Happy List, 12/7-12/13

Here's some of what made me happy this week.

Sunday: I had a GREAT day with J. We went to see Quantum of Solace, and we decorated the trees, and I made sugar cookies, and we just had a lot of great time together. And woo, decorated trees!

Monday: Watching The Hulk, woo! And just having a great night with J.

Tuesday: Having a very peaceful night. Dinner with J – at the table, even! We never eat there. Then reading and watching Bones online, all while making homemade bread! Which came out perfectly, so my bread curse is officially lifted. Woo!

Wednesday: Playing the Sims, and finally getting to play the main family kids in college! It was fun. Gracie laying on my chest and purring while I petted her. Awww. :)

Thursday: Yesterday’s blog post was a best of holidailies pick! Woo! Playing the Sims and watching TV at night, and of course petting the dogs and cats at the same time.

Friday: Holding Gracie at night, as she purred on my chest. Watching Frosty with J, who was sick in bed (he has a nasty cold).

Saturday: Some good Sims time, and some good J time when he got home from work. Getting half of the car work done that it needs to pass inspection - and the rest should cost just a hair more than I had set aside for it, so while I was hoping for less, at least it wasn't a lot more, so I'm satisfied. Finding a new diner to go to in the area of my mechanic's. :)

March

I just finished my second Pulitzer Prize winning book. (And here, for some reason, I feel compelled to note that it isn't really just the second ever book I've read that has won a Pulitzer Prize - I read To Kill a Mockingbird a few years ago - it's merely the second since I decided to read 10 of them for my 101 list.)

March
by Geraldine Brooks
2006
Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction in 2006

March tells the story of the only really unknown member of the March family from Little Women - the father, who during most of the original book is away at war. Not much of his tale is told in the original book, and this is something Geraldine Brooks sets out to change in March.

During this book, Mr. March becomes so much more than an absent father. He is fleshed out into a human being, desperate to help the slaves become free, while away from his family. He has triumphs and he has failures. The reader becomes engrossed in his story, as it entwines with the lives of so many others - former slaves, mostly, plus a man trying to make his fortune in cotton on a leased farm, and a woman he first met when he was 18. A woman who was born of a white estate owner and one of his slaves. This woman is educated - a rarity during a time when it was illegal to teach blacks so much as the alphabet. And what Mr. March feels for her isn't purely friendship.

Geraldine Brooks spins her tale alongside the story told in Little Women, masterfully weaving in the life of Mr. March to make the original novel more complete. I very much enjoyed this book, from beginning to end, and can easily see why it won the Pulitzer. I highly recommend it, and give it 5 out of 5 stars.

Puppy Pictures!

It's doggy day! Woo! I love doggy day. This week I decided to give the dogs a break from the camera stalking. I took a few pictures, but that's all. Why? Because J got out Rosebud and McDuff's puppy pictures! So I scanned a few to share with you. Are you ready for adorable overload?

Today



11 and 12 Years Ago





Cute as can be, right? I wish I could have known them back then.

Willow and Bernie

I can't ignore Willow and Bernie, so here are some pictures of them, too!

To all the f**kheads of the world

Dear f**khead:

It is NOT necessary to go 35 mph in a 55 mph zone just because it's winter. If the roads are covered in snow or ice, okay. But not when they're just slightly wet. Push down harder on your gas pedal or get the f**k out of my way.

Also, if you go 30-35 for miles when I'm not able to pass you, and then you make it through a yellow light and I have to stop for it because it's turned red, then you're not only a f**khead, you're also an a**hole.

Congratulations on making me cuss you out and flip you off, even though I rarely do that. You should be proud.

Sincerely,

The girl who was trapped behind you and just wanted to get to work without being late.

Dear other f**khead:

When I e-mailed you and asked you how many copies you would need printed, it was so I could get a quote from a printer for you. When you replied, "I don't know, what are the price breaks," you also became a f**khead. Congratulations. I asked the printer, but surprise! They can't tell us a price until they know what range you're in. Do you want 50? 100? 1,000? It makes a big difference. Now tell me how many you need! F**khead.

Sincerely,

The girl who hates life today, and it's only 8:43 a.m.

