Boxing Day

Today is Boxing Day, and so this gift seems pretty appropriate for the date, a silver coin that Mom got me, and a pretty funny one too.  It was a day to look at all the gifts, sorting through things, and just largely playing around with what we got.

We got a lot of different blends of coffee this Christmas, and this is the one we elected to start out with, enjoying a couple cups of White Chocolate Peppermint Bark.  You could taste the chocolate and the peppermint, but not in an overwhelming way - just enough to make it fresh and brisk, and sweet too!  

The birds had plenty to eat again too.  you can see a few of our bluebird friends dining on mealworms here, but in the old tray from last year.  We hung up a few new bird feeders, including a new and more sturdy suet feeder, which you can see a woodpecker visiting below:

There was another feeder we hung up too, one that was a lot more friendly to the bluebirds.

We have a robin that's a bully, a territorial bird that doesn't realize it's too early for spring.  Whatever the reason, he has asserted his dominance over the mealworm tray on the back railing there, swooping in and dropping his fat heinie on the place where a bluebird family of five or six will be dining.  And of course if any of them get close, he chases them off, not really there to eat but instead just show off how big and aggressive he is.  I've learned to not like robins as much, all because of this one!  Anyway, the feeder above is one the robin cannot get to at all, so the bluebirds are enjoying it all the more today.

We have a few more feeders that we'll put out soon enough, but all in good time.  It was a day for putting things up, like the new shaving implements.  It was a day for trying out the new rotator cuff exercise kit that I got, something simple for Christmas that could help strengthen my muscles and reduce pain in that area.  Mom got that for me, and I was swinging it around some.  Part of the kit is a strap that forces my arm to a position at night, allowing my shoulder to relax and not re-injure itself.  

Our good friends got us a candle that reads, "CHOOSE JOY," and we have had that lit periodically, along with the fire in the fireplace.  I keep spotting that word JOY all over, written in huge letters across the stage during our Christmas production, and also across our mantle.  The word "JOY" is even our new KidPak ornament - each year we get a new fruit of the spirit ornament, so we have these hung up on the living room tree.  But the "CHOOSE JOY" message is for us, as we just have to keep a positive attitude, something frequently challenging with our current family dynamic.  We set up a puzzle for her, but she just said "Good luck with that one!"

Maddie loves puzzles though.  She and Mom will spend some time on this new one I got for Christmas - it's covered with exotic birds, something Kronk would love.  

You can see Lola here, looking on.  That's a robot pet character from the series "Obi Wan Kenobi."  This new addition to our household was opened yesterday, and the first thing that Maddie thought of was "Don't touch Lola."  Of course, that's the famous quote from Agent Phil Coulson in "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."  And it has nothing to do with Star Wars.  But still, it's fun, and throughout the day we were saying that of course.

It's a busy shopping day, but we weren't going out to do any shopping.  In fact, we've been in our pajamas all day.  We had some delicious tea, and we watched a lot of television tonight, starting with the 30th anniversary special for "Beauty and the Beast," and then some more of "The Bad Batch."  We're having a Bad Batch Marathon the rest of the year - we have about fifteen episodes to go, as last night we started it with four episodes from "The Clone Wars" where the characters were first introduced.  

Tonight we read from "Mort," and we're approaching the end of that one rather quickly.  We said our prayers together, and then I put my rotator cuff strap on, sliding under the warm blankets.  It'll be below freezing again tonight, and we've kept the water dripping and the cabinet doors open under the sink to hopefully keep the pipes from freezing up.  It's been a good day - this used to be one of my favorite days of the year, so relaxing.  But not so much this year with the new family dynamic.  We did a lot of relaxing, but there's a lot of answering of repetitious questions and the old "trying to get someone to eat" game, plus discussions about moving out over and over again and then the answering of the question that gets asked over and over again, "Is there anything special I can do?"  If there is nothing for Nana to do, she either announces that she is going back to bed for the umpteenth time, or she'll sit on the couch and mutter to herself until she repeats the question again.  There's this sort of psychological battle going on - we have to keep her entertained at all times, or there's this guilt that you don't really care.  And some of us are just tired of it, sort of ignoring it or getting coldly indifferent from time to time.  Then the conviction comes and you sort of pep up and do your best to show love, but it just wears you down all day long.  Mom is feeling the monotony of it more than anyone else, of course, and suffering the most.  Tomorrow we'll get a call from Dana (not Zuul), and maybe we'll have hope once again.  We'll see.

I'll close with one remarkable gift that Mom got me for Christmas.  She got me a print from BlackCatTips, a local artist who we began to follow after seeing many of the signs he was posting around our area.  So we've been following him online somewhat, and Mom actually got me a this print that I want to frame and hang up somewhere.  But also, she got me his children's book, one called "Smile a While."  It's a simple message book about smiling and spreading joy just with a smile.  But I was reading out loud to Mom, and it was a good message for both of us.  We gave each other a smile, and we'll keep doing that, putting on our garments of praise and moving forward with JOY.