Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a happy holiday season this year.

I just got back from a few days at my sisters, so have been out of touch for a bit. I have internet there, but had no time, lol. Saturday and Sunday were beautiful. Highs close to 70, so we went swimming and hot-tubbing both days. New Year’s Eve we sat around my sisters new firepit and had cocktails, and then went to a local party in her neighborhood and all her friends got to meet Dan. It was a little pressure for him, I guess, lol, but he handled it well and I’m sure he won them all over. They are a nice bunch of people. In the end, Dan said it was one of the nicest New Years he’s ever had, and me too. Just low key and laid back. None of us stayed up for the ball drop.

Now we are going to work at losing the weight we gained over the holidays (and before). I am so disgusted with myself, really. Both Dan and I had too many Christmas goodies, and really good meals, and now we am on austerity, trying to break my sugar/chocolate addiction. Cutting the carbs. My sis is doing the same, so hopefully we will support each other and manage to lose the lbs we’ve gained. I weighed myself this morning to have a real starting point.

Yesterday the weather turned pretty cold and rainy, very un-Florida like. Highs in the 50’s with drizzly rain. It’s nice for a change but now today is the 2^nd day of it, and it’s old, lol. We actually have a windchill of 32° here, though I know that is warm compared to what everyone up north is dealing with. I saw that tRump was saying we need more global warming in one of his tweets, thinking he was being funny I’m sure. What an idiot.

I gotta get on the move and get some laundry done, and errands run. Hope everyone stays warm til the Polar Express is back up in the netherlands. Love and light.

We slept with the windows open last night. We’ve done that a lot since the temps have fallen below 70° at night. With the ceiling fan on it’s lovely.

There’s something about being able to sleep with the windows open. The fresh air, the sounds in the distance, curtains ruffling in the breeze. What’s weird for me is that until Dan was with me, I never left the windows open at night, and didn’t open them much during the day. I guess I just felt too vulnerable in a new place. It kind of felt like leaving the door unlocked and/or open all night. Now, I am safe. All the time.

Which leads me to think about feeling safe. Not just physically but emotionally. Dan is the kind of guy who puts his boots next to the bed, and when I ask why, he says, “So if someone breaks in here they will know there’s a man around.” It took me awhile to accept that, I am so damn independent, but the reality is, a man with a big foot is much more of a deterrent than a woman alone. Though, it’s not my nature to worry about such things, so it really just makes me laugh, but also makes me realize how he wants to protect me.

After being with men whose goal in our relationship was to mindfuck me, to create chaos, all to keep my head wrapped around them, keeping me off-balance and insecure, it’s so refreshing and endearing. Dan is considerate, kind, thoughtful, and not afraid to be vulnerable. He listens when I talk, and pays attention to what I say.  All of which contribute to my feeling safe with him.  I can trust him.

It seems to me that feeling safe with someone is the epitome of allowing yourself to feel vulnerable. The ability to make yourself vulnerable can be so scary. It’s nice to be with someone who works at making sure you are not afraid. Someone who fills up the marble jar, and doesn’t dump it over. (See Brene Brown’s talk “The Anatomy of Trust.) I hope I do the same for him. Because in the end, while allowing yourself to be vulnerable can be terrifying, it is also the birthplace of love and belonging and creativity and all the good things we can feel. To be able to feel vulnerable with someone, yet safe, is a huge part of a loving relationship.

Love and light everyone.

OMG, it’s cold in Connecticut!!!!! 11° this morning. And in Denver. And in Cleveland. Even Austin TX is only 39. But here in sunny Florida it is 65° at 9 AM and heading to 75°.

Although there are many reasons I love living here, NOT dealing with 11°, EVER, is a major one of them. Look at this week’s forecast for my old hometown, and my new one.

Negative degrees is WAY too cold for me. Single digits is way too cold. Under freezing ALL WEEK is way to cold. My little sis used to live in Bozeman, Montana. She would say, when it was that cold, that it was cold enough to freeze the bugars in your nose. Note that she now lives in Austin, TX, which is cold this morning, 39°, but that is infinitely better than 11°.

