Friday…

 It was lovely, sunny and relatively mild this morning; we’re expecting the weather to do some “interesting” wintry weather stuff upcoming; it is that time of year, but still… it’s got much colder as the sun set (so from about 4pm onwards!)  There are so many pre-Christmas activities underway — multiple tree lightings, craft shows and Christmas markets, Santa Claus parades and so on.  Jerry has been my shadow all day.  He spent the night on my legs, but wanted to play most of the night.  He settled down around 4:30 so I fell asleep after that, and woke up around 10:30, feeling more rested.  Don’s been moaning a bit about the cold and the pain in his leg as a result.  I sympathize, but then I have a half laugh that between the 2 of us, we make half a healthy person who walks easily!  Not the greatest, is it?  But there’s football and hockey this evening, so I’ll be losing myself in a book while he cheers on his teams.

As I mentioned, my sleep was interrupted by the small dog who got a jolt of energy in the wee hours and wanted to play, bouncing on the bed, attacking my socks and jumping on and off of me… I wasn’t amused, like the late Queen Victoria, and threatened to throw him out, so he jumped around just out of reach until I gave up.  I’ll try early sleep again tonight.  My support worker was here — she’d been dealing with tummy issues for the past few days, so we changed the schedule to make it a little easier on her; we’ll make up the tasks on Sunday.  Ever had an “Aha!” moment which made you feel dumb?  That happened to me today.  Told you that I got up late, so I had an Ensure close to noon, and then around 2/2:15, I started feeling wiped out.  I had a brief discussion with myself, decided that I’d eat something as it was getting to that time, and then take a nap.  I took 2 bites of my lunch, and woke up.  That’s when it hit me that sometimes I’m not tired, I’m just hungry.  I gave myself a sharp shake, ate the rest of my lunch, and got into doing a couple of things.  I’ll be sure to remind myself to eat when I’m tired before I take a nap, unless I’ve over exerted myself, and even then, I’ll eat first.

The news made mention that sales for Black Friday are lower than average, and that retail sales are overall down.  They say that it’s due to high inflation, tighter budgets, interest rate increases, steep food prices and an attempt to lower personal debt.  I imagine that things will change, but I’ve also noticed fewer ads for lavish Christmas gifts from many retailers, although I’m still bombarded by emails for sales.  I think I get over a hundred promotional emails a DAY trying to persuade me to buy stuff.  I don’t remember signing up for most of them; some are, I admit, crochet and handcraft websites that I’d signed up for to be able to download an interesting pattern, and although there’s supposed to be a single-click “unsubscribe” option, I can’t find it!  I’ve got my selection of preferred suppliers for yarn (although one of them just announced they’re going out of business) and I’m honestly cheap and won’t pay for patterns except in dire circumstances (like requests for “fairy dresses” from my niece.)  Even that is extremely rare —  like once.  I don’t know if the tight financial situation will really affect gift buying, as there are people who think that going into debt for Christmas is a good idea.  I wish for everyone that they take an opportunity to focus on family/loved ones and less on expensive gifts.  I think that it will probably benefit everyone a lot more than facing enormous credit card bills in January, or additional monthly payments for ‘lay away’ purchases.

I’d love it if things in the economy settled down some more, so there’s less worry about eating or heating, or things like that.  Everyone deserves to have somewhere safe and warm to live, with access to clean running water and food.  A few gifts are a lovely bonus too… if you can afford to share, then please do.  I may return to this idea as Christmas approaches, but I promise not to nag!  Good night.