December | 2024 | edenfreed.com

Desperately Seeking Vampire: A Help Wanted Romance (Help Wanted Romance Series Book 1)

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Around the holidays, I think back to my childhood and it was the Christmas lights, more than anything, that made me happy. The same still works today and I find myself leaving the holiday lights up all year and just changing the color for the next holiday.

It’s the Grinch!
We found him at Shadybrook Farms

Maybe it’s my inner Year of the Rat and love of all things shiny, but I go for long rides looking at the lit up houses and to every possible light show working a two hour ride(well, I make the mister drive it).

Spectacular Lights on one house we saw in PA

https://a.co/d/9FKYgje don’t forget the link!

With five children there is always the need to keep them entertained, so light shows are a big hit and help get them outdoors on cold evenings, when they’d otherwise be engaged in video games & online media.

We also do outings to Science Museums, Zoos, Art Galleries… and you can see a lot of them pull out all the stops for Holiday festivities.

In the spirit of our Liquid Friday blog, I have to leave to you with a favorite holiday drink- hot chocolate!

Ingredients: (4 big servings)

8 ounces dark chocolate chips(semisweet) or chopped brick chocolate

4 Tablespoons sugar (or equivalent in your favorite sweetener)

5 cups milk- we use lactose free and omit the sugar, but any heat stable milk substitute works

Save your add-ins for the side and let guests customize their beverage

Add-ins:

Marshmallows

Peppermint sticks

Whipped Cream

Cinnamon stick

Pinch Cayenne Pepper, really warms you up

Directions:

Warm milk and chocolate in a pot on low to medium heat(stirring continuously to avoid scalding milk) until chocolate has melted and mixture is hot, add sugar to taste- alternatively you can put your milk and chocolate in a crock pot and keep it warm while children play outside

Stir again before serving as chocolate will settle

Serve warm and let guests choose their own toppings, for a special treat

Have a wonderful season of lights!

We are dangerously close to some major holidays and even my puppies are feeling the strain. My human boys are busy with Highschool and college exams, and my daughter is feeling the pre-holiday shopping frenzy at her job as orders get filled, possibly some for Santa himself. This leaves the two crazy canines starved for attention.

They bring me piles of toys to play with and prefer rough play to fetch. Every room has some of their toys and I’ve taken to using a grabber stick to pick them up instead of spending my day bending(clever girl).

It’s not hard to love them even though they act like toddlers, constantly needy for attention while awake. I brush them out, go through their treat fueled tricks (while trying to add new ones), and we enjoy playing and long walks together. What more could a girl want?

Butler has fully adjusted to having a little brother, and lets the tyke get away with a lot. He will drop a toy Mooshu wants, and play with another rather than fight for a toy. He is a wise and benevolent teacher and Mooshu has learned some tricks quickly, by watching Butler.

Butler’s grey hairs can’t stop his inner puppy and he outruns Mooshu and other dogs at the park, but pauses long enough to let them catch up.

Mooshu is still recovering from his medical mishap. We are still sans diagnosis, but everything you can imagine has been ruled out which leaves me with the prospect that his bleeding is autoimmune. Before I subject him to another battery of tests, I’ll conduct some research. Unarmed with information as I was last time he had an emergency, I blindly agreed to do everything necessary and we were lucky to make it out of there.

With my autoimmune illness it took 14 years for a diagnosis, and every now and again I have my doubts that we hit the right one. I’m not a textbook case. The medication should have gotten me into remission in 6 months, but I’m still on it some fourteen years or so later.

We have already gotten one surprise on 23&me, and found genetic markers for a second autoimmune disease, which may be why my treatment is not having the desired results after hella more than 6 months.

Mooshu has similarly been tested. Every big genetic disease has been ruled out, but maybe he’s like me and not a textbook case for anything despite his frightening lab results and the spontaneous symptoms.

For now, I’m content to just support him and love him until we find out more or don’t find out anything at all- someone supported me through 14 years of medical failures, so it’s fair I do the same. I don’t see the need to run another battery of tests as we have ruled out all the colon stuff and would be looking for a needle in a haystack, with whatever is causing his issues. I’m not going to devote 14 years of his life to a diagnosis when he may not have that long, so here we are, ready to treat each event but no closer to knowing what the problem is.

This situation brings me back to preparation for my wedding. Our church ran some pre-marriage classes and they asked us what was most important. We both said “love” and have stuck with that with everything we approach.

Embarking on writing, running three businesses, five children, and dealing with these two crazy pooches has been lessons in love everyday. I may lack a little practicality, free time, and money, but if all dogs go to Heaven I know I have two beautiful souls willing to sneak me in.