Snowflakes and Chill

And so another chill Christmas winds down. Yesterday my sister asked me what I was doing and I said “Just chilling. New Year’s is more my jam.” And it really is. I had to work yesterday and I’m working tomorrow, so today was really more about rest.

Or, more accurately, forced rest. I’ve been working out nearly every day for the past week and I sooooo want to work out right now, as I type this, but I think my quads need a break. Every time I work out, there is cardio involved, so even if it’s not a workout that includes weight-training, it’s still working my legs, such as the inclines on the treadmill and the jumping in the cardiokickboxing. Last night my legs were feeling noodly when I lowered the treadmill from the final incline (12%!), so yeah, rest.

Yeah, not quite Ivan Drago, but it felt like it.

Forced rest on the work, too. I could log in and finish up a piece, or work on a freelance piece, but I find that if I use my days off as actual days off, I’m more efficient on workdays.

Certainly more efficient than goofing off with my gel pens. Hey, look! I finished it!

A mandala of a snowflake.

I had to mess with the contrast, so once again it looks like I spilled something where the shadows are on the paper, but whatever. It’s not art. It’s me binge-watching The Empress and filling in spots with cheap gel pens.

Here’s a better snowflake:

A snowflake Christmas ornament.

And on that note, to all a good night!

Peace Be to You

Here’s my favorite holiday commercial of all time, from the year I was born. I may have posted this in previous years. If so, please enjoy again.

And now today’s ornament, one from my 20s.

A flamingo Christmas ornament.

In college I had a roommate who gave me a pink lawn flamingo for my room (we shared a two-room suite). She also gave me a T-shirt with a flamingo on it. I wore it around my parents’ house on my winter break and ever since then, I’ve had a thing for flamingos. If you know me from the old days of Diaryland—did I really open my first online journal there 25 years ago?—you might remember my flamingo template.

I fell off from collecting them, but I still have one my parents gave me 30 years or so ago, currently residing in my home office.

A flamingo sculpture.

It’s about three feet tall and paper mache, if you can believe that. It’s cracking in a few places and has suffered a few bumps to its toes throughout all of my moves over the years, but I’m not planning on moving any time soon, so there this majestic one stays, looking over my shoulder as I write.

If you celebrate Christmas, I wish you a peaceful Christmas Eve. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, I wish you a peaceful evening. If only we could have peace in the world.

Festivus for the Rest of Us

Happy Festivus!

My Feat of Strength was lugging home about 25 pounds of groceries and then doing a half-hour of circuit training. My limbs are noodles right now.

I don’t even want to get into the Airing of Grievances because I’ll be here all night talking about the handbasket in which the USA is going to hell. At least it’s not this cute little one on my tree:

A Christmas ornament featuring a red bird and a flower in a woven basket.

This is an older ornament, so old the little holly bulbs next to the birdie are a bit chewed up, likely from a dog we had, a Shepherd Husky mix. Beautiful dog, and super intelligent, but she had a knack for chewing up Christmas decorations. She was a bit of a racist about it, too: She only chewed the head off the Black king in our manger scene. My father replaced it with another Black king and she did it again, and this time she ate the Baby Jesus too. So my parents got a completely new manger scene and you guessed it: She chewed the head off the Black king again. At that point my father just got another White king and she left that one alone.

That’s all I have time for tonight, folks. Some of us DO have to work this week, ya know. Full day tomorrow, off Christmas Day, full day Thursday, half-day Friday, then I’m off until January 6, whoo-hoo!