The little guy is with us again for five days while his mama works evenings.  He loves building towers with his poppa and then knocking them over.

I'm finally feeling more myself again which is nice.  I enjoyed work this week and of course my patients are wonderful.  I love making them laugh.  

I even broke the rules and hugged a patient and his wife on Monday.  He's doing poorly, his cancer is progressing and it breaks my heart.  I often see his wife because she works at the hardware store and I go there a lot.  Her heart is breaking too, watching her husband decline.  He's even stopped working which I gather for him is a big deal.  So both were hugged, fuck the rules.  Sometimes they need to be broken.

I'm off today which gives me a chance to catch up on housework.  Yay.  The older I get, the less I like it.  I was thinking about my mum the other day and how I wished I had spent more time with her, writing down her life story but instead I was always busy and now she's gone and the busy work still remains because it never ends.  The house can always wait to be cleaned but my mum will never be back.

I texted with my cousin in Florida for a long time on Monday night.  Her surgery went well and the mass was benign.  I'm going to visit her next winter if things go well.  She's the only cousin younger than me and I love her like a sister.  

It's supposed to warm up a little and I will try to take the dogs for a walk today.  Between the cold, the ice, the dark and the fall, I haven't been walking except at work.  Today I feel like slug.

My son has been mostly leaving me along although he did text this week to see if he could come over and take photos with his son, or have us come to their house.  We're in a lockdown.  There is no visiting, no mingling of households and he is not welcome in our home any longer but all of those things mean nothing to him.  He wants a Christmas photo.  

He says he's changed.  His wife says he's changed.  We'll see.  It will take him years to win back my trust and I'm pretty sure he'll go off the rails again before that.  Mostly I just want to protect my grandson from his influence, lies and manipulations.  

Christmas creeps nearer and as always I will be thankful when it's over.  I love the tree, I love buying presents and I love the baking but the actual day is always a huge disappointment for me so I'm glad when it's over.  Christmas does not meet expectations and I think I have movies and TV to thank for that.  Although there is one holiday movie that comes close to real life;  it's about Thanksgiving, not Christmas, but it's more realistic but even in this film the family is closer and more loving than my own family.  

Home For The Holidays