What do I hate about being cold? I hate having to dress in 5 layers every day and still never be warm. I hate how the furniture in the house never is warm when you sit on it. (Maybe that was just me, because I couldn’t afford to heat the house above 65° when I lived up there.) When I moved into my house up there, I loved having a garage for the first time in my life, because at least I didn’t have to unload the groceries out in the cold (or rain, or snow.) I hate how it takes your car forever to warm up, and how much I missed having seat warmers when I traded my Malibu for a Sentra.

And I hate having the bugars freeze in my nose.

Even snow, which I really hated dealing with, particularly driving in, looked beautiful from a distance when I saw my friends pics of it on Christmas. Of course then I remembered how cold it was when it snowed, and quickly got over that thought.

Here in Florida we think it’s cold when it gets to 60°. We have to wear pants instead of shorts, and real shoes instead of flip flops. Sometimes even a sweater or a jacket. Ocasionally, we even flip our thermostats onto “heat” to “take the chill out.” Oh no! Of all things!

I’m just going to say though, that going through my phone’s weather app to see what the weather is in places where people I love live, I feel totally blessed to be here. In those other places, 60° is a dream that won’t come true for another few months.

Guess I’ll get going. Lots of stuff to do today in this lovely weather. For those of you in that cold weather pattern that seems to be everywhere but here, I hope you stay warm and cozy.

Love and light.

Yesterday, I said at some point after all the Christmas festivities were over, and we were sitting at Dan’s bar playing Gin, that this was the best Christmas ever. He looked at me, and while he was happy to hear it, reminded me that I’d had a lot of good Christmases since I left my ex.

He was right. I got to spend a couple Christmases with my family, for the first time in 30 years, when my son came to live with me, 18 months after I left my ex. It was wonderful and warm, and spent in the most picturesque home of my sister, a log cabin that is on the National Register of Historic Places, with snow outside and all. My sis and brother-in-law, my niece, my mom, my brother-in-law’s daughter and her husband. I’m so glad to have those memories, and that my son has some good memories of a family Christmas.

When I bought my house, my own house in CT, we had nice Christmases there, my son and I. Putting up our own tree, decorating the house, and sharing meals in peace and quiet. It was a dream come true.

Last year I had my first Christmas in Florida, which was another dream come true, with my sister. It was our first Christmas without our mother, and I think we channeled her in somehow. It was 80° and sunny, and we spent the day in the pool, and the hot tub, and vegging out. It was a gloriously luxurious way to spend Christmas Day.

Yesterday, Dan and I spent our first Christmas together, and it was such a pleasure, such an incredibly wonderful thing to be able to share all the wonderful feelings of Christmas with someone I love and who loves me. It seems, right now, to be the pinnacle of my dreams, to have happened.

I felt so good about it that I put up a pic of us together on FB for my profile pic (with Dan’s blessing) and changed my status to “In a relationship”, something I never thought I’d do. It’s just that this morning I want to shout it to the world, that finally at 66 years old I am with the man who I’ve said is walking toward me for years.

I guess I am very lucky, very blessed. I think I’m the poster child for manifesting what you think about. Both of us remarked how amazing it was to spend Christmas, and all the holidays with someone you love, completely drama free. We have both had enough drama for 15 lifetimes, so it is incredible to both of us that it’s possible to be in such a loving relationship that has none.

What a difference a year makes!

Love and light, everyone.

The cell phone struggles are almost over. I tried to fill out the voucher for a free iPhone 8. I needed a number off the iPhone box, and it’s in about 3 font. II managed to read the numbers and filled out the form, and got a message that one of the phones is not eligible for the BOGO promotion. I texted my son, who was at work and mobbed 2 days before Christmas. He said of course it was eligible but he’ll have to deal with it Tuesday, because there’s no way 2 days before Christmas.

