Hip surgery over Christmas break

Well, my hip surgery is over. It happened a month and four days ago. The Tuesday before Christmas. I am getting around great now, but it still hurts and I am impatient. I want to be well now. I am tired of hurting.

But I must be positive. I am getting better. It hurt before the surgery and was getting worse. Now it IS GETTING BETTER. I am not going to post my x-rays. They show too much of the private parts of my body, but here I am, getting ready to go into surgery.

Last time I showed you the sewing machine I bought to make curtains. Actually, I have not made curtains at all. We looked for fabric and didn't find any we liked within our budget.

So we moved in without curtains and we kind of like it. We plan to sell our house in about six months. Our walls are freshly painted, so maybe we'll just let the next owners put up curtains.

We drove around our neighborhood at Christmas and most houses here are wide open. We could see the people walking around and everything going on in their houses. This is a historic, beautiful upscale neighborhood. We, at least, have nothing to hide behind curtains.  We don't mind if people drive by and see us eating dinner. Cheers

I did use my sewing machine to recover this chair (See before and after photos above). It's not too bad to buy $30.00 fabric when you only need one or two yards. What do you think of the outcome? Here's a shot of the chair in my living room:

Note the lights above the aimore. This living room has traditionally been very dark, and we want it to look larger for when we sell. Here's what we did:

• We painted the walls a lighter, more neutral color. 
• We bought a smaller rug (tribal-on sale at Pottery Barn--LOVE IT!) and left more bare wood floor showing. 
• We used modern, bright art and simpler furniture. And we lit our art.
• We also added lights over our aimore and the bookcase of the same size on the other size of the door to the sunroom.

To create the lights over the furniture, I simply bought two strip LED lights (meant to go under cabinets) and laid them up there. I did weigh them down so they would not move, and I strung the cords behind the furniture. It looks great and cost less than $50.00, with extension cords. 

So, here we are. Christmas is over. My surgery is over. Now, I have to prepare to sell my house and move to Mexico.

My Christmas tree is crazy. I haven't counted them, but I probably have a thousand ornaments. I was watching a YouTube show on Victorian Christmases last night, and my tree looks a lot like the trees they featured. I hang ornaments inside the tree, layering them and giving it dimensions. It looks like a piece of jewelry, but it takes days to put up and weeks to take down.  

And I am packing all of those ornaments to move to Mexico. I am packing them in small boxes (we received many of those before Christmas and while moving in, mostly from Amazon.)

I am packing the small boxes into larger boxes, the boxes we used to move from Australia. They are international shipping boxes, sturdy and sized to fit into a container. Hopefully, all of my beautiful ornaments will survive the trip.

Well, so much for my news this time. What will be coming up?

• I have another chair to re-cover. 
• I have to get busy landscaping as soon as the weather allows. Two years of renters while we were abroad wrecked our yard. They did not care.
• I am getting serious about writing my next book. I'll tell you about it soon! 
• And I am making YouTube videos about Victorian life. So much fun!
• Oh, and yes, it's time to get serious about my diet. I have to start testing my blood for sugar levels again. But soon I'll be able to exercise much more. I am about to get into shape!  Recipes coming soon!