Snow and sickness

My love has the flu. And we're not talking a stomach flu, but the influenza flu. He's been close to unconscious for the last few days. I have a feeling he'll be getting his flu shot next year. And speaking of flu shots, we are having a hell of a time getting one for Little Miss. With my own medical issues of late I completely dropped the ball on this one. In the past it wasn't an issue because she had midyear checkups that fell during vaccination season. Now she only goes around her birthday...in March. And when we did call our doctor was out of the vaccine. No biggie....(or so we thought). Little Dude got his at the Minute Clinic several years ago when he was close to the same age. Well, they've changed the rules and they don't do it for kids under 5. And neither does anyone else. The entire practice our doctor belongs to is out of the vaccine. We are at a loss. Especially since she needs it to remain in daycare. Tomorrow I think we'll be calling the local children's hospital to see what our options are.

At the same time we're all at home today with work and school being cancelled on the account of snow. Little Dude had early dismissal yesterday and spent the afternoon with me at work, until we were cut early too. Somehow I missed the announcement about daycare closing early and I was late in getting Little Miss. (yeah the year is starting out like that) So another day home is nice, especially since it means I can take care of the hubby but it also means a day behind on the show.

It was too cold for me to shovel last night with the windchill in the negatives. I put off going out this morning and then was greeted with a wonderful surprise. My neighbor saw my FB post about my husband's bout with the flu and kindly snow-blowed the whole driveway for us. I only had to do the path and around the cars. I'm making that man a cake.

And so today I tackled the dismantling of Christmas. I have some lovely new ornament storage boxes that my step-mother gave me. There is one for each of the kids for the ornaments they have either made or been given. Then there is my collection. I did a big purge last year and now I was able to consolidate several boxes. I inherited a large collection of the old school glass bulb style ornaments when prop storage cleared out years ago. I'm a sucker for vintage ornaments and I hate seeing perfectly good items being tossed in the dumpster. That's also why we currently own about 10,000 white Christmas lights. 

 I could make our house look like this without spending a dime.

What I really want now is a new tree. Yes, we are fake tree people. We have been for years. I can't bring myself to kill a tree every year and I don't have the property to plant one every year. and ore mess in my house is the last thing I need. Plus, with our fireplace I can't risk the fire hazard. My dad is a retired firefighter and it is in my blood to avoid such risks. Besides our Evil-Genius cat insists on drinking the water and getting sap into her fur. And with all my childhood memories of tree disasters, I'd rather stick with one I know will stand up. The only thing I miss is the smell, and Yankee Candle has that covered.  Our current tree I bought in 1999 when I worked at a certain craft and fabric store over the holiday season. With my employee discount and the end of season markdown, I got the tree for $17.50. That tree owes us nothing. Now I want one that is pre-lit because dealing with the on and off of the lights on the tree is probably my least favorite part. Perhaps next year....unless I stumble upon a fabulous deal. The trick is that most of our ceilings are only 7'6". And my amazing, beloved, vintage tree-topper is a good 10 inches tall. Shorter trees are harder to find.  I may have to come up with another way to make use of the topper and go for a taller tree. 

In the meantime, Christmas is getting sorted and packed away for another year. And I have an empty corner of my living-room to fill. I did a mass rearranging of furniture to be able to have the tree in the living-room this year. Now that corner is currently unclaimed. I've also stripped much of the art off the walls to move that around as well. I'll be busy this weekend, that is for sure.