Post Christmas

 New water heaters installed today.  He's working on getting the old ones out.  It's a big job.  And he's working really hard.

Since we had to be home all day for this project, we decided to take down the Christmas tree and other decorations.  I put out so few this year, it almost didn't feel quite so festive.  But I guess that sorta fit my mental state:  non-festive.

All that's to say that it took all of half an hour to get everything down.  Since we have the new smaller tree, we opted to take it fully assembled into the cold storage room (which seems to be the dumping ground for all our "homeless" things), cover it with a heavy duty plastic drop cloth and call it good.  The few ornaments went back into the box, didn't even bring the boxes upstairs, just took the ornaments in a tray down and re-boxed and shelved them. 

The floor's been vacuumed and the house almost feels normal.  Or as I said this morning - whatever normal is.  I don't even know anymore.

Christmas was ok.  Quieter than usual.  If I hadn't texted one of our children to ask if we were going to see them this Christmas, we likely wouldn't have.  They opted for a trip again this year.  Last year was a cruise for them.  This year was CA - first for the 49'ers Christmas day game and then touristing.  So we saw them on Thursday night last week for about an hour, Friday we drove to Springville to see our son and grandson and had a delightful visit, Saturday was our regular shift at the Bishop's storehouse.  It was almost as crazy busy there as anticipated.  Came home exhausted.  Church Sunday was hard, couldn't get out of the building fast enough.  

Christmas day itself:  better than expected.  We got up and went for a walk.  Which we've never done (that I can recall) on Christmas morning.  It was crisp but not too awfully cold, clear air (yay!) and quiet, quiet, quiet.  Not really anyone out an about.  I loved it.  We leisurely opened our gifts, none of which were surprises.  Except for the gift of a bit of land in Scotland.  Who would have thought?  The Husband is now a Lord and myself:  a Lady.  Ooolala. 

We gave a bunch of gift cards that I'm hoping will be beneficial, and not already drained by gift card pirates.  I just despise that people can be so selfish. 

Yesterday morning found us at the dr. for the wrist follow-up.  Decided if we ever need an orthopedic guy again we'll go back to Cole Taylor.  Really liked him.  He gave The Husband the all-clear.  Unless pain erupts again.  That scaphoid bone is troublesome because of it's small-ish blood flow and often they can't tell if it is broken or damaged without a CT scan.  We'll avoid that if we can. 

All new and safety strapped.

I reactivated  all my holds at the library and one has already arrived.  I'm thinking I might actually get some good reading in over the next few weeks.  Once the furnaces are inspected (fingers crossed and prayers sent heavenward that we won't need new ones of those) we only have the insurance inspection coming up and then our schedule is much less stressful.

I feel like I'm just blathering, but this is my "journal" of sorts.  I love that I can keep a record of things so easily in this forum.  

So grateful today for the ability to get the water heaters replaced.  I am totally aware of what a luxury it is to not only have hot water, but two heaters so we don't run out of hot water.  So grateful that come next week, I'll call the finance guy and plead for money to pay for the water heaters and hopefully not have to ask for furnace money, too.  Grateful that we can get our pictures taken and renew our passports.  I'm determined to take one more good trip.  Grateful for that hope.  And I'm grateful for books to read, warm house and a decent bed to sleep in.  (And I might be grateful that I have a key to the church just a small block away since I might need a bathroom while our water is shut off. )  Blessings abound.  I'm looking for all of them.

That was yesterday.  Today we have hot water, though the recirc pump won't be turned on until tonight, can't have an air bubble in it or it will need to be replaced and we don't want that.  It takes forever to get hot water down to the laundry room, but still - so grateful to have it again.

The guy is supposed to come soon to check out two furnaces (yes, I know, I've received a ton of grief because we have three furnaces.  It's the architect's house design, I have nothing to do with it except maintain and use the furnaces to stay warm.) Fingers are crossed that they won't need replacing. I've done enough replacing of things to last me a long time. 

My calendar for 2024 came yesterday and is all prepped for the new year.  Still shaking my head over my apparent inability to make sure I'd ordered the right one.  I'm trying to be careful with our money, not waste it.

Looking forward to some  soup / salad with a friend tonight.  I love that she wants to get together, just the two of us.  So grateful for her kindness.