The Day Before the Day Before Christmas

Lights Afire
Originally uploaded by SunFlowery.

The day started with a call from Bob's sister. She said Bob's dad was now unconscious and his breathing was labored. They don't expect him to hang in there much longer. Yet, it's almost 9pm now and we still haven't received the call saying he has passed.

I had a lovely morning after that phone call. I tuned our satellite TV to the classical Christmas station and read a book I had on loan from the library. I had my book, my coffee, and some lovely Christmas music and it was a great way to spend the morning.

Once Bob woke up, I helped him get ready to go to the station and then I got our laundry pretreated and took it to the Laundromat. It takes me about 3 hours to get it done.

I had JUST gotten home and put everything away when I got a frantic call from Bob. He had had an accident of the colonic persuasion and needed clean clothes stat. I grabbed some and ran them over to him at the station. I put his dirty clothes in a plastic bag and took them to our building laundry room only to find it occupied. Just want I wanted to do, more laundry. But poor Bob. His tummy is not happy. I hope he makes it through the rest of the shift OK.

The mail brought fun stuff yesterday and today. In the past three days I have received a birthday gift card to Pier One, a thank you gift card to Barnes and Noble, a Christmas gift card to Target, and dozens of Christmas cards, notes, letters, and photos.

The mail brought one more fun surprise today. Months ago I entered a photo contest sponsored by my former home town's Chamber of Commerce. Today I received word that two of my photos had won! One photo won 3rd place and one photo won honorable mention. The only problem is that I didn't take the photo that won the honorable mention. I don't know who took it, but I sent my award for that photo back to the Chamber of Commerce with a note explaining why it was being returned. It's kind of a bummer, but at least the photo that is actually mine won 3rd place! Score. This is the first time in my whole life that my photography has won anything. It's a very nice Christmas present to me.

Today I was thinking of Bob's dad and of family and of traditions. Bob and I have been married for five years and we don't really have any traditions of our own for the holidays yet. We do put up/out the Christmas decorations during Thanksgiving weekend and take them down/put away New Year's weekend. We spoke yesterday about the next step in pursuing adoption. The next step is attending an information meeting at the agency. Bob said he was excited to go to that meeting. Then he asked if I preferred a boy or a girl. I said I had no preference. He also asked if I preferred a baby or a child and I said I no preference there either. We both agreed that we would go to the meeting to gather what information we could and proceed from there. We talked about starting a tradition of opening family presents on Christmas Eve and saving 1 present from "Santa" and stockings to open on Christmas day. Maybe by the time we actually have kids, we will actually also have traditions.