Dear Holidailies:

Thank you for the kind e-mail! I'm so glad that yesterday's entry was picked as a "best of holidailies" entry. Your e-mail may just be the turning point in a day that was trying to become sh**ty. You are not f**kheads.

Sincerely,

The girl who is so happy to have a best of! Woo!

Recipe for a Relaxing Evening

Ingredients:

Bread dough
Dogs
Cats
Fiancé
Great book to read
TV online

For a truly enjoyable evening, take the ingredients for two loaves of homemade white bread, mix them together, knead them until your arms are sore, and then let them rise. Watch TV until your fiancé comes home.

When fiancé arrives, just as bread dough is ready to be punched down and shaped into loaves, greet him in the garage with the dogs, kiss him hello, and talk about your days together while he reads through his mail. Be a true multi-tasker, and while talking, put the salmon in the broiler, put together the ingredients for some instant cheesy mashed potatoes, and put them in the microwave for ten minutes. Punch down the bread dough and separate it into two loaves, then let it rest for five minutes while you sit at table with fiancé, talking to the man who is your best friend, lover and future husband all wrapped up in one.

Hear the timer go off, announcing that the potatoes are done. This also means that your bread dough is ready to be shaped, so ask your fiancé to check the salmon, while you form the bread dough into a loaf shape. Finish that and put it next to the heater to rise again, while the fiancé sets the table. Eat at the table! For the first time in months. Once you have enjoyed the salmon and potatoes, and some nice dinner conversation, clear the table and go into the living room.

At this point the fiancé will go into the bedroom to watch a DVD that he got in the mail that day, while you stay in the living room and read a great book. When you get tired of reading, watch an episode of Bones online while petting a cat. Finally, at 8:35 or so, put the bread dough in the oven, because it has finally risen enough to be baked. Continue to pet cats and dogs while watching TV online until the bread is done – take it out, declare it perfect, spread some butter on top of it, and put it on racks to cool. Salivate over the idea of warm from the oven homemade bread. Mmmm.

Wait for a whole five minutes before you cut into it and eat two slices, generously topped with margarine. Declare your bread baking curse to officially be over, because you have now made two different recipes in the last three weeks, and they both came out perfect. Yum.

Fiancé, who fell asleep watching his DVD comes out of the bedroom. Hug fiancé. Get ready for bed, and hit the hay, happy to have spent a relaxing evening at home.

Cat Pictures Old and New

Tuesday is kitty picture day here on my blog, woo! I have some good ones to show you today, too.

Gracie has a little bit of a cold, so she's been hanging out at the heater even more than usual. Bernie doesn't have a cold, but he loves sleeping next to it anyway. :)

Zelda is a good sister to Gracie, awww. "You don't feel good? Here, let me wash your head while you soak in the heat."

Okay, this picture of Sable kind of sucks. I owe her better next week.

Can you believe these cats...




Used to be this little?

This is Kate when she was a wee little kitten. I don't know how old she was - maybe five or six weeks? Look how little and cute!

This is Lucy and Kate's Mom, feeding her three kittens. That's Kate on the left, Lucy on the right, and their brother in the middle (he went to a different home, obviously). Doesn't Lucy look just like her mother? Aww.

The Life of Emile Zola

A quick explanation for anyone who's coming here from holidailies and isn't a regular reader: I'm watching all of the Best Picture Academy Award winning movies (well, all that are available on DVD - there are a couple that aren't). When I watch one, I post a bit of a review here, which is what this entry is.

And without further ado:

The Life of Emile Zola
1937
Starring:
Paul Muni
Joseph Schildkraut
Vladimir Sokoloff

This is a movie about Emile Zola, a writer and political activist from the 1800s (who also happens to be best friends with Paul Cezanne). It starts out when he and Cezanne are young and poor, sharing a small apartment with holes in the windows. He sees injustices and writes books about them, which actually get printed, and he becomes rather famous for these. After a while he has gotten so rich and famous (and older) that he feels like he has done his time as an activist, and wants no more to do with it. Until...

Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason (this all takes place in France, by the way), but he's innocent. The French government needed someone to take the fall for the crime, and he was the one chosen. He was sentenced to an isolated island, trapped in a one room cell, with hardly even the necessities to stay alive (ha! I'm listening to Staying Alive as I write that. Funny, yes? :). Even after proof comes to light that shows his innocence and another man's guilt, they refuse to set him free, because if they admit they were wrong, it will look bad for them.

So Emile ends up fighting for him - landing him in trouble with the government, and ending up on trial himself for slander.

This movie started our really slowly, and I was afraid this was going to be the first Oscar winning movie that I wouldn't like at all. But of course, it got better. I mean, all of these movies won Best Picture, it's not like they're going to suck. Once the things started happening with Dreyfus, it got much better.

I won't give away the whole ending, in case you want to watch it for yourselves. :)

I give this movie 4 stars out of 5. It could have started off less boring, but otherwise it was very good.

(By the way - I love old movies, I really do, but I'm thinking I'm going to need to watch some newer movies soon, because I'm kind of wearing thin on the black and white movies full of actors who are now dead. It's a good thing we have the new Hulk movie at home to watch.)

(Also, on a non-movie related note, it's freaking cold here today (3 degrees when I got to work), and it's very cold in my office, and I'm sick of being cold. It either needs to be spring now, or I need to move south again.)

(Asides over. Thanks. :)

Happy List, 11/30-12/6

Here's this week's happy list! These are some of the things that made me smile and made me happy this last week.

Sunday: Spending Sunday evening with J, woo! Getting our tree up, and the lights on – the decorations will be added soon.

Monday: Spending a great evening with J. :) Having an appointment to get something personal scheduled, which I really want done.

Tuesday: Getting my date for the above thing (sorry for the cryptic). Relaxing and watching House at night, and reading a book during commercials (March, my next Pulitzer Prize winning book).

Wednesdsay: One of my credit cards will be paid off in just three months! Woo!

Thursday: I figured out more plot for the future of my Sims legacy! I’m very excited about it. J came home to me, even though he had to leave 2 hours later to go back to work. Aww. :) Spending two hours with him, eating a nice dinner and then just hugging and watching TV together. Also, Michelle called to thank me for the blanket I made for her daughter. :) I didn’t even hear the phone, because we were watching TV in the bedroom, but I appreciated the call a lot. I don’t think anyone has ever called to thank me for something I’ve made for them before!

Friday: I found some great Sims 2 downloads online, woo! A nice evening with J.

Saturday: Getting a bit of Sims time in. Sable on my shoulder, purring into my ear.

Don't look too long at the picture if you're squeamish

Cats are predators. We've domesticated them (and their canine counterparts), but we haven't bred that instinct to hunt out of them. I'm reminded of that fact every once in a while when I find a dead mouse in my house in the morning - today I was reminded of it in a much more immediate way.

See that picture? That is a live mouse in Zelda's mouth. She caught it behind my desk, where I was sitting at the time. Fun! Not. I have no problem with mice - when they're outside. I like them, I think they're cute, they can live in the fields all they want. But inside they're destructive, so I applaud the cats' instincts to kill them. I just have a little bit of a problem with them killing mice while I'm home (and awake). Ick.

She hasn't killed this one, yet. I tried to rescue it - I grabbed its tail (with a paper towel, so I didn't actually touch it), and when Zelda let go, I was going to put it in an empty cereal box and take it outside. But it wriggled and fell on the floor, and Zelda went after it again. Only she did what cats do - she let go of it, because aparently half of the fun of hunting is playing with your prey - if you're a cat, that is. And it ran across the living room, and disappeared. Zelda and Sable have been on the hunt for it, but it hasn't turned back up yet. I really hope it didn't go under the door into our bedroom. Excuse me while I shudder at the thought.

If it did, I'm pretty sure it can find its way out - pretty much the same way it found its way in. I'm not sure how long it will live though - I don't know if the wounds Zelda gave it were surface wounds or deeper. We'll see.

Anyway. I was going to do an Oscar movie post today - I watched The Life of Emile Zola the other night. I'm going to hold that until Monday, though. This mouse post is good enough for today, don't you think?

Okay, I'm going to go back to cheering Zelda and Sable on. Find that mouse, cats! Hunt!

