Merry Christmas!

On Monday the 20th I drove my mom to the airport (in the rain - phew, we got a LOT of rain!) to go to Oklahoma to visit Peter. On the way back I trimmed 4 horses, and put off 2 more due to the crazy mud and wet. And, !@#%! - I hurt my back! I felt a little funny getting in the car afterwards, but thought nothing of it until I got home and went to get back out of the car... and found myself once again unable to stand fully upright. Damn! I immediately went in and put my velcro ice pack on, took a bunch of Advil, and tried to nurse it quickly back to health. I had a busy week of trims booked in order to take off 3 days over Christmas. Alas, it was not to be, as my back did not allow me to get my job done and I limped along with Mario doing as much as possible.

Logan checks out the decorations

I booked myself for what turned out to be an excrutiatingly painful sports type massage ~ I was holding my breath and whimpering, but I walked out of there upright! Progress! She informed me that the location of my problem is my sacrum. Mario fired up the hot tub and I had some long hot soaks in there and felt a bit better again. I think I will be in there alot more this year in an attempt to keep my back healthy. Since I was trying to get in a few horses a day so as to not fall painfully behind, we ended up working on Christmas Eve and only actually had one day off over the holiday.

But, a lovely holiday we had regardless. Christmas Eve I baked more cookies (peanut butter kisses and traditional chocolate chip) and we had the traditional Chinese food dinner and watched Prince Caspian from the Chronicles of Narnia. Christmas Day was wonnnderrrful. We basically did nothing all day. And loved it. :) We took hot showers but then put on our new cookie pants (we each got a new pair!) pajamas and didn't get back out of them. Mario made a delicious egg, bagel, facon and coffee breakfast and we enjoyed mimosas throughout the day. I had mine with ruby red grapefruit juice, as I learned last year is my new favorite. Mario had his with orange mango juice. We opened the few presents we had gotten each other, and played with the dogs as they opened their Christmas bones. Then I made little paperballs out of the wrapping and played with the cats for awhile longer... I got a new Patricia McKillip book for Christmas and parked myself with it on the big chair by the Christmas tree, alternating kitties and pugs in my lap, sometimes both... a fire in the fireplace, and later, rain against the window panes. ahhh... Mario watched a seemingly endless series of basketball games, played poker, and talked to friends on Facebook. We made more spaghetti, salad and garlic bread for dinner since we decided it was really good the other night... and switched from mimosas to a delicious zinfandel blend wine (Cupcake Vineyards Red Velvet). During dinner we watched the animated movie "how to train your dragon" - which was really cute! - and after some more book reading...drifted off to sleep. :) Despite being atypical and unplanned, it was just a really nice way to spend our first Christmas alone together in about a decade.

ahhh...