Welcome to my week in review blog post where I ramble about what I’ve been reading, watching, writing, doing and sometimes what I’ve been listening to.

I hope you all had a wonderful, Merry Christmas!

We had a good one free of the drama of our Thanksgiving.

We visited my parents for Christmas and had a really nice time.

We went a little crazy with gifts for the kids this year and it was worth it. They had a blast.

We (my husband and I and my parents) bought The Boy a hover board which his sister is now jealous of. Luckily her brother let her try it a couple of times and she did a great job. Little Miss got a scooter and a pottery wheel. They both received several other various gifts as well.

My parents bought the kids a couple of engraved cards that can fit in a wallet. The inscriptions on them were really beautiful.

I was super excited to receive the boxed set of The Anne of Green Gables series from my husband. He also gave me chocolate and bought us a record player which is also a CD player, a cassette player and radio and has Bluetooth. It’s coming in the mail Tuesday and I am excited to try it out.

My dad bought my mom jewelry and clothes, a tradition for Christmas. Another tradition is how he announced to her and everyone else how little money he spent on her jewelry.

“Seventy-five cents,” he said holding the pair of earrings my mom had just opened toward me. “Second Hand Rose.”

Sigh. He’s always excited about a bargain but I do have to say he knows how to find them.

My husband is on vacation this week so we hope to get out and visit a restaurant and take the kids to do some shopping with some money they have that is apparently burning a hole in their pocket. It will be my first outing in about two months.

I’m still struggling some mentally and physically from having Covid in mid-November but it is slowly getting better. I am having more good days than bad now. I wish it would quickly get better, but that’s just not going to happen. As my aunt said – I’m like her side of the family who wants it better and fixed yesterday.

She also reminded me that it just won’t happen in this case. I have to be patient because of all my body was put through. I’m not a patient person at all but I’ve been trying to just accept where I am in the midst of my healing journey and stop trying to fix it all. Great, now I sound like I’m trying to be a YouTube influencer. Sigh.

Anyhow, I wrote a blog post early on in this whole pandemic thing about letting God fight our battles and I need to let him do that here too.

I should clarify that most people don’t have the side effects I have had after Covid. I have some other health issues that just make recovery from any illness a bit slower than most people. I am hypothyroid and may have fibromyalgia but I am not going to claim that last one right now. I also had anxiety before all of this so that can also make a situation worse but my husband and I have decided we think the issues I am having are a combination of mental and physical. We both think they will settle eventually and I have prepared myself for it to be months rather than weeks but I truly have no idea. Thank God (literally) I have found some things that are helping!

Like me, the rest of the family’s coughs are hanging on or returning and my son and I both have limited taste and smell, but mine is better than his at this point. We are all having stomach issues where we suddenly have no appetite and I’m guessing that is from the sinus drainage and leftover from the virus.

What I’m Reading

I didn’t do a ton of reading this past week beyond re-reading Paddington to Little Miss before bed. I did not finish The Mistletoe Countess by Pepper Basham, but maybe this week.

I started the fifth book in the Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson and am already hooked.

I also started the second book in the Anne of Green Gables series yesterday.

 I’ll have to pick one book this week to read instead of jumping all over.

My brain jumps all over these days so I guess my reading is too.

What I watched or Am Watching

I binged watched the new series of All Creatures Great and Small last week. It was on Amazon Prime until the end of this month and then goes back to a subscription for PBS.

I didn’t think I would like the new series because I was so in love with the first series, but the way the characters are portrayed grew on me with each episode. We may have to subscribe to PBS when the second season comes out.

I jumped from All Creatures Great and Small to a show called The Durrells in Corfu. (Incidentally, Callum Woodhouse who plays Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small is also in this show.)

It’s a bit of a weird show and a big departure from All Creatures Great and Small, which I liked better. There are three seasons of it but not sure I’ll watch all of the seasons. It’s not bad. It’s just – a little weird sometimes. I’m getting caught up in the lives of the characters, so I will probably end up watching all of it.

I tried to watch some cheesy Hallmark-like movies on Amazon, but I didn’t get far. There was one with Joey Lawrence and he was wearing hot pink lipstick. Hot pink lipstick, guys. And no he was not playing a crossdresser. I don’t know what they were thinking putting that thing out as a final movie without realizing he had hot pink lipstick on but I was out. No. Thank. You. It was weird.

Christmas movies we did watch last week and this weekend were Elf, Charlie Brown Christmas, The Grinch, and Home Alone.

And I watched clips of A Christmas Story and It’s A Wonderful Life because I’ve seen the movies so many times I didn’t feel I needed to watch them all the way through again.

I hope to watch The Chosen’s Christmas special later today which can be found on their free app on iOS or android and cast to your TV.

What I’m Listening To

Christmas morning I listened to Michael Buble’s Christmas album because it’s a tradition now. I didn’t listen to a ton of other music and I probably should have because it might have helped my mental status during the week.

If you watch this you can look at the Yule log burning while listening to the album.

What I’m Writing

I’m still plugging away at A New Chapter and shared a chapter of that on Thursday.

So that’s my week in review. How was your week last week? How was your Christmas? Let me know in the comments!