Dogs, Dogs and More Dogs!

Yay, holidailies starts today! For anyone who is coming here for the first time from that site, Fridays on my blog are Doggy Picture Day - my own dogs, of course (and my fiance's). Although I could post other people's dogs, too. I just don't have many pictures of other people's dogs. :) Anyway, enough of me rambling. The dogs are the stars of the show today!

This Morning

Rosie: "Oh no, she's got that stupid camera out again."

Duff: "She does? It must be doggy day!"

Rosie: "I guess I better look at her then, so that she'll go away. I'm not smiling, though."

Bernie: "I was just in the bathroom with you while you were getting ready. Then I followed you in here. Are you going somewhere else now? Cuz I'll follow you there, too."

Willow: "Zzzzzzzz." (For the record, Bernie followed me to the living room, too.)

Heater Worship is Going Strong

This shot kind of sucks, but I had to take it, because I had never seen Rosie sitting that close to Bernie before. She was leaning right up against him! Awww. Now if only Willow wasn't a bitch to the other dogs, maybe they'd all love each other! Sigh.

Heater worship is open to dogs AND cats (and humans, although they're not pictured by it as frequently - okay, ever).

I Loved This One

I happened to have the camera with me when Willow was sitting on the futon like this. Ha! She makes me laugh so much.

Stuff I love

I'm feeling kind of down today. I don't have any reason to feel down, though - I'm blaming hormones, because my hormones are all effed up, so they're likely the reason. Stupid effing hormones.

Anyway, in an effort to turn this mood around, I'm posting today with a list of things I love - in no particular order, other than how they come to mind.

J. Willow, Bernie, McDuff, Rosie. Lucy, Kate, Zelda, Gracie, Sable. My friends. Some of my family (okay all of them, even though they don't all deserve it). J's family (especially his parents, because they love me). The pets of all the people I know. All animals everywhere, really - large, small, furry or otherwise. Pandora's new quickmix station, that takes songs from all of my stations, making the best mix, it's great. Bob Seger's music. Sandra Bullock's movies. Books. My 101 list, for making me start watching so many Oscar winning movies, and for making me start to read some great Pulitzer Prize winning novels. My eyes. My engagement ring. Chocolate, especially brownies, chocolate cake, chocolate cookies, candy bars - okay, that's pretty much all chocolate (ooh, and hot chocolate). Sugar cookies. Diet Pepsi. Spending time with J. Chatting online with Sarah all day between work things. Having lunch with Jamie and Jen everyday at work. Vacations. Long holiday weekends. Regular weekends. The Sims 2. The Internet. My down comforter and flannel duvet. Laying in bed, on my side, with J spooned up behind me, his arm around my belly. Kisses from McDuff. Hugs from Bernie. Willow's beautiful brown eyes. Rosie jumping up and giving me hugs. Zelda sitting in front of me on my desk, while I hug her close. Gracie sitting on my desk with her lower half, her upper half on my belly. Cat purrs. Sable on my shoulder, rubbing her head into my ear. Lucy coming to me for loving when I'm peeing (they all love poop loving, whether I'm pooping or not). Kate bitching at me until I finally pick her up and hold her. Netflix. Netflix's online movies. TV online. My DVR. Getting cards in the mail. Getting one of my credit cards paid off (woo!).

J hugs.

Some of the great animal pictures I've taken since I started posting dog and cat picture days (which I really need to organize on my hard drives, so that I can find them for posts like this). Pictures of J, which show off his blue eyes and his great smile. That picture I took of myself with Zelda.

This video:

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

All of you who read this. Thank you.

And lots more stuff, but I think this is long enough now.

Christmas is Coming

Sunday when J came home from work, he brought me two great gifts - Christmas presents, but he gave them to me early. Why? Because one was a Grinch t-shirt (he got himself a matching one), and the other was Grinch and Max pajamas! Those are the coolest pajamas, you have no idea. I love pajamas.

So, that picture is of our tree, with the dolphin next to it, all lit up. Pretty, right? We still need to put the ornaments on the tree, but at least it's up and has lights on it. I love Christmas decorations. They're fun. I'm so glad that J likes to decorate for the holidays - all of them, not just Christmas.

