"Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either." ~ Elizabeth Zimmerman

12/28/09

Christmas Loot

I had a wonderful Christmas. I hope you did too. It started with 23 Park family members gathering at my house Christmas Eve for the annual family Christmas party. We had a blast! Was the best party I've ever had. My in-laws are so much fun!

The food was awesome. I cooked a turkey and it was so moist and delicious. Sue cooked a Prime Rib that was out-of-this-world good. We had two kinds of potatoes, salad, veggies and dip, corn, green bean casserole, rolls, and several different awesome desserts, as well as some very good hors doeuvres. The kids hooked a Wii up to our tv and played Rock Band. We adults talked and laughed up a storm as usual. After dinner we did our gift exchange. It was great. My son-in-law drew my name and got me this.



It's a bottle of Absinthe, a licorice flavored liqueur. It came with a box of sugar cubes. Yum!

Niece Heidi loves the scarf and necklace I made for her. She almost started crying she likes them so much. That made me get all warm and fuzzy inside.

On Christmas day we started with opening our gifts, and eating chocolate for breakfast. Here is what Santa brought me.

The complete works of Star Trek Enterprise. Hurray! I was hoping for some more Star Trek DVD's.




I took the above picture with my new portable photography light box.




This is the back. The pockets are for the two lights and tripod, plus an extra pocket for whatever.




It folds up and becomes this little case, which Chenille gave her stamp of approval.




My daughter and son-in-law gave me sock yarn, and one ball of Cocoon.



The 3 skeins of deep purple they picked up on their honeymoon in Norway. The purple in the front is from Pagewood Farms, and the Yellow/Pink is called Smooshy, and it is-smooshy that is.

After the gift opening we went to our friends, Phyllis and Don Kobaly, for Christmas dinner and card playing until midnight. It was a very enjoyable evening even though I was soooo tired. I hadn't recovered from Christmas Eve festivities yet. The meal was wonderful, and the card game was boisterous. I lost, as usual. But I had fun anyway. Spending time with Phyllis and Don, and their son David, is one of the highlights of our Christmas traditions.

Now for some more serious news. Late Tuesday night I got a call from one of my sisters. My Dad has been in the hospital. My cousin, Susie, took him there at her request because he couldn't breath and his foot was quite swollen. Turns out that last summer he went off his heart meds (He has Atherosclerosis) because he was feeling good (my Dad doesn't fully understand what medication is all about). The doctor thinks he had a mild heart attack some time in the last 6 months which caused the edema. Water built up around his lungs, which made it hard for him to breath, and also caused his feet to swell. They did two procedures (which I can't remember the name) to check for blockages in his heart-one for each side. They found one small blockage which they were able to fix right away with a balloon, and this morning I was told they found nothing in the second procedure. So he is going to be fine. He'll be able to go home in a couple days. He has been thoroughly scolded for going of the meds by the doctor, my cousin Susie, and me, and won't be doing it again.

My Dad was in a religious cult for many many years where medical type care was forbidden (seen as a lack of faith in God) and though he is no longer in that cult, he still has trouble accepting the idea of taking medication. I know how he feels because I went through the same thing. Intellectually, you know it's fine and a good thing, but emotionally there's this fear lurking in there that hampers you. It takes time to overcome that. The important thing is Daddy is going to be just fine.

On Saturday I was lazy. I had to recover from the partying. I'm not as young as I used to be. I watched Star Trek DVD's, knitted, ate Christmas cookies, napped, and surfed the web. The sum total of my day.

Sunday I put the house back in order from the Christmas eve party. I found all kinds of stuff various family members accidentally have left here. I will have to go visiting later this week and return it all.

Have a good day.

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