g'bye 2017

The year ends just as it began, with me sick as a dog. And depressed. At least, I have a much better care team now on the psychiatric stuff and this time I haven't landed my butt in the hospital because I've been that sick.

My mp3 player is dead. I thought it was a balled up handkerchief when I was putting laundry into bags. It went through the wash. It is now a wee little paper weight. I'm really disappointed with myself over this. I suppose this is why Flamehair basically dropped an mp3 player that was on clearance into my lap as I was shopping today. I didn't get it because I said to myself "I can play music on my phone and I've already got an mp3 player that's charging at home." Little did I know that the mp3 player is non functional. But, I still have Spotify on my phone, so I'm good.

I made something to send off 2017. It summarizes my feelings pretty well, to be honest.

Mother's Night & stuff.

So, the celebration of Yule has been pushed to the 25th. As such, Mother's Night is being observed tonight. Due to my being sick, I'm not going to keep vigil, but I will have an electric candle as a 'witness' through the night until sunrise. I have made it a cute little stand that looks like a squared off sun, kinda like what my kids draw on their pictures. It was a case of recycling a plastic ring from a juice bottle and using the last bit of some yellow yarn. It was just the right size for an electric tea light candle to sit on and look pretty.

It is official, everyone in the apartment has this stupid chest cold. Beloved declared he has a 'tickle at the back of his throat' and was extra tired earlier. That's how this damn thing begins. Cuddle Bear is pretty much over it. He is also on the tail end of his ear drops for swimmer's ear. He has been more active and vocal over the last several days. Which makes it clear that he feels a lot better. Snuggle Bug, on the other hand, is just coming down with this chest cold and has reached the point of that deep chesty cough. No fever so far, but that has been my day. Deep chesty cough, fever, and this swinging back and forth between sweating horribly and feeling like I'm freezing. It has been unpleasant.

I couldn't wait, I gave Reaction Guy to Beloved. He started cracking up. I am glad he loved it. Tomorrow is going to be fun, despite being sick, because we managed to make some awesome stuff happen for Yule due to the help of some generous people. I also finished all of my crafting for the year today.

Year's crafting was:

Blue bag for Beloved's birthday
Finishing Beloved's sweater vest from last year
Shawl for niece
A bunch of baby hats for the NICU at Golisano Hospital
Wool rug for MiL
Lap blanket for Bro in Law #2
Gifts for people over the year (I forget because I didn't take detailed notes.)
Doll layette set
Child sized circle vest
Adult sized circle vest
Altar cloth
Jar shrine for Cuddle Bear (Zeus shrine)
Rag rug for Bro in Law #1
Car throw for Sis in Law #1
Planner for Beloved

Reaction guy thing.

I'm making stuff for people at the last minute. Because someone I know tends to have two reactions at work, I made them a peg doll I call reaction guy. Great for constant interruptions.

 The top image is the LOLWUT? reaction. The bottom image is the NO!! FU! reaction. I'm pretty sure the recipient is going to laugh their ass off over this. It is all drawn SO badly. But it adds to the humor of it.

Reaction guy, your real life meme!

In other news, I'm sick as a dog right now. I caught the kid's cold and I feel pretty awful. We haven't decorated for yule because this place is a disaster. I'm sticking with the line I drew in the sand: no decorating until this place is clean. I'm exhausted. I'm going to go work on my scrap granny square. I'm almost down to the bottom of my basket of scrap balls of yarn. It is a task that doesn't require too much thought and if I fall asleep in the middle, I don't feel too badly about it.

Buffalo Ranch Chicken salad.

It has been a long day. The evening is proving aggravating. This calls for easily made comfort food. Since I didn't have the stuff to make the chicken salad with the cranberries and almonds that I liked from Aldi's, I did the next best thing. I made Buffalo Ranch chicken salad from stuff I had on hand. To be honest, I think it came out pretty well.

I used one can of chicken breast (drained). I added a 1/2 cup of mayonnaise and one scallion cut fine. I then put in the last of my bottle of semi-homemade ranch dressing, I guess it was about two tablespoons. I estimate I added an equivalent amount of Sirachca (however you spell it) and a teaspoon of celery flakes. I think it came out ok. We'll see what Beloved thinks of it.

In the meantime, I'm going to make myself a cup of coffee and try not to think about the holidays and stuff. Because it is proving stressful and I'm about ready to just scream at the kids because they're screwing around instead of picking stuff up as they should be. And I'm just done with it. Today is the second day in as many weeks that I had to sit down and sort stuff out so that it could get put away. I'm sorely tempted to just start throwing away every toy I step on. And we haven't managed to get anything actually cleaned up yet.

If things continue at this rate, we're not decorating for Yule or really doing anything fun. We'll just be attempting to get shit cleaned up every damn day. And then they'll get a mess of toys and it'll be an even bigger disaster. I may be in a pessimistic mood right now. It's been a rough couple of days for me mental health wise.