I made these sugar cookies on Saturday or Sunday - I don't remember now. It's in my happy list for last week, but I'm too lazy to look to see what day it was. :D Anyway, they were amazing, and now they're gone, and I want more of them. Thanks for the recipe, Sarah! J asked me to make more, too - I wasn't the only one who loved them. I may have to make a double batch next time, so that they last longer than three or four days. :)

I'm happy about Christmas this year. Even though I am broke because of my car (stupid cars). I'm hoping I can get it fixed for less than I have saved for it, so that I can still buy presents for J. He doesn't want any from me, because he knows I need to fix my car (and then pay taxes in January on my house), but how can I not buy him something? It feels wrong. I love him so much, and I love giving him things.

Of course, I am doing something on New Year's Eve that is for him as much as for me, so that can be my present to him, I guess, if I can't afford to buy him something. (I don't really want to say what it is on here, I don't know why. But it's something that we both want, and it's a good thing.)

Also Christmas Day is the one year anniversary of J proposing to me. :) That still makes me so happy. I'm kind of looking forward to some day calling him my husband, instead of my fiance.

I somehow love the holidays this year. It's a good feeling.

Lucy!

Lucy is my 11 1/2 year old calico cat. She's named after Lucy Eleanor Moderatz, Sandra Bullock's character from my favorite chick flick of all time, While You Were Sleeping. She's a super sweet cat, and she almost never gets on my lap - almost never. When she does, the house would pretty much have to be burning down for me to kick her off - I won't put her down for much of anything, because her jumping up on me for loving is so rare. She actually used to get on my lap a lot, until I adopted Gracie and Zelda, and then she stopped. Not that she holds their presence against them in any way - she acts like she's their mother, and has since right after I brought them home.

Lucy's pictures don't do her justice, but here are a few anyway.


Lucy likes to sit under furniture.

J bought this Dolphin last year, and this year he has it set up in the living room. Only I bring it into the bathroom at night, to make sure the cats don't accidentally knock it over while they're playing in the living room when we're sleeping. Lucy, meet J's dolphin. :)

Christmas themed pictures, woo! I was following her around with the camera, and she climbed up the stairs and sat in front of these stockings. :) (Please ignore the dust on the stair edges, okay? Okay.)

Cats who aren't Lucy

Kate was hiding in her house when I took pictures, so here's one from the past - it's demon eyed Kate on the stairs, agh! :)

Sable is such a love bug. This is her asking me to pet her face, this morning, while I was getting ready for work.

Heater worship has begun! We got some kerosene for the heater, and J started it up this weekend. The animals loved it. Here are Gracie and Zelda hanging out next to it.

Movie and Book Update

Two of the items on my 101 list are to watch all the Best Picture Academy Award winners and to read 10 Pulitzer Prize winning novels. I knocked one of each off my list this weekend.

The Movie

The Great Ziegfeld
1936
William Powell
Myrna Loy
Frank Morgan
Luise Rainer

This was the story of Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr., a famous Broadway producer. You've heard of Ziegfeld's Follies, right? That's the guy. It showcased his personal and professional life, from when he was managing a "world's strongest man" exhibit at the world's fare to his death.

It was an enjoyable movie. The only real fault I had with it was that they showed too much of the stage shows he put on. It was over 3 hours long, and could have been a lot shorter if they had cut that. Which they could have, without hurting the story at all. But then, it was 1936, so audiences were very different. Maybe they liked watching that stuff then.

The other exciting thing about it were that the Wizard from the Wizard of Oz was in it, and so was the scarecrow! Well, that excited me, anyway.

So. Very good performances by all involved, and very enjoyable if you like classic movies and you have three hours free. You might want to go to the bathroom or go get snacks during the show scenes, though.

I gave this movie 4 out of 5 stars.

The Book

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Diaz
2008 Pulitzer Prize Winner (Fiction)

This book tells the tale of the life of Oscar Wao, a true blue geek. He's fat, he loves sci-fi, comic books and role playing games. He has never been kissed, and may just die a virgin. But he loves women, and yearns to have one of his own. His story is told through the eyes of a friend, and covers not only Oscar's story, but also his mother's and some of his sister's, as well. The story is very engaging, and once I got into it, I couldn't put it down. I sat at home yesterday and read probably the last half of the book, not going to bed until I finished.

