I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas! We celebrated Christmas yesterday on Christmas Eve by having lunch with Brad’s parents, brother, aunt, and cousin. I made a gluten and dairy free Cranberry Tea Cake for dessert.
I dressed up as an elf in a white fur trimmed green dress with red and green stockings and hat and slippers. Brad wore red and had a holly tie. Hestia had a red and green tutu, Alice wore a red reindeer dress, and Felix had a lace collar with a red bowtie. Before we left, I got pictures of the cake and of me dressed up in the outfit (with red Mary Janes instead of the green slippers that come with the outfit.
Once we got to Brad’s parents’ house, his mom loved my outfit so much she got a picture of it and of us all together! This time I had the green slippers on. You can see the blue stroller for the doggies in the background of the picture!
We had a great time with Brad’s family and got some really great gifts! I am going to be able to get a new pair of glasses, yay! I’m very excited I will be able to switch between two pairs of glasses depending on what outfit I’m wearing!
Lunch was very tasty, and I stayed within my calorie limits very well, which I was very proud of. Then we went to the living room to hang out, and I gave Brad’s cousin a large stuffed hamster plushie. We got a cute picture of Felix cuddled up on her lap with Fred the hamster.
When we got home, we were very tired and rested for the rest of the day.
This morning when we woke up, we tried to take it easy. Unfortunately for me, I was not able to take it easy today. I have a trip coming up in January to help my dad with a surgery, and I have a lot of stuff I need to do before the trip. I already have 1–2 things outside of the house every week between now and then. Right now that’s about at my limit with my anxiety and agoraphobia. I really can’t handle leaving the house more than once or twice a week. And Brad can only leave the house once a week, so he can’t take over any responsibilities.
I realized yesterday that I needed to schedule a haircut before my trip (which requires two showers in a day—one to clean my hair before the haircut, and one when I get home to get the hairdresser smells off of me), and I also now need to go to the glasses place to drop off my frames to get lenses put in them. That means two more trips. And we got a gift card to Everbowl (which I am SO excited about, it’s one of Brad’s and my favorite restaurants!) that expires at the end of January. So I need to fit three more things into my calendar before my trip.
I was kinda breaking down a bit today about my schedule between now and my trip. But I was holding it together. I figured I can text my hairdresser tomorrow and see when she has openings, and I can call on Monday and see if the eye doctor is open next week (I know they’re closed all this week).
Then I became the family travel agent again… My parents want to go on a trip to Hilton Head this late spring/early summer. I’ve been trying for weeks to get dates from other family members about if they want to come and what dates they might be free. And now I’ve learned that there might be conflicting plans within the family around the same time. So I have to call my dad tomorrow and figure out what he wants to do about conflicting plans. No matter what, I won’t be able to please everyone. And that’s even assuming my mom will be in a state to travel 6 months from now, and that the place my parents want to stay will still have openings on the one week that looks like it might work…
I’m trying really hard not to have to take a second Valium today to be able to get to bed tonight. This is exactly why I didn’t want to start on benzos (a type of anti-anxiety medicine) because my body gets used to them quickly and I have to keep upping the dose to get the same effect until I max out on the dose. Oh, and they are addicting. But I just felt like I had no option but to start on them again with the amount of stress and anxiety I have in my life right now. I’ve been through this with ativan and klonopin before, maxing out the dosage on both of them before having to quit cold turkey. Looks like I’m on that path with valium now, too, sigh.
So anyway, Merry Christmas. I hope everyone had as good of a Christmas as I had Christmas Eve, and no one has as stressful of a day as I’ve had today on actual Christmas!