Category: Making a better Me

A Fun Week Ahead, Sister Trip

Happy Tuesday friends. Another short work week for me. The sisters and I are taking our annual Sister Trip to Gatlinburg tomorrow. So I basically crammed a week worth of work into two days and left it behind. We will be gone for a few days. Luckily leaving is not quite as stressful as last time because Mark will be at home with all the babies. Last year we had to postpone Sister Trip for a month because Mark was in the hospital with the dreaded shingles virus. The wonderful people at the condo not only let us move our reservation but they gave us a credit to use this time because the rate was cheaper than the original date. So we started out this year saving money with the credit from last year. That is amazing hospitality.

Today was my last day of work until next Monday whoo hoo. We go to Gatlinburg every year and there isn’t much there we haven’t done. We just love to hang out with each other. We have an awesome place we stay and we stop at a grocery store on the way in and buy supplies. I am also bringing a couple of loaves of my homemade bread and some yummy apple butter to go with it. We bring books and watch movies and I bring knitting and we usually do a jigsaw puzzle and of course solve all the world’s problems. Just a good bit of down time. I think this will be just what I need to pull me out of that yucky funk I’ve been in. But more about the trip next week.

Our kittens are getting so big. We are having mama cat spayed next week. We are praying she doesn’t get “with kitten” before we can get her spayed. I want to give two of the kittens away but every time I think of it I start to get teary eyed. Each one holds a special place in my heart. And they are such good buddies with each other. We will eventually have to have all of them spayed and neutered.

Fall weather is upon us and the colors are changing fast. It’s almost like you can see the leaves turning day by day. We have had a lot of rain and it makes the colors really pretty. The yellow fall colors are my favorite and you will see that on tomorrow’s Wordless Wednesday post. Well actually not just the fall colors. I am loving yellow right now. I don’t know why but it is my favorite color, right now. I don’t wear it a lot because it is not a good color for me to wear but I love everything else yellow.

I just have to share this book with you. If you are a cat lover or even if you are not, I hope you have seen the Broadway production of CATS. It is one of my favorites. Mark and I have seen it several times. I have the DVD of the production and I am taking it with me on Sister Trip so that the sisters can watch it. I ordered this book from AMAZON and I love it. Old Possum’s Book of Practical CATS by T.S. Eliot. Wow T.S. Eliot really understood CATS. The man was actually a genius when it came to poetry and he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948. I read this in one evening. Now I know all the words to the CATS CDs. And I sing them in a very loud voice. Much to the dismay of my family. HA HA!!!!

O.K. I am off to pack and take care of a few things for our trip tomorrow. I also have to give extra snuggle time to all the babies. Mommy snuggles are the best and they miss them when I am gone.

How is your week going so far?

Always remember,

Love your day your way!!!!!

October Funk??

Hello October, I know I say this at the beginning of every month but how can it be October already?

All of a sudden the leaves have started to turn so many different and beautiful colors. The temperatures have cooled considerably, my work has slowed down a lot, my favorite holidays are just around the corner. It is my absolute favorite time of year!!! Maybe you can explain to me then why I am in such a funk, Because I surely do not know. There is no specific reason that I can pinpoint. I feel like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. AND I DON’T KNOW WHY!!!!

I went to work the other day and mentioned to a couple of my co-workers that I was in a major funk. They too said they had been in a funk. Wait…. What is going on? So it’s not just me. Strangely knowing that others were feeling the same way didn’t make my funk any better. I just feel bad for them.

So let me see:
It could be because summer is over, nope I am not a big fan of summer and I’m tired of sweating.
It could be because Mercury is in Retrograde, Possible, I will have to think about that.
It could be because my underwear is too tight. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
It could be SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, It’s hard to believe because I love fall so much.
It could be COVID, I do truly believe that is a big part of the way I feel. I am so tired of hearing
about sickness and death. So many of my friends are sick right now from Covid. It’s so scary.
It could be because I secretly want to be in a rock band and travel the world and perform in a different city every night. I think that would be too tiring, I am a little lazier in my older age.

Or it could be that I am just in a big old temporary funk and I will soon work my way out of it. I think people go through periods in their lives when they think about lost loved ones and times gone by and it makes us a little sad. Maybe the changing of the seasons or a pandemic or having tight underwear makes us realize what we no longer have. Maybe this is a time to focus on what we do have in our lives right now this very minute: Fall leaves falling from the trees, beautiful colors, cooler weather, sweatah weatha, Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming!!!, I am alive healthy and blessed. I will focus on this.

Putting this into words actually makes me feel better already. So thanks for listening and thanks for reading.

And always remember

Love your day your way!!!!


Decisions Decisions

Hello friends, Do you know what absolutely bogs me down, stops me in my tracks and causes me to second guess every little thing I do? Decisions. Maybe you’re like that maybe you’re not.

During the course of my work day I have to make hundreds if not thousands of decisions. No I am not a doctor and no one’s life is hanging in the balance but yet decisions must be made. Little things that you don’t even think about. That’s a decision. It can be exhausting: Deep in your brain thousands of decisions are being made.

Some decisions will require more thought than others. Some will make you stop in your tracks and consult with someone else. God? Your spouse? A co-worker? I always turn my decisions over to God unless I forget and arrogantly think I can handle them on my own.

Did I make the right decision?
Did I make a mistake?
Did I give the decision enough thought?
Should I hold onto the decision and nurture it and pet it and name it George?
Will someone’s life be affected by my decision? Not life threatening but you know what I mean.
Will this decision lead to, GOD FORBID, another decision!!!!