My only complaint about this book isn't really a complaint, it's just something that made it hard for me to get into the book at first. Oscar and his family are Dominican, and that culture is basically a character in the story. I come from a world very different from that, so it was hard at first for me to get involved in it, or to understand it. Of course, it might have been easier if the author didn't keep using Spanish phrases without giving a translation for those of us who don't speak Spanish.

Still, once I got used to the language, and learned a bit more about the culture that was so important to the story, it was very easy to get involved in Oscar's life, and it really was an engaging read. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars.

Happy List, 11/23-11/29

Sunday: Stepping on the scale and seeing I had lost 4 pounds since Friday, woo! Watching two movies – Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and Grand Hotel. Starting to read "The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" (the first of 10 Pulitzer Prize winning novels I’m reading for my 101 list). Knitting a little bit on my sweater sleeve. Seeing J when he got home from work.

Monday: Getting on the scale and seeing I have now lost 4.5 pounds since Friday. Woo! Finding out that J’s father offered to come pick me up for Thanksgiving dinner, since J is going to be at work in the morning. Aww! I got day six of the bachelor challenge written and online, woo! It is now finished, and I can get back to finishing up everything else so that I can move on to my other legacy. Also, J and I had a GREAT evening together, which made me very, very happy.

Tuesday: Getting quite a bit done in the Sims. :) Seeing dog tracks in the snow on the porch (even though I hated that the snow was even there).

Wednesday: Getting out of the garage through J’s door, when mine wouldn’t open. I have skills! My long weekend started at 4:15! J coming home. :) I miss him when he’s gone.

Thursday: Spending four hours with Jim and his family for Thanksgiving. Playing the Sims in the morning, and finishing some goals that I had there.

Friday: Spending the whole day with J! Once he got up, but he was up way earlier than I would have expected, so I got a whole long day with him. I’ve been missing him like crazy, so it felt really good to get that much time together. Starting to put up our Christmas decorations! I think I’m going to love Christmas this year – I’m in just the right mood for it, even if I am broke. :)

Saturday: Putting up more decorations! Baking sugar cookies! Eating sugar cookies! Playing a little Sims while J napped!

Thanksgiving Weekend

There are boxes of decorations all over the living room. The table is covered in papers and junk. The floor hasn't been vacuumed, so there are hair balls everywhere. The futon needs a clean sheet to cover it.

And I am very happy, becuase J has been home with me since yesterday morning. This is the longest I've been with him in weeks.

He's off getting us lunch right now, and I'm sitting here waiting for him. I've mixed up some sugar cookie dough (from Sarah's Mom's recipe), and now it's chilling in the fridge for three hours. Later this afternoon I'll roll it out, cut out cookies using the new cutters we got yesterday, and bake them. Then I'll make some frosting (because I don't have any canned frosting), frost them, and decorate them, and J and I will have Christmas cookies. And yeah, it's still November, but Thanksgiving is over, so it's okay.

Oh, and we're decorating for Christmas, and putting up the tree this afternoon.

I like today a lot. I liked yesterday a lot. It's been a good weekend so far.

Willow Billow Bo Billow

Willow and I had a little photo session on Saturday, and I got some great shots of my camera shy dog. That means today is Willow day!








I love this last one. It's currenty my desktop wallpaper. :)

Dogs who aren't Willow

Duff loves his big brother Bernie. He looks up to him. When they go outside, he follows him and pees next to him. I've wanted to get a picture of it forever, and Saturday I finally did. :)

We started putting up Christmas decorations today. My Mom made this Santa rug, and every year it's a big hit with the dogs. Rosie was the first to make it her own today. :)

Happy Thanksgiving

So, another Thanksgiving has come and gone. It was a nice one. J had to go to work in the morning, and then has to go again this evening, so I drove to meet him at his parents' house, and hung out there for a while, having dinner and enjoying their company.