I spent 45 min. on the phone with Sprint trying to give them back my phone. As it turns out they want an early termination fee for ending the lease on my iPhone 7 before it is up, and I have to give them back the phone. Part of the problem is that the people I was talking to are in India or somewhere, which is fine, except I could barely understand them. I would try to tell them that as soon as they got into their spiel 15 seconds, but they kept right on talking over me and so had to repeat everything again. They kept saying, “Can you hear me now?” I kept saying, “Yes, I can hear you, I just can’t understand you.” Frustrating.

For some reason, our new phones did not come with visual voice mail Visual voice mailis voice mail that is on the phone and is transcribed. This is what I’ve had on the last two iPhones I’ve had. The voice mail the new phone came with says “call voice mail”. Who has to call voice mail on a smartphone? I haven’t had to do that in years. My son says visual voice mail should be on there. He’s too busy at work today to call tech and get it fixed, so I guess I’m stuck with it until Tuesday.

I will never switch carriers again, if I can help it.

Now that I’ve vented, I can switch gears and just say how excited I am for Christmas this year. Dan and I will have an intimate dinner at his house this evening, then go next door to his mothers for her annual Christmas Eve gathering. Tomorrow we are making dinner for her and his brother. It’s awesome to be making new traditions, and sharing the holidays with Dan. I’ve never felt so cared for in my life, or cared so much.

The weather here will be in the 70’s. And sunny. Perfect.

Feeling blessed, for many reasons. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. Merry Christmas to all.

Maybe the week before Christmas is the wrong time to change cell phone carriers and set up new phones. Ya think? Geezus. I would rather have a tooth pulled. Well, maybe. Maybe not. But I will say it’s not a pleasant experience.

Dan and I both had to get pin numbers from our old accounts to unlock our phones. To do this you have to contact the carrier, unless you have it. You have to have the password and account number to get the pin.

We went to the T-mobile store to transfer over our numbers to the new phones, iPhone 8’s, which were buy one get one free. My son works for T-Mobile in CO and set up the account and sent us the phones. We had the passwords but not the PIN numbers so we couldn’t do it. I came home and spent a half hour on the phone with Sprint to get the PIN number. We had to get the account number and password from Dan’s son-in-law, which took most of the day to get, since he in CO and working. Then sat on the phone with ATT to get his PIN. And ATT made us reset the PIN, they couldn’t give us the current one. Finally, we have the PIN and my son can port the phone number over to T-Mobile.

Then, my old phone was not paid off yet. So, when they ported the number to T-Mobile yesterday, I got a message from Sprint saying I needed to drop off the phone to them or pay it off before I sold or traded it. So, ok, I have to go to Sprint and turn in the phone.

Next, we had a voucher from my son to get the free iPhone. My son gave me the voucher number in a text. This morning I went online to use the voucher so I will get the 2^nd phone free and for some reason, all of my texts with my son transferred over to the new phone, except the few days this week where he sent me this voucher number. I texted him this morning to send it to me again.

Hopefully, today it will all be finished, and I can forget about the phones except to use them. I have to say I have not found much difference between the iPhone 7 and 8. The 8 has a bigger memory, a better camera, and the volume can be turned up louder. Oh, and you can charge it by laying it on a charger instead of plugging it in, if you want to buy that kind of charger for who knows how much money. I never really found it a problem to plug my phone into a cord. (Shakes head…..) All of my apps transferred over and my music, and play lists. That was much easier than the last time I got a new phone, when I had to download all the apps again, and remake my playlists.

I guess now I can get back to preparing for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinners. And wrap presents. And finish buying them. And buying cards for a couple of people. Better get going.

Love and light everyone.

My blog for a long time has been used as a journal of my life. Many snapshots in time of my perception of a situation at that moment. Often on my stats page, I see that old blogs have been read, and I sometimes cringe. I assume most of them were suggestions from WP at the end of a blog, mine or someone else’s, which WP thought related to a particular blog.

Cringe, yes. Because so many of my old blogs were my perception, which was often based on lies told to me, and even more on my desire to believe things were different than they were then. I can look back at them now and wonder how I could have been so naive, so stupid, how I could have so misplaced my trust, etc., etc., yada yada yada.

