Not really. It is like other forms of abuse when you think, "Why doesn't that person just leave?" And they do not. Tone of reasons including staying for the kids because of not being sure of getting custody, financial dependency, religious beliefs that make one feel it is a sin to leave the marriage or sometimes "honor thy father and mother" used to justify abuse and make a person again think they face the wrath of god for leaving, or nowhere to run, no one to take them in. A gaslit spouse/SO who is not experiencing physical abuse many times does not qualify for domestic abuse shelters. Modern times have not automatically equated to it being easier to leave, and especially true if that person is a stay at home parent or has been out of the work force a long time.

I love your update, and am truly happy that you are having a special, lovely day!

You are not out of line at all, and I was would take food for my family that is kept away from everyone else and eaten privately outside as needed, and the others can stuff it. Even if it was only cheese sticks, beef stick, granola, and dried fruit, I would be takinf food. But I realize, I am seeing this too late!!! I hope you managed to finagle food for your family.

Rosie and Corraleno nailed it! So just read and be relieved. SIL can pound sand, and take it up with her husband.

Great gift!!

Here is the somewhat coordinated family photo. The one I took. My mom tried to take photos with me in them, and every one of them was blurry.

Never gotten the p.j. thing. We did manage red shirts for the grown ups, and Christmas Dragon p.j.'s for the grandsons. Never took my kids to sit on Santa's lap. Not a big fan of forcing kids to do something rather intimate like that with a total stranger. Never took them as babies, toddlers, and preschoolers to Christmas Eve services because I preferred them to have a relaxing evening and off to bed early. So I played many a service while Mark was home with the kids. Never changed a tire. Never been to a casino. Never been drunk. Never touched a snake. Never used a table saw. Never driven more than 750 miles alone. And my "never have had a Christmas Eve that I was not performing music" record was broken just last night. I began playing piano, harpsichord, or organ (and often vocal performance as well" on Christmas Eves at the age of 13. This was a 40 year run just busted!! It was NICE. I think I am going to get my first Easter off in 40 years in 2022 as well.

The Smorgadbrod was a big success. I managed to pull off 20 dishes. Even though Demand Smorgasbrod is 45 dishes typically, I do not think we could eat all that, and it might kill me to plan and execute that much!!!

I am so glad that happened! Merry Christmas, Tiggy!!!

Smorgasbord was a big success last night. Peter, who speaks Danish very weel, translated an ancient Norse table blessing into modern Danish and English, and blessed the fare. We did have one bigger downer. Robin was frantically finishing a quilt she was making for a Christmas present, and our almost two.year old grandson, C, ran past her falling into her arm, and she sewed the index finger of her left hand. The needle.went all the way through the bone and finger, out the other side. Mark was able to free her from the machine, presser foot still attached, and Matt took her to the hospital. She had to wait about an hour for x rays, and then after 2 hours waiting on the ortho doc or trauma doc to come remove it, the nurse practitioner gave her a nerve block, and the radiologist had a really good.plan for removing it, and did it very easily! Robin is a former paramedic so she was apparently in her element going over the x rays with the staff who all came to look at it, and there was some festive jollyness! 😯 I am the anti-thesis of "medical person" so I would not have handled that well! She got a big shot of antibiotics, and antibiotics to take home. Apart from an occasional Advil, she is doing well. Today we have been eating fresh made bagels and leftovers. Tonight Mark will make more Aebleskivver. N got.a bird feeder and binoculars plus O scale model train items, C got.battery operated Lionel Railway Adventures (most of it was his bachelor uncles collection from way back in their misty childhoods and they gave it to him), plus some new books and space themed toys. The two of them are happily playing while we graze and visit. Baileys Irish cream coffee is rounding out the day. I am so grateful for my husband and kids, my sin in law and grands. We are having a marvelous time together, and this would wonderful house with two wings, a bachelor pad, and so we can get away from each other whenever we need down time, and the bachelors have disappeared downstairs to watch their favorite Christmas movie "Die Hard 1". 😂 My best moment was when Peter said, " The best thing of all is we are together enjoying each other and having fun!" Ya, teary mom moment right there. He was also in high spirits because the last semester of college was absolutely HAIRY and some of his professors were awful, people who have been fired for incompetence at other colleges and picked up by his because they "come cheap". 😡 He was really afraid all of his grades would be low C's and tank his GPA. But he had three A- (AB) grades and two B's. He was wildly pleased, and we were relieved and happy for him. We only did a fun t shirt under the tree for each of the boys, and one simple gift for daughter and son in law. The house was kind of our big, family-wide gift this year. But we were generous with the little ones, and it was nice to just sit and watch them open and play with their gifts. I hope everyone here is having a lovely, relaxing, wonderful day! Gød Yul! Happy Holidays!

