Hello Christmas!

It is Christmas Time!!

I love the holidays. I love Christmas. I love the time with family, the preparations, food, festivities, games and family time.

I miss Christmas. I made the choice about 5 years ago to move where I want to... away from family and friends. I needed to live where I was comfortable, not where I was loved, but not really a part of things. Does that even make sense? I am not sure. But I moved from California, back to Oregon, because when I had lived up here before I loved the slower pace on life. I loved the green, the seasons changing... and I was so very tired of the hustle and bustle of the Southern California way of life. Not all of it. I loved the ocean. I miss being 15 minutes from it. I do miss family, but in general I am rather happy with my small town life.


This is the time of year when I feel the hurt. I miss all of those fun family things that I know are not the same as when I was younger, but I miss it anyway. I miss the magic of seeing children discover their stockings with glee. I miss the smiles and giggles when opening presents.

I have a tree. I couldn't not have one. But underneath are a couple of presents from a neighbor/friend and one send from my mom. I have stocking out that no one will fill. When I wake up on Christmas morning it won't be to excited children, but to the dog that wants to go pee.  I will make my own breakfast and open the present or two I have. I'm not complaining, really, I am expressing my sadness about the loss of such wonderful times that will never happen again. I know that there are so many others out there like me, so in that respect, I know that I am not alone.

I need to go bake some dog treat cookies. Maybe that will pull me out of my funk?

Hurrah for Cheese!

I had gone through a few scares recently which involved what appeared to be allergic reactions heading for anaphylaxis. Scary. The first incident sent me to ER. The second, several weeks later had me giving myself an Epi pen shot.  I have given shots before and been told that I make it nearly painless. I have to psych myself into getting shots. To give myself one was at least 15 minutes of bargaining with myself... it felt like hours. I tried to tell myself that I  didn't need it. I tried to tell myself that I would wait just a little longer. I listened to the recorded tutorial and had the injector sitting on my thigh ready to strike like a metal cobra. I totally freaked myself out. But visions of dying on the couch, only to be found 2-3 days later by my neighbor were my real motivation to do the deed. I didn't want him to come in to check on me and find that Maya was sprawled out on my bed, happy to have it to herself, Tinker curled by my head (because that is where she seems to end up) and Ziggy, my fat, fur ball cat, casually curled up with me, having gnawed off my thumb and first finger because I wasn't available for filling his bowl the previous morning. He loves me, but he sees me as a means to an end. I have no delusions on that end.

I thought about my boyfriend being worried and texting later... after WWE was over, and assuming that I had gone to bed. He might not truly worry until the next day when I didn't answer his texts while at work.We keep in touch daily via text, but sometimes one of us gets busy and texts are not answered for half a day or more. I think that neither of us like it and that we both get a little worried or uneasy, but we both realize that we have jobs to do. Of course, I am sure that I take it more personally than him, but then I am the emotional female. If I don't answer for a few hours he tries emailing, maybe a call if he is really worried. As for me, if  it has been a few hours I am already running scenarios through my head about a random meteor crashing through the atmosphere and turning his office to rubble, thus rendering him unable to answer "how is your morning going?" in a timely manner.

So my allergic reaction turns out to be more of an allergic problem that is more chronic and has nothing to do with food. It seemed to happen around when I ate and the link between incidents was cheese. I never realized how much I ate cheese, dreamed about cheese, and  planned for cheese type meals until I cut myself off from cheese for 58 days. I dreamed of pizza, lasagna, caprese salad, and grilled ham & cheese sandwiches. I googled cream cheese to determine whether I could actually it it (yay, I could) because I was pretty sure it wasn't actually "cheese". Upon finding out that cheese wasn't actually my kryptonite I went and bought a 2 lb block of Tillamook medium cheddar.

With all the bullshit that has been turning up to be midlife or menopausal issues I am so glad that cheese isn't one of those. I am glad to each cheese. I am happy that my boyfriend doesn't think I am avoiding his texts. I am  ecstatic that my cat isn't nomming on my appendages.