There are a few that every time I see that someone has read one of those…THOSE, I want to delete it. Because it was so far from the truth of the matter, I’m embarrassed about it. Really.

I have talked to Dan about it. Should I delete some of them, the really ridiculous ones. He tells me no. They were where I was at the time. I get that, that’s why they are still there. They are my story, however flawed my thinking was at the time. They don’t represent who I am now, or how I think, or how far I’ve come from the place I was at when I wrote them.

But I still have this embarrassment about them. I hate for someone to read one of them and think I am telling a true story, that what I said was really what was happening. I hate for someone to see how absolutely stupid and naive I was. How unenlightened, and how erroneous my thinking was.

My question now is, should I get rid of them, at least the ones that are blatantly ridiculous? Since distance has given me a clarity, and I see things as they were? Since I now know how much complete bullshit (is there a better word for it?) is woven into them?

Or should I let my story continue to unfold, and take my lumps? Lumps being embarrassment and naivete? Not to mention there are things I wrote about that I’ve forgotten, which I’ve gotten so past that I never think about them any longer, or the people involved, and would like to just not be reminded of those things, those time of my life, when I see them on my stats page, having been read.

Not trying to erase the past, or change it. I just want the past to stay in the past, especially now.

Love and light.

My icemaker crapped out. Just stopped. Just in time for the holidays. There’s a repair guy coming tomorrow. My fridge is maybe 2 years old, but has only been used slightly more than a year. Merry Christmas to me.

On top of that, just before we realized that the icemaker was not making ice, I signed a contract to replace the rest of the windows in my house, 8 to be exact. I replaced 7 last year, and now will do the rest. The old ones are circa 1960, jalousied windows, that don’t completely shut any longer and had to be covered with plywood for the hurricane. I thought that was my Christmas present to myself, but an old house is the gift that keeps on giving and now I can add the icemaker repair bill to my gifts to myself.

BAH HUMBUG.

I guess it’s not all that bad, I expected to spend the money on the windows. They will save me money on my insurance, to have all new hurricane windows, and save me money on my electric bill.

I have a real Christmas present from Dan, though it was not his intention to make it a Christmas present. He installed a closet organizer in the alcove of my bedroom and doubled my closet space, so now there is actually space for him to hang some shirts. He also is making me more shelving for the kitchen, which will help tremendously. Houses built in 1927 did not make storage a big priority. Though the kitchen was done over before I moved in, it could use more storage. He has fixed my fence too, and built a couple of steps off my deck to make it safer, and begun creating flower beds in my yard.

Merry Christmas to me, for real.

Don’t worry, I have some things for him for Christmas too, besides 10 dozen cookies which we just put in the freezer. Way too tempting to leave out all the time.

My son called me in a panic the other day. He had a flat tire….and needed all new tires. So, he got his Christmas present early, in the form of tires which cost more than I’d planned to give him in cash. I am

happy I could help him out that way, though it somehow lacks that Christmas joy thing. Not really, I guess. I have peace of mind that he’s driving on safe tires.

I mailed him a package anyway….with about 6 dozen Christmas cookies, and some stuff that I usually put in his stocking like deodorant and a new toothbrush and an Amazon gift card, just because I couldn’t bear for him not to have anything to open on Christmas.

Merry Christmas to him.

Luckily, Christmas is not all about the money spent. More about the people we spend it with, and this year, I’m really looking forward to spending it with this man I adore, and his family, and all that entails. My older sister and her hubby are going to spend Christmas with her daughter, and my son is spending it in Colorado with his girlfriend and her family, so it will just be Dan and I here, enjoying the beautiful Florida weather, and each other. Feeling blessed.

Love and light to all

As I was making cookies yesterday, Dan and I were sampling them as they cooled. Of course. I mean, of course! You have to know if they came out right, right? It was Dan’s first sampling of the Christmas cookies. He approved……

As we sampled them we noticed that we each had our own technique for eating them. As I bit a bite-sized butter, sugar, flour cookie with a maraschino cherry inside, dusted with powdered sugar, turning the single bite into at least 2 bites Dan popped the whole cookie in his mouth. I told him I turned it into smaller bites to make it last longer. He said he liked it in one bite so he made sure he got the whole thing, no crumbs on the table or bits on the floor.

