♪I’m dreaming of some old Midol, just like the ones I used to know.♫

I was rummaging in my desk at work for a small tool that I use infrequently. Inside the clear Lucite container with my comb, a spray bottle of Oscar de la Renta cologne in case I want to smell like a grownup while I am at work, a lethally sharp pair of tweezers, two packets of the stuff you dump into water to make cut flowers last longer, a cloth for cleaning my glasses, a corporate hackysack with dried ketchup on it, the guilty but unrepentant packet of ketchup that had tossed its cookies before expiring? A card with three Midol, expiration date February 2008.

Gotta love menopause.

Well, we more than made it through Christmas. It has turned out to be one of the best in recent memory. Beloved gave me the earrings I had hoped for, and they are even prettier in real life than they were in the catalogue, plus they have small preserved bugs in them, which appeals to my sense of whimsy; the stones are Baltic amber, hence the bugs. I cannot tell you if they are Polish bugs or Lithuanian bugs or Latvian bugs or Estonian bugs, but I can tell you that they are very small and very dead. Unlike Beloved or Ms. Ravelled, who are large and very much alive.

Beloved made sure to stuff my hat (I did not want a commercial stocking, so we made do with a Santa hat) with lots of chocolate. I will be well fortified for work when I go back tomorrow. I wanted to find a first Christmas together ornament but was not taken with the ones I saw at the Hallmark store. I did, however, find a John Wayne Rio Bravo ornament, which was the only item in Beloved’s stocking this year, and I did not return the chocolate favor. He was delighted with the ornament, which is hanging out in one of my red bowls with a Barbie as Scarlett O’Hara ornament that is likewise lacking a hanger. We have yet to find the container with the spare ornament hangers.

The kids gave us gift cards, mostly, some of them homemade, one from the LDS bookstore, another promising 4.0 hours of hard work from one couple (the state of our oven immediately comes to mind), one to a yarn store. A chocolate passport from Trader Joe’s. A shirt for Beloved about the Noah Grill: bring me two of every kind.

Major snowstorm this afternoon, following nearly 24 hours of drizzle. Beloved says there was quite a thunder and lightning storm overnight, which I slept through. The area got one to four inches of white stuff. I need to remember to leave the house a little early tomorrow morning in case I need to scrape Lorelai’s windows anew.

My sister sent two balls of Jojoland cobweb laceweight, the finest stuff I have ever contemplated knitting with, and a shawl pattern (StellaLuna). Enough yarn that I can knit two of them, should I choose. I asked her if that was a hint. It has nupps. I adore nupps. Whether I adore them sufficiently to knit two identical shawls, remains to be seen, but the pattern is breathtakingly lovely.

Beloved is stirring. He has been dozing, out in his chair, and I think he may be headed this way. Might be time for family prayers and bedtime for at least one of us.

Merry Christmas to all y’all, and the happiest of new years.

P.S. We suspect we are seeing the first-fruits of the first two sessions of radiation therapy. His blurred vision in one eye, and double vision in the other, are improving slightly. They resume nuking him tomorrow.