ChiCricket

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates. 💚❤ Season greetings to those who don't.💙💜 I'm feeling very nostalgic, so I thought I'd share an old picture of two of my sisters and me on Christmas morning. 💗 (1958 or so)

I just recently started on trazadone because of my ongoing insomnia. I'm catching up on this forum at 4:30 am, so it's not really working so far.

My doctor son-in-law just got his (in New Mexico) and my nephew here in Illinois who is a nurse got his today. That's the good news... My son just texted me that a good friend of his just died of covid today. They both went to the same high school and then both joined the Marines after graduation. His friend worked at the post office after he retired from the Marines. He was only 46.😢

Lookey, here's a video someone sent me, (because of Flaco not being here for the holiday season for the first time.) It made me cry (In a good way) I hope you (and anyone else here who lost someone this year) find it as comforting as I did If you're not ready to hear something like this, then please just skip watching it. 💗

That's cute! I almost bought this one.😁 (The light in the flames flicker..but the gif was too large to load in here)

Hugs for EVERYONE in my family. All of them...especially the ones who live in Germany, because I haven't seen them in person for almost 4 years. I've never been overseas...I was nervous about going...now I cannot wait to go (once it's really, really for sure safe again.) Then I want to go stay on my daughter's boat with her and her family for a a few days (maybe more if they're in the tropics by then.) 😁 I was just thinking about this. I don't think I'll ever be able to tolerate someone blowing out birthday candles again. 🤢😂

He stunk at putting on that star. I have the exact same one, and you kind of have to screw it onto the top most piece of the tree (and then cheat by securing it with some hidden bread wrapper ties.) But it was nice to see the whole family helping decorate.😊

My five kids and their spouses, and my grands, and great grands are not going to get together for the holidays this year. We made the final decision today.😢 I'm sad, but we all want to be very careful after what happened with Flaco. We will be doing multi-generational grab-bags for the first time...that'll be SO different..but then, nothing is normal in 2020. Everything will be sent to each family, and then we'll open them over Zoom. Depending on when stuff actually gets to Germany and Maine (where my daughter's family's live-on boat is right now) will determine the actual day we'll do the ZOOM meeting to open gifts together. It should be chaos..but our holidays always are always nucking futz, anyway. 😁 We want to save money, so someone in that family (who the package is not directed to) is going to gift wrap the box and label it. (It's too expensive to pay for a purchase bought online to be gift wrapped) This will be the first time in 51 years of marriage that I'll be stuck with just my husband for the holidays.😕 (he's a Puerto Rican Scrooge/Grinch, if that helps set the scene) 🙄😂 SSB (Sorry So Blabby)🙃

So sorry to hear of the loss of your cousin, Sunny.💕

I watched it for the Hamilton part only. Love me some Hamilton...and Lin-Manuel!😁 And as for this group...

Very pretty, but *I* couldn't do that one..the less I see of myself in a mirror as I age the better. Horrors! 😂

How about building a platform to raise one up higher? You could tile it or something, and that could be your "hearth"?

OMGosh..I've always wanted one of those (or a hot tub) but Illinois doesn't have long of a nice season to use one. I never thought about putting it in my (mostly unused) garage..hmmm...

I kept meaning to share this with my fellow Illinosians here..and now today is the LAST DAY to sign up to get some of this class action money from Facebook! I just successfully signed up online for both my husband and my Facebook accounts. If you live in Illinois..do it NOW before it expires! (this is legit...Facebook got sued by Illinois for privacy invasions) It was on the news and in the Tribune today. You *could* get a couple of hundred dollars if you qualify. PS it depends on how many people sign up for it to see how much we might get..so I'm cutting into my profits for the benefit of my Illinois small talk friends😂 http://www.facebookbipaclassaction.com/ Ps sorry, it's only for people who live in Illinois

If you search Parler Screenshots in the Twitter search bar, you will see some of the terrifying, disgusting posts people are posting there. Creepy af stuff.

