we’ll muddle through

Well that was a… Christmas I guess.

My grandma “Mama Gin” passed away Christmas morning.

She had just turned 99 in October.
It’s a complicated thing; I’m sad, but also I feel like I’ve already been grieving her for years? Her dementia and physical health has been really bad for the last few years. And we knew this was coming; she had not been responsive in the last few weeks and her nursing home had moved her to hospice care. So while there’s sadness, there’s also some relief that she’s no longer trapped in that body in a nursing home and she’s back with Papa, where she’s always said she wanted to be. We all said “She went home for Christmas!”

I’m still off work this week which is a huge relief. It’s going to be really fun to go back to work on Monday, start date of my new position in the company and have to tell my new boss “Hey I need bereavement leave.” Really looking forward to that /sarcasm.

Anyway let’s rewind and talk about the rest of the week.

Monday & Tuesday I was mostly a lazy bum, but I did wrap presents and do some cooking for the upcoming gatherings. I made Mama Gin’s spaghetti sauce, which is time consuming. It’s been a few years since I made it, but I had offered to make it for the Christmas day lunch. It went together pretty well and when I tasted it later, it tasted fine… at first. Then it had a super bitter after taste. I tried a few fixes, but nothing helped. I put it away in the fridge to think about.

Next day I got a little out and heated it up to eat for lunch. Again, the initial taste was perfect. Then it left that bitter after taste. Some bites were like “hmm this would be ok?” but then the next bite would be like… this is vile. So Chase stopped and rebought all the ingredients so we could remake it. Thankfully we had time to do that. (Also after a lot of googling trying to figure out where it went wrong – I think it was the bay leaf. I put a broken bay leaf in, and apparently the inside is very bitter and can make the rest of the dish bitter.)

So Chase got out a big plastic aldi bag to put the old spaghetti in to throw it away. Omg it was so much spaghetti. And as we were standing there with this massive bag of spaghetti I said, “What if we just take this to Christmas lunch and tell Kevin it’s his christmas present?” (as a joke). We thought that was funny so put the bag back in the fridge to take with us on christmas.

Christmas Eve day was at Nana’s. We had chicken spaghetti, opened some presents, and played some games. Well everybody else played games, I sat it out. I am now anti-game LOL

Cake!

Came home and Chase and I cooked up a feast, since none of our Christmas gatherings have a big Christmas meal anymore. Chase cooked us a couple of steaks, I made Mema’s broccoli casserole I love so much, potatoes au gratin, and we had rolls and cranberry sauce. We were stuffed.

We opened presents, Chase got me a bunch of books!! Puzzles, new shoes, etc. He also got me a big puzzle board, one that has drawers and is on a lazy Susan.

Now I can do puzzles without worrying about Luna, and I can also move the puzzle board around, I’m not trapped in one place. Heck I could even use this for other things like embroidery projects! I’ve got a little applique/embroidery kit Mom got me for christmas last year I tried to finish for Christmas this year and didn’t… I could put it on this so it could be moved out of the way, because right now it’s just taking up my whole sewing room table.

Christmas morning we headed over to my parents’ house. Let the dogs open their present right away because they were so excited. I got them tie-dye hoodies.

And they got a new toy from Santa.

We had our usual Christmas morning sausage casserole, and Chase made a cinnamon apple casserole too. (Mom tried to change up the sausage casserole but I whined so she didn’t LOL). Then we opened presents and sat around watching videos for a while. Mom and dad went to get ready to head to Christmas lunch at Susan’s and that’s when they got the call about Mama Gin. (It had actually happened at like 4am, and they had called Susan, but Susan wanted us to have a normal Christmas morning so she waited to call us.)

Chase and I left my parents’ house a few minutes early so we could run home and get the deviled eggs Chase made for the lunch, the real spaghetti and the bag of spaghetti.

Oh here’s my new shoes!

We were the first to arrive at Susan’s – gave her a hug, she was emotional… and then I got to pull back, open that dumb bag of spaghetti and say “Where do you want the spaghetti?” And she cracked up. Everybody had to go have a look at the bag of spaghetti as they arrived. LOL

I was reading back through old Christmas posts here on my blog last week and was reminded that one year I made Kevin give me a tour of his backyard. We did that again, but this time he was a lot less crabby about it LOL

Maybe because it was 75 degrees out so it was nice walking around the back yard.

We had waaaaay too much food. So much leftover. Opened presents, then it was again time to chill out and play on our phones LOL

Kevin and I had to have our usual snapchat time.

