Resolutions a month later.

Time to take stock of the resolutions.

Read a book a month.
Failed. Oh well, there's always this month to get started.

Read a magazine a week.
Big success. What's come of attempting this is a wonderful cat ritual in the evening. I come home from work and either get dishes or a load of wash started. Then, I grab the top magazine off the stack and sit down in the settee with a cup of tea. Pilchard jumps into my lap and settles down for chin and ear scratches. Mija comes into the living room and jumps onto the other chair. I read for about 10 minutes and then get the fishing pole cat toy and play with her for about 15 minutes. Last night, she was particularly active and very funny, pouncing on the string. Pilchard purrs up a storm. On occasion, she'll jump down and play, but, for the most part, she just wants my lap.

We sit for about 30-45 minutes and then I get up and continue with dishes or whatever else I need to get done. I've often come back to the settee, particularly if all I'm doing is dishes. There's something magically calming about having a cat in your lap. I have managed to finish 6 magazines doing this.

This has translated into Pilchard claiming my lap while I am gaming. Penney, Rascal and Betsy would do this, too, and I've wanted either Mija or Pilchard or both to sit in my lap. Mija's not that interested, yet. Pilchard actually hops up into the chair next to me and meows until I let her climb in. The problem is that the angle of my keyboard does not accommodate such a large cat. Oh well, I'll deal with it to have her happy.

Write a friend a real letter once a week.
Fail. I owe a number of people letters.

Add one more fruit or vegetable to my daily diet.
Successful. I'm out of fresh so I am drinking juice and going through the frozen veggies I have. Finances being what they are, when these run out, I may not have any cash to buy groceries so this resolution will be put on hold temporarily. Today's lunch is a cheeseburger and frozen peas and carrots with applesauce.

Pay off one credit card.
I'm slowly getting there. I didn't make one major payment this month and got everything caught up. I'm having major problems with my financial service that holds my IRA. I cannot get my tax information online and I want my taxes done and my refund back. I'm just angry enough at this company that if this is not resolved today or tomorrow, I will look at pulling my money and putting it somewhere else that has a web site that works.

But, I was able to, this month, make a dent in debt which is what I want to do. No, it doesn't help the refrigerator manufacturers or the local bookstores, but I have to get things under control. I still don't know what it is that I do wrong and it makes me feel really stupid when I can't figure out why things don't balance.

Pay for everything with cash.
Success. It helps not to have cash and to know that you have only $6 to use for the month. You cut your wants down to needs and then to absolute needs and then to life or death needs.

Don't get down on myself.
Sort of successful. I have always been my worst critic and even though I had years of therapy, I still find that voice is extremely hard to turn off.

So there have been successes and there have been non-successes. I'm not calling them failures because of the negative connotations associated with the word "fail". There's always this month to pick up where I left off and "Ease on down, ease on down the road".

Beverage: China Black tea

Deb

And the ground hog says...

6 more weeks of winter.

Really folks, there's 6 weeks of winter left, period, groundhog or no ground hog. If he sees his shadow, there's 6 more weeks of winter. If he doesn't see his shadow, spring is 6 weeks away.

Huh?

It's 6 weeks until the spring equinox.

It's snowing in Chicagoland right now. Spring is not on anyone's mind. I gotta go vote in the primary for governor and I dislike both candidates. That's what's on my mind.

And, I'll wade into the PETA comment about using a robot groundhog, are they friggin' nuts? The groundhogs that represent Punxsutawney Phil have a cushy life. They are cared for and are away from predators and natural selection. Once a year, there's a media circus and then the animals are left alone to be groundhogs. Go work with animal shelters, PETA, to make certain there are homes for the millions of unwanted pets and leave Phil alone. This from an animal lover.

Anyway, I need to figure out the windshield wiper problem, why they only seem to work when the car's warm. I kind of need wipers today.

Beverage: Scottish Blend tea.

Deb

It's been awhile.

I realized after posting the tree post that it's been at least a dozen days since there were cat photos in the blog. As they supervised the tree removal yesterday, they had to have their photos taken. They are getting good at recognizing the sound of the digital camera coming to life. And, being cats, it's up to them to decide if they deign to have their visages photographed.

Mija
Pilchard in pure supervisor mode.

Beverage: Oolong tea

Deb

Christmas is officially over.

I decided I had procrastinated enough and so, yesterday, I took down the Christmas tree and removed the wreath from the front door. It had not been lighted since Iowa beat Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl, but taking down the tree means hauling all the boxes for the ornaments up from the basement and then bringing the big bin for the tree up and lugging the filled containers back downstairs. The tree isn't really in the way so I just left it up. Plus, it looked kind of nice since I hadn't put it up in a couple years.

But it's been bugging me so I finally hauled all the containers up over the course of the week and decided to take it down yesterday.

Of course, I have "proof". Duh.

Off came all the ornaments. Mija is checking out the smells on the lid of one of the ornament bins. As I was removing these and reorganizing the bins (I have 3 just for ornaments.), I realized I can remember where I got 99% of all the ornaments. I would say 3/4ths of the ones pictured were purchased by me but a few were gifts.

In the upper right corner, a cat ornament in front of the glass Scottish Saltaire, is a Maine Coon and was given to me by Carole because her cat, Faux, is a Maine Coon and Faux came to live with us when she lived at home.

If you can find Herkey, the Hawk in the lower right, look to his immediate upper left and you'll see a flat brown cat. My dear friend, Patt, gave me that this year. It's a piece of painted metal and it's really just a decoration. But it has this great gold swirl on the top of it that's purr-fect (sorry, couldn't resist) for hanging on the tree. When I opened the package, I knew it was going on the tree.

About middle left is a square rocking horse ornament. That was given to us by a college friend who made the counted cross-stitch panel when Carole was born. I've lost track of her but I think of her every year when I pull this out and put it on the tree. At some point, it and a few other ornaments with Carole's date of birth or her name, minus the "e", will go to her.


There, half-way down and then completely devoid of branches. I discovered that I had put some smaller branches in the middle, having misread the tag on the end that hooks into the trunk. I have this wild idea that since the actual framework of the branches is the same size, it's just the length of the branches that's different, why couldn't I stick the small ones at the base and the larger ones on top, or in the middle. I don't HAVE to build a traditionally shaped Christmas tree. I seem to remember, many years ago, Nieman-Marcus had an upside down tree you could buy for thousands of dollars. It came fully decorated, if I remember correctly. There's all my Christmas presents, which I hadn't put away, excepting the money from my mother, the tea from my sister, the M&M's from my brother and the page-a-day WOW calendar from my future son-in-law. (That's another upcoming post and trust me, that sounds really weird.)

Nope, I had no help. They just supervised.

I decided to open the tree bin in the basement and haul the branches, trunk and stand down there. It gets so heavy when everything is in the bin, plus it's a big container and tough to navigate up and down the stairs. I'll probably drag it up in November but this way was darn-site easier to put it away. It was one of those, "Why didn't I think of this before" moments.

The living room doesn't feel "empty" without the tree. It was time to take it down. The only problem is that Mija now has a window sill on which to sit and chew on the spider plant. I guess I need to look into getting some of those "kitty greens".

What does feel naked is the front door. I don't have anything to put up until late March when I have a wreath adorned with spring flowers. I guess I'll go back to the "Cats Welcome" sign.

Beverage: Scottish Blend tea

Deb