Dear Mari, Glad to hear you are making headway working on the stuff in your apartment. That sounds like a wonderful "Christmas present" on behalf of your friend, too, even if you don't "do" Christmas.

Hopefully your home environment soon will become more conducive to peace of mind, rest and relaxation. Definitely a good way to start a year.

Your post sounded pretty good Mari but then one can sound good in a post if one tries. I hope you are feeling at least as good as your post sounded, if not better.

Isis your dinner sounded yummy. Maybe i should get a script for tramadol.

((( Steve ))) I am so sorry you had to spend Christmas alone and without internet to boot. I realize New Year's is not as special as Christmas... but still, I hope that New Years goes better for you.

Everyone, I hope you all had a safe and happy time at Christmas.

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My Christmas was good. Quiet, simple, but good. Dad did not totally boycott Christmas even though in many ways he did. I could not find what I wanted for him but i had a home-made gift for the home that i had him unwrap, and i also contributed to buying a couple bottles wine for special foods, which is an aspect he appreciates. Mom had also a spur of the moment gift for the "home" that i also assigned to him to unwrap. so he had his work cut out for him, unwrapping-wise anyway. hehe, (i think it is nice if everyone has something to unwrap - didn't want to have him just there watching mom and i unwrapping. And he was the first to see my home gift and was very surprised and also liked it, which was cool.) He also gave me something that was not a wrapped gift per se but very useful and much appreciated, and a surprise. I really did not expect anything at all after his statements about not giving anything or wanting anything. Mom and i exchanged gifts which was fun.

i also had fun wrapping Christmas Eve ... with great caution between parental appearances there. I was late due to mom's illness and being so active in the day that i was sleeping at night... usually i am up at night and that is my "alone time" and also when i do things like... wrap stuff at Christmas, lol.

~ waves ~