Day Seventy seven – Wrapping Paper Collage Apple

Care packages to Maine and Maryland are in the mail!

We have a tradition in our family to write clues about the present on the gift tag – we may ask for one or two specific gifts but additional small presents are a surprise and the clues make for great fun when opening the big boxes that arrive a few days before Christmas.  Growing up my brothers and I looked forward to the box from my Dad’s mother.  We called her Gammy (no ‘r’) and she was queen of the clue.  My parents have done a spectacular job carrying on the tradition and now generation number four is getting into the swing of it! My step-daughter Amanda, has the bug and the gift clue tradition continues – there is some of the Dye side of the family in her regardless of genes!

I’ve loved seeing all the new visitors today – welcome and please stop by as often as you can – one apple a day for AS!

Until tomorrow.

Jenna

Day 77 was created with scraps of wrapping paper and a few small pieces from Country Living Magazine 🙂

Day Sixty two – Untangle me!

Christmas lights!  Love ’em – hate ’em – can’t live without them!

We always put up a live tree.  Maybe someday I’ll give in to the convenience of an artificial one but it won’t be because of the sap that gets all over the house as you drag in the tree, or the needles that shed continually for a month and eventually clog your vacuum or even the fact that you’ve got to somehow manage to keep it watered.  Oh no…. it will be so that Doug and I don’t argue about the lights!

We’ve settled into many patterns in our lives – it happens once you’ve been with someone long enough.  I do most of the food shopping and cooking, he cleans the cat boxes.  He makes the coffee in the morning and I feed the animals.  Fair trades mostly although Doug does things for me without any complaint because he’s lived with me and the beast of my chronic pain and if he doesn’t understand, he certainly knows how AS has affected me.  It doesn’t necessarily always make it easy and the Christmas lights are a great example of just that.  I want them put on the tree in a certain way – I’m very opinionated about these things and he knows that it is a job that really stresses my body.  So, bless his heart, he puts up with my direction of  “no, closer together” or “you missed that branch.”  Yup, he puts up with it but he does it for me and it usually consists of a bit of bickering back and forth because no matter how particular you are in putting those lights away the year before, they always snake and twist and tangle.  Pretty much like anything that is worthwhile – it takes some working through to enjoy and appreciate!

Until tomorrow.

Jenna

Day 62 was created with pen & ink.