You see where I coming from here, right? Case in point. My husband and I are trying to plan a beach vacation for maybe a week. What month?, Which days?, who will stay with the fur babies? the fur baby decision is a biggie. We either have to have someone come and stay at the house for most or all of the time. Molly has gotten so old and feeble we have to have someone here at our house just to get her in out of the heat in the middle of the day. And she stays in all the time now. We can’t take a chance on her being outside especially at night because of the C word. Coyotes, shhhhhhh. And now we have all the new kitties. What days can we both be off together?should we drive or fly? How many days?

WHEW!!!!! I am tired just thinking about it. Is it worth a few days on a sandy beach watching the ocean waves crash gently against the shore and if your lucky gently lapping against your toes? HECK YES!!!!! So I plug on.

I was never a parent, except to my fur babies. So I think when you are parenting you deal with about a million issues and decisions a day. That is what I have observed from my loved ones who are parents. So maybe I didn’t go through all of that and now decisions seem to overwhelm me. Yes I think that is it. Or maybe as I have gotten older I just don’t give a frack about what I do or what happens most of the time. Yes I think that is it. Or maybe it isn’t really important at all these decisions I think I “must” make. Yes I think that is it. Maybe. I don’t know. I can’t decide. And on that. I don’t have to because it doesn’t really matter.

Always remember

Love your day your way!!

Sunday Thoughts

Hello friends happy Sunday, it has been a very full week. We are still on kitten patrol over here. Feeding and caring for the kitten babies takes a lot of time. I always do the morning feedings and most of the evenings too if Mark is working. It is so much fun to go out in the mornings and see all the little kittens running and jumping they remind me of little popcorn kernels popping around everywhere. I was talking to my nephew on the phone a couple of days ago and he said so ” I hear you have become the crazy cat lady”. I said ” well I don’t know about that. Just because I now have six cats and am sitting here knitting a sock, Oh wait!!!! maybe I am!!!”

I get up early anyway and this helps out a lot because Molly, my big old girl, is still having the liver issues and she has to have a pill one to two hours before she can eat. So I get up, give Molly her pill, let Scruffy out to pee, feed Scruffy and Kitty Kitty and then feed the outside babies and mama kitty. Yep that’s eight. I usually do all of this even before I have my coffee. I just can’t bear to think of them hungry. I then get my coffee, breakfast, and get ready for work. By that time an hour or so has passed and I can feed Molly.

Orange kitty has won my heart he is such a playful goof ball. And what an eater. He is twice as big as the others.
This little guy seems to be the runt of the litter. He is very small but still very playful.

Molly is getting around a lot better. On Wednesday I was starting out the front door with my purse and keys. Molly comes to the door like she needed to go back out. I let her out to pee. She made the rounds of the front yard and just as I thought she was heading back in she veered to the side of the house and trotted off into the woods. This wouldn’t normally bother me except I was close to being late for work as it was. I ran back in the house and got the leash. I didn’t dare leave her out because she can’t handle the heat of the day. Back outside and no Molly!! I yelled for her, of course she’s almost completely deaf so that was a waste, and nothing. I went to the back of the house and no Molly!!! for an old lady who can barely walk because of stiff arthritic legs she had gotten away pretty quick. The temps were already high and the humidity felt like walking through water. My hair was frizzled beyond belief and I had sweat running everywhere. My makeup was history. I knew she would be back as soon as she had made her rounds through the woods and sure enough about fifteen minutes later she came wandering back. By this time I had already messaged my co workers and let them know I was running late.

Look at Molly feeling quite proud of herself after she made her mommy late for work. She know she’s still in charge.

Work was a full week of being busy. Our visitation has slowed but we are still fairly busy. This upcoming weekend will be Labor Day weekend and after that we will see shorter work hours and much fewer people. I am always ready for this breather.

I have been knitting on the blue stripped socks. I did almost an entire sock yesterday and today. I am almost out of yarn and trying to finish this sock without having to start another ball. I do have an extra ball but I hate to start one in the middle of a sock because it seems like you can never get the stitches quite tight enough. I remember telling another knitting friend that I finished an entire sock once in one day. She said yes you can do that but you will get nothing else done. This is so true. I get consumed with the stitches and nothing else gets done. It’s o.k. it’s sort of mindless therapy.

Will I make it without having to start another ball of yarn? I don’t think so. I still have several inches to go.

I also started another granny square afghan. I saw a picture of one I really liked on Instagram and I had almost all the same colors of yarn. I am using the same color sequence. Lord knows I do not want or need another afghan I may give this one to one of my nephews. But I just love making them. I realized I have become that aunt that knits and crochets things and gives them to her family whether they want them or not. HA!!!

I am loving this afghan. I throw all of it into a big green canvas bag so I can easily carry it with me when I go from room to room.

When I was growing up my grandmother made afghans for us all the time. Through the years they seemed to disappear one by one until we had very few of them left. My parents house had an old basement and part of it was a root cellar where my mama kept things she had canned. When my parents died and my sisters and I were cleaning everything out of the house we went down into the basement and found one of the afghans stuffed into the corner of the dirt cellar. Vines had grown through the afghan and it was covered in dirt and mud. My sisters refused to try and salvage it but I cut the vines away and it was actually in pretty good shape. All the stitches were still in tact. I took it home and cut the vines out piece by piece and washed it several times. It looked just like it had when she gave it to us. I still have it and treasure it because it was made by her.

This is the afghan my grandmother made. I think it looks pretty good to have been rescued from a root cellar.

I am glad to have the diversion of my fur babies. It keeps my mind off of the bastardly Covid virus. Not completely, because it has been hitting closer to home lately with lots of people I know and love getting sick and even having to be hospitalized.

I hope your weekend is going well and you will take a minute to say a prayer for the people in the path of hurricane Ida, The people who lost their lives in the airport attack in Kabul, The fires in the western states and all the people suffering from Covid. These things have been weighing heavy on my mind and heart this week.

Always remember,

Love your day your way!!!!