Christmas Wrap up

Mr. Wonderful and I spent Christmas with my mom in Virginia Beach. We got to spend 5 days with her and discovered several things that needed to be repaired, replaced or fixed while we were there.

It really was a "Divine Appointment" as many of the things we discovered by accident. I was making Christmas cookies for Boy Wonder and Suzy in my mom's kitchen and realized how dark her kitchen is. I was having difficulty reading the recipe so I knew Mom would have an even harder time. Solution: Mr. Wonderful put under the cabinet lighting so she can see better. He had it installed by the time she came back from her hair appointment. Mom does not like change but did have to admit it was easier to see and cook.

Christmas day I became a bag lady. My mom does all her own yard work and gardening. Several weeks ago, the Nor'easter hit Virginia Beach with 60-mile-and-hour winds. Needless to say, quite a few leaves decided to fall during that time and Mom felt it was her personal obligation to the neighborhood to rake up and bag them. Fortunately, she got sick after a few hours in the yard and after coughing for a day or two and finally getting over it.... decided to leave the leaves exactly where they wanted to fall. She told us "The leaves don't bother me" which both of us knew was a big fat fib.

   Christmas day, after the presents were unwrapped and everything was cleaned up. Mr. Wonderful and I went out and bagged and raked leaves in her front yard as well as her back yard. Naturally, Mom complained the entire time but was thrilled to have the task completed. We managed to rake up 14 bags of leaves and inspired her neighbor to rake her front yard. By the time we finished, Mom had made an incredible Christmas dinner with all my favorites, so we felt like it was a good trade-off.

While working in my mom's yard we discovered that she needed some drainage gravel on the side of the yard where the drainage comes off the house. I had talked to her about the rather large trench it was making between the driveway and the yard before and she was not in favor of doing anything. Mr. Wonderful decided we really needed to do something about it before it became a liability by having someone fall and break an ankle or also having the driveway collapse because of the ground being washed away. So we decided that forgiveness was easier to obtain than permission and we filled in the trench with drainage gravel.  my mom was not happy with my decision. (This is the reason I also bought her roses for her table to soften the blow a bit.)

By the time we left, we had taken her to pick out carpeting to be installed in two weeks when we all gathered for her birthday. I had replaced her hot mitts (because I got burned taking out items from the oven) and Mr. Wonderful had repaired her printer so she could print out pictures we sent her. So for one brief moment in time, I was the golden child. It's always good to end the year on a high note with your mother. We (the three daughters) plan on making the pilgrimage home for Mom's birthday in two weeks.