Needless to say, the Christmas spirit has been woefully absent in the family for the last four years. Shortly before Christmas 2001, we lost my aunt to lung cancer and an aneurysm. Shortly after Christmas 2002, we lost my grandmother. My father's deteriorating health (due to Alzheimer's Disease) and the loss of four additional family members in 2003 made Christmas more of an ordeal than a celebration... and finally, Christmas 2004 - by far the most difficult Christmas due to the fact that my father was no longer home for the holiday, having been placed in an Alzheimer's care facility in September of 2004.

I had a long discussion with my mother a couple of months ago, and we both lamented the loss of the holiday spirit with the difficulties that our family has faced in the past few years. The holidays used to filled with relatives and laughter. Now so many relatives are gone and the remaining relatives have sort of splintered and drifted away from us, dealing with their own issues and pain. We have shrunk from a holiday family gathering of 20 to a holiday family gathering of five: me, my mother, my brother, my niece, and Max (yes, I'm counting the cat because he's as much family as anyone else is).

We need to make the effort for family bonding during the holiday season this year, even though it's going to be hard. Those family members are still gone, and it will be the second Christmas without my father.

Today is the first day in holiday family bonding. We have designated it as "Christmas Tree and House Decorating Day". Scott and Tasha will be over shortly. There is a jumble of Christmas boxes in the middle of the living room. There is a new pre-lit Christmas tree in a box waiting to be liberated (but currently Max thinks said box is his new couch). The whole house smells like beef stew, cornbread, and apple cider.

And I can feel the threads of pre-Christmas excitement starting to stir in my chest. It feels good. I don't care that it's not even Thanksgiving yet and we're putting up a tree. Maybe this will help us feel better about Thanksgiving, too (another holiday that's rough for us).

I haven't felt any sort of excitement or anticipation about the Christmas season in four years. It's nice to know that those feelings are still there. There were probably always there, just long dormant due to stress, grieving, and exhaustion.

No stress this year. No grieving. No exhaustion. Just me and my family, celebrating what we have and not dwelling on what we don't have.

I can live with that.

:::picks up phone receiver and peers at it intently:::

Maybe I should just have this thing surgically attached to my head.

Oh, and I just made a woman cry because I took an application on a house that she wanted. That's too bad. She should have made an application appointment. First come, first serve. Now she's calling me every ten minutes to beg and cry some more.

Woo.

Happy Birthday to the lovely and uber-cool, prime_meridian! Love ya, chica! :::tosses rose petals and hands you a big white chocolate mocha:::

;)

Staying home today. Spent all last night feeling like I was attempting to eject my lungs from my chest. Rib cage, chest muscles, and lungs so, so sore. Throat still on fire. Can't eat. Fever of 102.2. Cough headache hangover.

Cripes. Am going to attempt tea for the second time this morning and then crawl back to bed.

In other news, my kitty is eight years old today. In honor of Max, I will entertain him with my impression of coughing up hairballs. I'm getting pretty good at it.

Let's get in a little time machine and go back to April 2002. Whilst helping my mother prep and paint the upstairs of the house, I start dealing with a killer sore throat and fever. Within two weeks, I still have that killer sore throat, and the infection has moved into my ears and lungs. Hello, bronchitis. Hello, fluid on the lungs. Hello, perforated eardrums. I didn't start feeling better until... oh, July.

Back to current day... it's late March 2005. I have a killer sore throat and a fever. I can feel the infection moving into my ears, and every once in a while it feels like someone is squeezing my lungs so hard that I can't breathe (and only manage this strangled wheeze).

I am so tired and frustrated that I could cry. I refuse to go through another SW opening so sick that I have no choice but to be seriously medicated on codiene based painkillers and cough suppressants (like I did for AOTC), but right now I can't help but wonder if history is repeating itself.

Going to call the doctor and get an appointment as soon as I get into the office and hope he can fit me in today. Please, please, please, please...

Note: corellian_sugar adores Vader, but she doesn't necessarily want to SOUND like him. Thank you.

I just want to thank everyone for their kind words and support after my last post. I just felt so emotionally raw yesterday that I was actually teetering on the razor's edge of going home from work. I just couldn't seem to shake it off. I have this tendency to fall easily into "want to fix the universe mode", which doesn't help. Ah, to be omnipotent... but having good friends like you guys really helps more than you can possibly imagine.

I'm better today. Tired, but better. TGIF, man. Let's hope the day goes fast.

I need new ink.

I have arrived. I am alive and jet jagged but still fairly mellow. Have managed to ingest a German chocolate bar and some yummy things called Creme Fraisch crisps already. Yeah. This bodes very well for the rest of the trip. (insert snort here)

Wish I could say I gave a fuck, but I do NOT. Because I am on vacation, damn it. :)

Just when you think your life could benefit from some well-directed calm and serenity... your mother's car bursts into flames in an H&R Block parking lot.

I'm not sure if this is prophetic or not, but it's certainly gotten our attention.

Postnote: Mom is okay, just really rattled. Fire was smoky but put out rapidly by good samaritan. Car is awaiting verdict at local mechanic.

Follow a Subaru Outback on the highway or any road, really. I swear to you that the ass of that car looks like it's smiling at you.

I've got to stop smoking all that crack, man.

Sooooo... I woke up to find the same problem from last night. No access to my recent page or friends page, just my LJ page backdrop.

So I stripped it off and voila, everything came back. Why it started fucking around yesterday is beyond me, but at this point, at least I have access and that's all that counts.

Sky's LJ is all plain and naked again. And very yellow. Like a naked member of the Simpsons family. Oh well. At least I still have my icons.

Doh.

*grump*

Okay, where the fuck did my friends list go? :::hits LJ with big stick, just because...:::

Oh, and I bought a new doorstop today. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." Shit, man. 860+ pages? Now all I have to do is keep my mitts off it until July 23rd. It's my airplane travel book. Of course, it could also be used as a serving tray, a weight press instrument, and a weapon (if I threw it at someone).

:::beats LJ a little more with HP:OOTP:::

Deny me my friends list, eh? Bastards. Keep it up and I'll pull out my hardback revised copy of "The Stand" and you'll be crying like a pussy in five minutes once I start beating you with THAT.

Welcome to corellian_sugar.

For reasons that I really don't want to go into here (or bore you senseless), I have axed my old account. I'm just hoping that I feel more comfortable here. *shrug*

After this post, all my entries are going to be friends only... and I'm not inviting all my old friends from the other LJ to join me here, but just the ones that I feel most connected to and comfortable with. Once again, I have my reasons. Give me a few days to get over the jet-lag and explanations might be forthcoming. Maybe. *g*