I guess there is a personal science to eating Christmas cookies.

While we were baking, my son texted me, suggesting that I listen to the FCC vote on net neutrality. (He works in the tech industry, where it’s such a big deal.) Now, I have been against the repeal, but was not well informed about it. I mostly just felt it was another attack on one of the good things that Obama did. Another dismantling of something that seemed to me to be working.

However, I am not so involved in it that I wanted to listen to 2 hours of debate at the FCC. I told my son, “I hope it doesn’t pass but we’re listening to Christmas carols while we bake.” Which we were. It was kind of festive, despite the fact that the eggnog supply was depleted.

I did, then, google about the net-neutrality thing, in between cookies, and didn’t come up with a clear answer as to whether or not it would be a devastating thing to repeal the law or not. I still lean toward it not being a good thing, but maybe not as disastrous as I (and my son) feared. At any rate, the repeal passed and now we see what happens. Maybe there will be some effort in Congress or otherwise to stop their ruling from becoming law.

Cookies got made. I’m making more this morning, though God knows why. I guess I’m on a roll. I took a plate of them to open mic night last night. One of my friends who plays regularly at open mic and is a gifted guitarist had posted on FB that he had a calamity occurring. It was dawn and he was down to one cookie. I walked up to him and said, “I heard there was a cookie emergency.” He had to do a double take to figure out who I was, with the reindeer antlers on my head, and a blinking red Rudolf nose on my face, and blinking Christmas light bulb earrings. He figured it out, and decided the cookies were safe and took a few.

Today I am packing some, many, of the cookies up to send to my son. He’s pretty excited.

Love and light to all.

It seems that Mercury has picked an unruly time to go retrograde. Right before the holidays? Come on. We are all dealing with the stress of it.  Miscommunication seems rampant, and I think it’s worse because there is the added stress of the holidays.

Maybe women more than men, but I could be wrong. It’s just that in my life experience, the women take the brunt of the work for Christmas. Like, shopping….ok, my case was extreme because of the man I was married to, but I did all the shopping. And wrapping.  Every last present. I only had one kid, but that’s enough when you are working, managing a house, etc. Then I had to make sure the gifts got mailed, in time to reach whoever they needed to reach. All of my family’s gifts were mailed.

That alone, having to buy all the gifts, made me a little bitchy.  Without the added help of Mercury Retrograde.

Then there are cookies. Dozens of cookies of many varieties. When I was married, I made literally 70 dozen cookies. Special Christmas only cookies. I made so many because I gave them away a lot, to teachers, and bus drivers, and CCD teachers, and friends. The last 5 or 6 years in CT my BFF and I would get together to make them. We could bang them out in about 5 hours and have some fun with it. But I usually went home to make a couple more. The picture below was a days work last year here in FL, by myself.

Then of course, meals. Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. We women generally plan it all….and cook most of it. It’s not like Thanksgiving in sheer volume, but it’s a lot of food. Happily, I am with a man who loves to cook, and/or help cook. But for years, for me, I was alone or just doing it all alone anyway.

It was no wonder that Christmas Day I didn’t want to go anywhere. Maybe not even change out of my nightgown.

I remember getting to Christmas Eve dinner at my sister-in-law’s house when my son was young, and we still saw my ex’s family on holidays. I remarked to her, as my entitled ex parked himself in front of a wonderful dinner, “Can you imagine getting to Christmas Eve dinner and not having done ONE thing to make it happen?”

I sound like a grinch, don’t I? Well….let’s just say that things are different for me now. I am close to my family, now. I have an amazing man in my life, who wants Christmas to be a special thing too….and contributes just as much as me. (I have to laugh, a little. The entitled one will get a free dinner where he is, anyway, I guess. Karma is at work, for him and for me.)

On to start the Christmas cookie marathon. Love and light to all.