Wow, two days without Etsy and my house is emerging from  chaos!  Hip, hip, hooray!!  What a relief. Clutter jangles my soul. My Christmas present to myself was to close up the shops and try and reclaim my house and nerves by restoring order.

Actually, I only truly got the shops closed today. When I checked my e-mail this morning, I was startled to see a message from Etsy notifying me of an order. Apparently MelmacParadise didn't quite make it into vacation mode before I logged off yesterday. It turned out to be a good thing, though. The buyer was a return customer back to purchase another batch of craft supply items she needed to finish her Christmas presents for her family. It would have been a disappointment if she hadn't been able to get what she needed to complete her projects.

Today is the first day of my new Life With Custom Orthotics. (Another present to myself!) After four or five years of believing a diagnosis of arthritis in one foot (never trust a general practitioner with anything other than a sore throat or a check-up!) I finally went to see a podiatrist several weeks ago and it turns out I have a host of foot problems, but none of them are arthritis. Mostly they stem from my very high arches. I've had some cortisone shots and I've begun a new regime of special exercises, but it's the orthotics that are supposed to produce the long-term results. 

They're not at all what I expected. I assumed they'd be some thick gel insole things, all lovely and soft and mooshy, but they're very thin molded plastic things with just a smidgen of padding underneath. I have to work up my wear time by starting with one hour, and adding an additional hour each day. And I'm not to exercise while wearing them yet.  Right now I feel like I've got half a plastic easter egg in each shoe, but hopefully my feet will get used to this new sensation pretty soon. I've heard of "walking on eggshells" but this puts a whole new face on that old expression.

Okay, you did not come here to read about my feet. (What did you come here for, by the way? I'm really curious!)

I'm happy to report that my full Christmas deer collection is now on display. I had managed to put some of them out last week, but couldn't find the box with the rest of them right off. Today I managed to find it. The deer collection has grown substantially since last Christmas--I think I added about 17 or 18 new ones this year, mostly celluloid. I was at a fundraiser street sale this summer and someone had a pile of sweet, shabby old deer jumbled up among some other ornaments, so I dug until I'd found every last one. I got them cheap, too! I'm always so glad there are people in the world who either don't know or don't care about the collectibility of vintage goodies! 

This is about half of the collection. I can't get them properly into one shot! I'll try for a better photo in daylight tomorrow.

Next to come is my plastic kitsch stuff. I have plastic wreaths, plastic candles, plastic bells, plastic Santas, plastic angels, plastic Christmas trees, even plastic doilies, for Pete's sake. It's so wonderfully freeing to have no taste! And it's certainly fun. I'll share more photos when I get everything arranged.

Of course, I've been eagerly watching the clock all day, in anticipation of my son's arrival. It won't be long now! He finished his last final exam at Lander University this morning and took off immediately for the airport. What a long day! Poor guy. But I know he's glad to be coming home. He sent me a youtube link this morning with a song called "Mother, I'm Here" (it's actually some theme music from a probably-violent-nothing-whatsoever-to-do-with-home-or-family computer game, but the lyrics were very lovely and I was quite touched). I'm attaching the link here if you'd like to hear it:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlfUcnSbKDA

Now I feel like Christmas is truly about to begin.