It was nice, sitting around the table after dinner, with a full belly, listening to his family tell stories and remember things and people who have come and gone. It kind of made me sad, though, because suddeny I was missing my own family. Not my sister and her family, really - I was going back further and missing my mother, my step-father, and all of the family who surrounded them. I'll never sit at a table with J, listening to my Mom tell stories of the past, like I sat there and listened to his Dad tell stories.

It's stupid. She's been gone eight years, but sometimes the grief pops back up.

Oh well. It was a very nice day, with delicious food (I even liked the turkey, and I usually don't really like turkey dinners), great company, and I got to spend four hours of it with the man I love. I'm missing him right now, but with any luck, he'll be home most of the next three days (I'm crossing my fingers that work will leave him the eff alone for three days - it probably won't happen, but I'm hoping for it anyway, because the man needs a rest, and I miss him). Also, I got sent home with a small plate of frosted sugar cookies, yum. I hope J got his fill of them at their house, because the ones his Mom gave me are gone. :)

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I hope you had a great day with family (even if you weren't celebrating Thanksgiving).

Snow and Thanksgiving and Stuck Garage Doors

It snowed all day yesterday. By the time I got home, the snow was really thick and heavy again, and I was sure I'd be having to spend an hour shoveling my driveway this morning before I could leave for work. You know, I try to see this stuff as pretty - it was seriously looking like Christmas movie snow outside yesterday morning, and again last night. But I can't help hating it. I hate shoveling it, I hate driving in it. Yuck.

Anyway. So this morning I was up early, in case I had to shovel the driveway to get out. Well, I didn't have to shovel, really - I was still able to back out without doing that. But it was a good thing I got up early anyway, because my garage door wouldn't open! These doors are old, and the tracks that the doors slide up and down on have some bends in them at various places, which allow the wheels to slip out of the tracks. Which one of them did on my door, and I couldn't get it back in, and couldn't even budge the garage door a little bit.

So. J is at work - he didn't come home last night. His truck was there, so I could have taken that if I couldn't get my car out of the garage, but frankly that thought didn't even occur to me until right now (I can't drive his car because it's standard, and I've never driven his truck, so they don't really occur to me as vehicles I can take if I need to). So how am I going to get to work? I'm parked in the garage in front of a non-functional garage door.

I totally maneuvered that car so that I could get it out the second garage door. And I SUCK at backing up, so I'm very proud of myself. Woo! I didn't even hit anything! It's momentous, believe me. I couldn't believe I did it. But I did! And I even got to work 15 mintues early. :)

So. Now it's the day before Thanksgiving. I'm at work, but I have the next two days off. And I might even get to see J for a significant portion of my time off! He may have to go in if he gets called in, but he should (hopefully) be home at least a bit more than he has been. Which is good, because I miss him. :)

Tomorrow I'm going to J's parents' house for Thanksgiving dinner. They invited me, and not only that, but his Dad actually offered to drive out to pick me up if I wanted him to! Which is very sweet, because I live about an hour away from them (and J has to be at work in the morning, and then again at night, so I'm going to have to drive myself to his parents' for dinner). I loved that he offered to do that, because it was just nice to know that I'm wanted there, you know? That J's parents like me enough to go out of their way to get me there if need be. It's nice to feel welcomed into his family - even more so than in my own, half the time.

So I'll be at his parents' house for dinner, assuming we aren't having a blizzard, but I'll be leaving fairly early after dinner - I don't like driving in the dark, much. Oncoming headlights blind me, which makes it very uncomfortable to drive at night. So I'll be home all evening. I'll update then. Until then, I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving (at least those of you in the U.S.). Enjoy lots of turkey and pumpkin pie and whatever football games that are on TV, okay? I'll talk to you again tomorrow.

The dogs' tracks in the snow were prettier when I walked back into the house to get my camera, but then Bernie came back up and walked all over them. Sigh. Still, I love seeing animal tracks in the snow, don't you?

Gracie Day!

I decided this week's cat day would be Gracie Day. Mostly because she gave me the best pictures. :) Here she is!

Gracie likes to ask for loving in the morning, while I'm getting ready for work


I don't know why the lighting turned all yellow in this one. Doesn't it look like a picture that's been sitting in an old film camera for a long time?




Cats who aren't Gracie