Saturday Evening Chat: Baking cookies, relaxing by the fire, and getting ready for Christmas

I am so glad you came for a visit. Come sit. Don’t mind the cat sitting on the top of my bookcase. She’s weird.

Here we are, two days before Christmas.

Would you like a cup of cocoa, tea, or coffee? How about some homemade chocolate chip cookies?

My parents, daughter, and son made them the other day.

Last we spoke I was dealing with Covid but then I suddenly wasn’t.

It was a short bout, thank God (literally). I couldn’t help worrying that it would be worse, though, since I’d had such a bad case in 2021.

None of us had very serious lingering issues from it, just a bit of congestion for a few days afterward. It was honestly such a quick illness it felt more like allergies. If it hadn’t been for the insane burning in my nose and eyes and the fever darted up so high and then down again, I would have suspected it was just allergies.

The rest of the week was spent doing schoolwork, baking cookies with my parents, watching Christmas movies, and procrastinating on housework.

The cookie baking was funny because there was a lot of debate among my parents and Little Miss on how to make the cookies.

“That’s too much sugar.”

“That’s what the recipe calls for.”

“But the flour into the egg mixture not the egg mixture into the flour.”

“Is that too much butter?”

“No, just use the spoon and put the dollops on. Don’t roll them into balls.”

In the end, they came out fine but were very small and very, very sweet. They were so sweet, I made myself sick after only three.

Today I need to finish some dishes and vacuum the floors in my living room, kitchen (don’t ask why it has carpet in there), and Little Miss’s room. Yes, I am procrastinating again, why do you ask?

Tomorrow we are going to visit my parents for Christmas Eve. We plan to have pizza and wings and watch a couple of movies (White Christmas and Elf).

We will be back there again on Monday for Christmas Day.

I plan to take a break from things like Instagram and Facebook this upcoming week and maybe even longer. It’s very much grating on my nerves. Threads, for example, is horribly annoying even though I deleted the app and do my best to ignore it. I really want Instagram to stop putting it in my feed to try to capture me with the drama everyone vomits on there.

I do very well ignoring it but once in a while a sentence catches my attention and I go over and look, but it’s almost always someone writing something extremely controversial and then writing afterward: “but I don’t want to debate this.”

You don’t want to debate this.

Ah. Okay. Then what was your point of putting it out there in public? You just wanted everyone to pat you on the back and praise you? You expected all love and no pushback on a site becoming known for its intolerance and vitriol?

I couldn’t even share one drop about anything about my faith without getting at least one or two nasty comments when I was on it very briefly. I left as fast as I could when I saw all the biting sarcasm, snarkiness, and just out and out rudeness.

I just don’t have time for all that hatred balled up in one place.

Lately being on social media has felt like a kid that’s had too much candy to me. You eat just enough to satisfy your desire to connect with people and then you eat a little more but as you continue to eat you feel sick and then sicker and then you’re throwing up and that’s finally when you decide you’ve had enough and you need some real food.

And by “you” I mean “me”, of course, because most of my readers have been smarter than me and have stayed clear of social media altogether. God bless you.

So today I am doing my best to spend as much time as I can off social media. T least a little.

I am posting here or there but not scrolling much and for most of today I’ll be watching old movies, a Christmas movie or two, and reading a book. I would be off social media completely if I didn’t need to promote my books a little.

The Husband is working today so I’m sad he’s not here to watch movies with us but he will be at my parents tomorrow and with us on Monday and most of the rest of the week.

We will not be having a white Christmas this year since all we have had is rain and gloom for the last several days and are set to have the same for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Our last semi-significant snow was on December 11 and Little Miss had a blast playing in it with Zooma The Wonder Dog.

Tonight as I finish this post, I am sitting by the fire and looking out at my neighbor’s beautiful Christmas lights.

I’m watching While You Were Sleeping and I was contemplating what to make for dinner but the kids have all decided they want something different and are going to make it themselves so I am on my own for dinner and that’s fine with me. As an aside – what is with While You Were Sleeping? It’s such a weird movie. Why have I now watched it three times? The woman should have told them the truth from the start. It’s just so weird and then they’re all fine with it at the end of the movie. Gah. It’s weird, people! Weird!

Anyhow, the lights are on the Christmas tree and I’m enjoying it while I can because The Husband starts taking it down the day after Christmas. I’m going to try to drag it out until at least January 1 this year. I’ll jump on his back and yell “Noooo! Leave it alone, you big bully!”

I don’t think I’ll really do that. I’ll just ask him to leave it up and  he’ll say, “Okay.”

I won’t be back for a Sunday Bookends post tomorrow so I will chat with you all again sometime next week. Bring your tea or I’ll make you whatever I have here.
How was your week last week?

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.