Chaos and Carols

“What we imagine is order is merely the prevailing form of chaos.” - Kerry Thornley

The window and door saga has finally reached its conclusion. The patio door was properly fixed on Wednesday putting an end to the longest window installation project in history. I am relieved to be done with it and happy to see the end of the stream of incompetent service men who have trooped through my house for the past six months. But the end of window installation has really just brought us to our next project. The painters start on Thursday. We are already living in chaos as Merv started the process today of packing up and moving all the breakables in the china cabinets in the living room, dining room and foyer. The painting should take three to four days which will put the end around December 15. I had a plumber in on Wednesday to deal with the guest bathroom leak that resulted in water damage to the dining room ceiling. He sealed the leak but left us with a big hole in the dining room ceiling. Merv took care of it this weekend. We are pretty much ready for the painting to begin.

Because I will be housebound again this week and next, I've been trying to get my Christmas shopping finished. I spent a few hours at Vaughn Mills on Friday and stopped into Fairview Mall this afternoon. The malls were crowded and exceedingly noisy. I've never heard so many crying babies and seen so many badly behaved children in my life. I don't handle the chaos as well as I used to. I did as much shopping as I could do in the time I could handle being in the malls, both times fleeing before I lost the few vestiges of sanity I have left. I will try again tomorrow, this time at Bayview Village. Perhaps Monday shopping will be a little less chaotic.

I arrived at The Houses of Providence today in time to enjoy the last fifteen minutes of a holiday concert. Mom was in the great room enjoying the entertainment along with the other residents. It was good to see her there. She was mostly alert and at times even smiling. Many of the residents joined in singing carols with a small choir accompanied by a two guitar and keyboard trio. I sang along too. I love Christmas carols.

Christmas is my favourite time of the year. I usually count days in the last weeks of November so I can start decorating the house come December 1. This year, decorating will have to wait until the painting is finished. For the next couple of weeks, I will be singing a lot of carols and drinking a lot of eggnog to keep myself in the spirit of the season.