Gód Yul everyone!

So far I have all the meats prepped and ready to throw in the oven in a few minutes. The meatballs were made ahead and just need to be warmed through. The veggies are roasted but easy. I assemble the brandy cake in just w few minutes. The 2nd round of snowball cookies went a whole lot better, and my daughter made the gf artisan loaf so I would not have that on my plate. My mother is a CHAMPION because she keeps the dishwasher running and washes pots and pans by hand to keep me going without interruption. The only fiddly thing I have left is ham and potato balls. Mark is making the aebleskivver. I do need to decorate the table. So once everything is in the oven and I am not actively cooking except the occasional stirring of the rice pudding over the double boiler, I will tackle the table. I do have all the food labels made my n some rustic cardboard tags that match the woodland/Nordic decorating theme. I feel a LOT better than I did yesterday. I was dreading this, but it has been smoother than I thought which boosted my mood considerably. I have 20 dishes. What kills me is a true Danish Smorgasbord has about 40-45 dishes.😯 So I have to build up. And next year one thing I can do to be more authentic is to make up more sandwich spreads ahead of time and freeze or refrigerate for Smorrebrod and that would greatly increase the size of the feast without so much cooking on the day. I doubled the amount of options for my son in law who has serious, multiple food allergies and it is all yummy. That makes me happy. He is a foodie, and his diet is so boring. This is a big gift of love to him.

You rock, Tiggy!!! Never ever feel less than!

💓💓💓

Thanks! I just got them out of the oven after chilling them in the freezer for 30 minutes. The recipe didn't call for that but my sister has a ton of experience with alternative flour and she told me that doing that allows the gf flour to have more time to absorb the fats, chilling would help them hold, and to cut the baking time by 4 minutes. It worked like a charm, and now my middle son has his favorite cookies! Things are better today. My second attempt at brandy cake went so much better, and I am actually going to use the first not so great layer because the crumbs tasted incredible, and I am just going to make a double batch of the custard, and put a filling on top of the best layer which will be brandy soaked, and then put the thinner one on top covered in custard with some brandy poured over the whole thing. I am 30 minutes ahead of schedule. My feet want me to sit down, so I am. But my head keeps telling me to get up and cook. At least what is coming up is in my wheelhouse, all the roasted meats and vegetables. That is stuff I am very good at. It is baking that makes my head explode! 😜

That is a wonderful resolution. And a bonfire is always a fun, happy thing. Celebrate the great outdoors.

I feel this!!! The wrapping is not done. I made brandy cake today for tomorrow night and knocked too much air out of the egg whites folding the mixture into the batter so it didn't rise high enough. I now have to make another one and don't have enough eggs. My snowball cookies did not turn out using the one for one replacement gf flour, so I have to buy regular flour and remake those. No eating them for me, but that us okay. The main thing is that time wise, this is NOT a good thing. And Kroger forgot the imitation crab meat I paid for on the curbside pick up. They have to refund me the money and also by the time I figured it out, had RUN OUT, so now I am trying to get it from Whole Foods. And that means I am behind on one more thing. Next year, I think I am going to Barbados for Christmas!!!