@Temperance I sent her this message hours ago. (She won't answer my calls, she knows the jig is up) "S, how come I had to find out from someone else that M had a Halloween party, and that you went to it? And wtf..NO f'ing masks?! What.the.hell.😢 (don't deny it, I saw all the pictures)"😡 so far no response. Your blahs (depression) are what my therapist told me long ago is "anger turned inward." I don't know what your situation is with your husband, but as she explained it to me, I didn't feel safe showing my (then) alcoholic husband how angry I was at him becoming abusive whenever he got drunk. He scared me. So instead I turned that anger inward and became so depressed I had to be hospitalized (more than once.) Well, I didn't mean to write a book..just meant to say look inward and see if you might be harboring unexpressed anger that is making you feel "blah." ❤

My younger sister called me yesterday (she never does.) Turns out her daughter and her family have covid right now also. (They are doing ok so far, thank goodness.) My sister said, "that's what she gets for going to M's Halloween party. I told her not to...she's such a stubborn dumbass!!"(M is our brother's daughter.) I yelled, "WHAT HALLOWEEN PARTY? SHE SAID SHE WAS CANCELLING IT THIS YEAR!!!" Nope..she still had it, and must have muted me on Facebook so I wouldn't see anything about it. I went on my husband's (unused)Facebook account to snoop, and there were pictures of my daughter and my SIL at the party....and nobody was wearing a mask!! I am so shocked and disappointed in my daughter's lack of judgement. Now I wonder if they got it there and not from his job. 😡 I don't even want to talk to my daughter right now..because I would go off. IDIOTS 😠 My other (Illinois) kids were smart enough not to go.

A week ago, my youngest daughter S (my middle child) got the news that someone her husband had worked with in close contact , had tested Covid-positive. Shortly after that, my daughter S and sil E and two of their kids started feeling run down. Covid-tests confirmed their fears that four out of five members of their family were Covid-positive. The kids had more mild symptoms (headache, fever, etc.). Their oldest daughter who had tested negative, quickly packed and went to stay at my son's house (her uncle) until they all test negative. At first my daughter S also just had mild symptoms but she now has lost all sense of taste and smell and just this morning she reports feeling worse than the previous days, with a high fever and bad headache that no medicine seems to touch., So far, my sil E has had the worst of it. What started with being rundown and with a headache and fever quickly took a turn for the worse with serious breathing problems. (The only preexisting condition he had before this was well-controlled high blood pressure.) Four days ago he had to go to the hospital where they gave him antibiotics and sent him home with a pulse oxymeter to measure his oxygen levels. Unfortunately yesterday his levels were way too low and he had to go back to the hospital. They took X-rays while my daughter sat in her car waiting for hours.She couldn't go in with him because of covid precautions, of course. They said he now has covid induced pneumonia, but they sent him home anyway, but with steroids added now. They are monitoring his oxygen levels frequently at home with the finger thing they gave him on discharge. I am so scared. All I can think of is how Flaco died from it, (and my sil works at O'Hare Airport, just like Flaco did) it's like a bad omen to me. . I can't stop thinking about how fast Flaco went downhill. Ps I am going to wake up to a very pissed-off husband, because I hid our car keys Illinois is BAD again, and I can't get him to keep his butt HOME.

so sorry @lookeyloo

It's 74° out right now in Illinois...in November! Such a beautiful day! (I'm going out now to put up my outdoor Christmas lights to celebrate...the weather) 😊

Anyone else still up and glued to the news? Ps.. now I can go to sleep. 😊

This was the first time I ever voted where all of the poll workers weren't elderly! (usually extremely elderly) It was very odd (but good) to see all the young people manning the place. 😊

My oldest daughter was a poll worker yesterday too (she's been doing it for years, so now she's a supervisor.) This was the first year I really didn't want her to do it. The building they have it in doesn't even have openable windows. So I was worried about the air flow in there (because covid.) They decided to prop open the front and back doors, and hope for the best. (It was a beautiful day out..almost 70°) I'll feel better once 2 weeks pass and she is still healthy.

I've never watched a single episode of Frasier, it must have been a busy time in my life when it came out. I need to figure out where I can try it , because I don't see sleep as an option right now. I got creeped out by watching the Twilight Zone all by my lonesome so I had to quit that.😨 Ps found Frasier on Hulu..yay 🙂