I will leave here because it reminds me of my kids. My CCA kids:
Ever since I purchased my iPad, every blog post I write is a “2 device process.” Because my eyes have gotten so bad over the past 20 years, I need to make the screen extremely zoomed out so I can make out the words. But if I want a picture or a video, I embed those using my phone because my phone is small and easier to hold. But then, I need to actually write the blog post. That’s when I go over to my iPad and make the writing super big so I can see it. As I write it, I use voice to text technology to make it easier.
hi I thought I would explain that today because my eyes hurt and because of that, I am just going to speak my blog post into existence because I will not put any pictures or YouTube videos on it. But I wanted to post something, so I thought I would ‘splain ya.
I got out of my house this morning. It was for my monthly haircut and eyebrow wax appointment. I told her to go back to the reverse bob that I got so many years ago for the first time. I was 26. But now, at almost 40, it’s so much easier. I can’t stand the feel of hair on my neck anymore. Having had MS for over 20 years, I have a very extreme sensory disorder now. I had my mom take a picture of my short hair in the back just to make sure. The woman who has been waxing my eyebrows and cutting my hair for 20 years is expecting her second child in January. I made an appointment for December but I told her I will just wait until she gets back from having the baby to get a haircut after that. I waited over a year during the beginning of the pandemic so it’s okay with me.
We didn’t rent a van this time so instead, Sean accompanied us to be the brawn to get me in and out of the car. Over the years, my core strength has diminished but my knee injury has sent me over the edge and saying that now I am in a motorized chair all of the time, my car strength definitely has been affected and is almost gone completely. My mom did not mind sitting in back so Sean decided to go to Cold Stone Cremery that is right by my house. I am definitely not a huge fan of eating ice cream when it is freezing outside but Sean and my Mom were getting a scoop so I told him to get me a scoop as well. As he was getting out of the car, I told him that, “ mint chocolate chip is my jam!” And it made me smile that as he was closing the door he just said, “I know.” As Sean and my Mom were in the store, I started fiddling with the radio.
I have written before that I am old because I enjoy music from my young adulthood but now I am almost 40. Sean has been driving my car for over a year and my radio stations are all messed up but somehow, I got to 80s on eight. And the opening bars of this song had just played. This song reminds me of my Mom!
I listened to the entire song and smiled to myself. Sean and my Mom got back into the car and I ate my scoop of ice cream. It was totally of season but I really enjoyed it! I spoke with my Mom as I am drafting my blog post and I started to laugh. I was remembering back when I was p music club and got a new CD that I was listening to for the first time in my car. It was The Incredible Journey. I showed of my Momt the CD case as we drove to wherever we were going. Once we got back and I put my car in park in front of my Parents’ house, my Mom just ejected the CD and told me that, “I’ll have this.” She got out of my car and walked toward the porch. I looked completely aghast and shook my hand. I just decided to let her have it! It’s like the Diet Coke commercial, she IS the reason I like them!