And the issue that isn't being discussed is many of these nations do not have the medical infrastructure for distribution. With hospital overwhelm and healthcare systems breaking, we don't have anyone to send to help. We could donate 7 billion doses and not be able to get them in arms. It is a huge problem, a tragic, massive problem that again highlights the political priorities of industrialized nations for decades now, and it is killing people everywhere. But it isn't popular to discuss this for the most part.

When I first read the title, I caught gift, idea, young, kids. Didn't grab the "couple" part so I thought "Silly string". But that won't help you unless they are like my daughter and son in law who would absolutely have a silly string battle with each other. I will try to give this some legitimate thought now!

I knew that, but was worried that while awaiting sentencing and in a local facility, it would be allowed. Several states do conjugal visits now.

The staggering lack of understanding of basic knowledge about the immune system, vaccines, and communicable disease makes my brain twitch. This stuff was coveted in both my freshman high school biology class and in health class. I swear we have whole generations sleeping through school and memorizing "facts" for the test without learning a dang thing much less retaining any information. Sigh. 😡

We have been exploring Mark's Danish/Norse roots, and adding new things. So last year I did a Danish Smorrebrod and that was a huge hit on Christmas Eve. It has been requested that this be our permanent thing. I am gearing up for it again. We also love the idea of Icelandic Elves, and dh built an elf house for the kids, soooo cute, and the grandsons will be leaving cookies, sparkling grape juice, fruit, and trinkets for the elves on Christmas Eve. When they are asleep, dh and son in law will sneak out and confiscate the gifts. Then in the morning the boys will find an elf inside the house with a little gift for each of them. Throughout the year, elf will randomly.show up with treats or impish behavior depending on what dd chooses to have him do. On New Years Eve, the grands will light paper lanterns to light the path of the elves as they change houses. Mark is making little hobbit doors for some of the trees in the yard so the elves have more than one house from which to choose. I am attaching a photo. Our almost six year old grandson, N, drew a very accurate picture of this design all by himself. Mark taught him to "scale" it using measurements in even inches, so N re-drew it with his ruler on graph paper. He them spent the entire day with his Papa Mark building it as well as a train shelf. So this elf thing will be a tradition while the grandsons are young enough to enjoy it.

Our normal has been very quiet and distanced since March 2020. We let up a little this summer when cases were so very low and actually ate inside a restaurant, spent time in the Detroit Institute if Arts masked, and I played a couple of Biscotti with Bach events. I accompanied a college vocal senior for her recital in early fall. But with omicron ramping up and Michigan hospitals overwhelmed and broken (people are dying of all kinds of treatable diseases and injuries because it is up to a 16 hour wait in ER's on our side of the state and a 2-3 hour wait for ambulance, sometimes more), I took my name off the accompanist list for all of 2022. I figure my music career, fledgling and fragile at best after trying to return to it post-homeschooling, is dead, utterly dead now. I have issues with the people of Michigan who refuse to do a damn thing on behalf of our healthcare workers, and do not give a crap who dies because they won't stop partying, won't mask, won't test, and go to work sick, send their kids to school sick. I really don't have any use for these people, and I blame the general public for a lot of death here, and for so many HCWs quitting. I would not say I am changing a lot of specific plans because of omicron since we weren't making any plans to resume a pre-covid "normal", but that the response to covid in general in this nation and the callousness of half the country has changed me permanently. I simply do not want to socialize and share spaces with people anymore. I am happy to be just our small, inner circle permanently, and have an even greater appreciation of the outdoors.

Hopefully he will be sentenced to a long enough period that this spells the end of pro creating with Anna.

I am in the "my ovaries are too stupid to figure out they should stop working already" phase of perimenopause/menopause. So I can go two or three months without a period and then have one. That said I have always had one start within two or three days of getting a Moderna dose (I had the two shot series plus a booster) and they were very heavy whereas when I am "normally" skipping and then getting one, they are light. So I think that the inflammation caused by the immune reaction may cause it. I would really like for 2022 for my ovaries to just die. Give it up. Seriously, it has been going on 43 years of this and I am beyond over it. The youngest is 21. This uterus is not available for rent or lease.