Then he went back to show me his new games. He has Heretic and Hexen?! OMG. “Not my house but I’d know my way around” LOL I used to put on my headphones, listen to my mix tape and play those nonstop back in the 90s.

Then Chase and I came home, heated up some leftovers and settled down for Stranger Things!! We watched 2 and a half of the episodes and finished the last episode the next morning. I have so enjoyed this show from the start. I can’t wait for NYE for the finale.

Friday we ran some errands. Chase cleaned out his office closet. I vegged. Saturday was supposed to be another day of nothing, but Chase texted me while I was still laying in bed playing my morning NYT games and said “Hey let’s go thrifting.” Ummm yes please?! Our first stop was an antique we’d never been to and it was SO fun. I got an old copy of Hollywood Babylon and some old 50s photo magazines. Chase got a lion statue and a Battle Cat. Then went to a few other places in the area.

I got the CUTEST 60s shift dress at one of the stores. It looked like it would fit fine. Got it home and can’t get it over my hips. It’s the same size (as in, lay them on top of each other and they’re the same, not tag size) as another shift dress I have — but that shift dress has the tiniest bit of natural stretch in the fabric, and this vintage one doesn’t. So I’m torn on opening it up and seeing if I could let it out – it looks like it’s got about an inch of seam allowance in the back seam. But I hate to do that to a real vintage piece. Maybe I give it a year and see if I can actually lose the weight I said I’m going to for years now LOL We’ll see, for now it’ll be a closet piece.

After a few places in midtown area we headed all the way out to the other side of town to check out an antique mall we’d heard about there. That one was a bit disappointing, it was less antiques and more “here’s something from Hobby Lobby 15 years ago”.

But still fun. We had an early dinner at a pub and then came home as it was getting dark. Hadn’t planned on being out all day – but it was a really fun day.

Sunday we did a photoshoot – Sally Jupiter and Julia from Cowboy Bebop. Julia was easy enough – so glad to finally have photos of that one. Sally was interesting. I did wear new undergarments with it instead of the original thing I wore with it (knew it wouldn’t fit). The wig needed some refluffing, mostly the victory curls at the top had gotten smushed. I couldn’t see to fasten the garter belt so Chase had to do it, but mostly it was the boots. I could not stand more than a couple of minutes in them. Apparently I had much stronger ankles in 2009 – I was like, I do not know how I walked around Megacon and Dragoncon in these. Now? I needed to sit every few minutes and while standing I was wobbling like crazy! But anyway, made it through, got the photos, and it’ll be fun to compare them to the old pics – Sally was our very first white backdrop shoot back in 2009!

Then I went to sit with Mabel until Nana and Kristie’s flight got in.

I drew her on their chalkboard wall while waiting.

Ordered dinner and ignored our homechef LOL

The house is a disaster right now. Really need to clean up, but also don’t feel like it LOL I’ve still got a whole week off and I plan to enjoy this vacation time, not do chores!

In other photoshoot news, I’ve got Belle uploaded, still need to do Padme/Lover bodysuit and the new Sally and Julia pics from yesterday. I’ve got 6 more costumes I want to shoot – Padme lake dress is one I want to reshoot, and while I had that wig out for the Padme/Lover shoot I realized it’s in not great shape. I decided that this week I’m going to take the bands off (they were falling off anyway), resmooth the hair over the shell shape, and just clean it up. I ordered some brown mesh to sew around the shell shape this time instead of the hairnet I currently have stretched over it. Also want to do the pink 18th century dress and also want to restyle that wig. So that’s a few things I need to do soon.

The others I want to shoot are Giselle – which I KNOW will need some mods in order to shoot, I haven’t been able to fit in that since 2009. I am thinking about just sewing on some ribbon loops down the back so it can be lightly laced up, and ribbons loops would be less destructive than eyelets or grommets. Also gotta put the wigs back together. I’d like to shoot Asuka before the pleather on that completely dies, if it hasn’t already. And Teela – I actually cleaned up the outfit a couple of years ago in prep for a photoshoot but didn’t get to it. I need to clean up the wig and put Orko back together (mostly just give him some new eyes). Lastly is Yuuko…. I have no idea what state that costume is in, but gonna find out.

So what a month it’s been. Technically lost my job, lost my grandma. The energy I’m taking into 2026 is this — I’ve been worried about losing my job for years because they’ve been threatening our division for ages, and for 10 years I’ve expected to get the call about Mama Gin. Now both anxieties are past. They happened. It’s over. I don’t have to worry about either thing anymore. I can be sad and grieve both things, but I’m walking into 2026 without those things hanging over my head. Onward and upward.