Friday Cat Blogging

Small Cat wants to get this party started .

Spring in the winter.

I am not just sitting around watching TV and playing with my cleaver. I am also reading my mail

Did you know they make blue potatoes? I'm sure I have said nasty things about them in the past, but this year I want them and I want them bad. Not bad enough to buy them from Burpee, but bad enough to do a quick Google search to find them cheaper. And I did! A third of the price too! for more!  Suck on that Burpee! and while I was cheating on Burpee, I learned that another  fancy variety of spud I had wanted from them is not as pest and disease resistant as I would like. The more you know... I think the rest of the seed potatoes I get this year I'm going to get locally. And there will be "the rest". This spring should be spudtastic.

I know those look purple but they are blue. They are the official carb of the DNC.

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Hello Children!

I'm pretty sure I'm writing to an empty room. This is always the slowest, lowest readership time of the year. You are not around your computer and have other ways to keep yourselves occupied - perhaps you are spending your winter break Occupying , which is terrific and more power to you! or you are just sleeping late and catching up with your DVR - whatever. I feel you.

In honor of all these things keeping us all busy, and because it seems that none of the sites I read on a daily basis are active until after the New Year, I also will be taking off. More or less. I'll be around but not posting on my regular schedule, because  if no one else is putting in the effort, and I don't want to be the lone grade grubber making everyone else look bad with my dedication to providing new content to the masses. Totally.

Oh, I got a cleaver for Christmas. I will never be laughed at by food again. Roll away from me now... whack, whack, whack! Tonight, for the first time, I had a normally insolent chicken breast call me Ma'am. I wanted it cubed and damn it, it cubed.

Friday Cat Blogging, Christmas-Style

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

Recovery

I worked all day and spent only briefest of time face down on my keyboard, went to Broskey and Alphagals' for Broskeys Birthday and had a fab time, came home coughed up only a minimal portion of spleen, thought about emptying the dishwasher, didn't. Went to bed.

Health.

I finally got in touch with my doctor who got me in touch finally with some antibiotics. I'm feeling much better all ready.

I'm feeling so much better that I was able to (finally) wrap Broskeys birthday gift and then I spent an extended period of time digging around in the attic for another gift  and even after all that, I was still able to go to the store to pick up some things I had been needing but not able to get because I needed to be asleep by 7:30. This is a lot! I haven't got this much accomplished in a single evening since, since, two weeks ago? And I did a grand total of almost nothing.

I'm feeling so well that  when I went to the store, I actually remembered to buy everything I needed! I now have adequate bathroom paper products to make it through the new year. I have a lot of paper products now, I have stacks of toilet paper and mounds of paper towels. I can spill anything and clean it up immediately. Lately I've been just letting the animals take care of spills, because I can't - a much more environmentally responsible solution to household spills, but sticky if the animals  aren't through enough quickly enough.

But, here it is after eight and I'm not all ready asleep! And I can do this and follow interact with Dogger while following a TV show without getting helplessly confused and anxious. Wow. And I'm pretty sure I'm not high on cough suppressant.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROSKEY!!!!!!

Ow.

Dogger just doesn't understand I want to  collapse on the my chair and read my magazine and be still, ideally, with Small Cat in my lap. Dogger won't let me just be! She wants to sit in the door way and whine and whistle and whimper while Small Cat and I are trying to relax.

If I go and get Dogger so she can lay next to my chair and be still, she wants to jump and spin around and be active. I want to recover which precludes "activity". To calm Dogger down, I take Dogger outside to pee, but the outside is cold, and she wants to wander around. I want to sit on my chair and heal, I can not heal in the yard. I bring her back in the house and she wants to play. She does not get it! Small Cat gets it, he wants me to be still so he can curl up on sleep.  He does not "get" coughing.

In addition to all this my teeth hurt. It feels like the second day with braces or I spent the day with Helga the Nazi Hygienist getting a very through teeth cleaning. And my head hurts. On the upside, I did buy approximately a metric ton of  kleenex so I do have a handy solution to this pain but I also feel that I do not want to look like Rudolph, even in the privacy of my own home. And blowing my nose scares the cat.

Oh, and my entire rib cage hurts. Front and back.  Cough. Cough. I called my doctors office today to say I have these symptoms and should I come in and in any case could they please write me a script for a cough syrup that could make all this stop. I need two, one for night and one for day. I could get one at the store but they have a bad habit of being great at stopping coughs but not great for the rest of my health. OTC is for young people.

We were all at lunch and  some one said something funny and I laughed and then I had a fun coughing spasm. In front of my boss.

Boss Buddy - Is she all right?
Boss - Why are you looking at me? I'm a social worker! You're a nurse! Is she all right? Be a nurse!
Boss Buddy 2 - Lets move on from here.

I feel the need to point out that BB2 was my  boss for years. Clearly, I was fine but damn.

In sickness (mine)

Hello! I'm hack, hack, choke, gag back! And depending on when you catch me, I may or may not be about to die. For example, right now I am not going to die but earlier, I really was ready to go towards the light.

I  was able to stay up until 10pm Saturday night but that might have had more to do with Mucinex that I'm not taking anymore. The Mucinex by the way earned a big FAIL by the way.  I don't think it helped much and it made me speedy. I didn't have access to the directions while at the store but it says quite clearly that it should not be taken by individuals with high blood pressure and thyroid disease - They don't talk about that in the adds and it might have well come with a sticker that said "Diana! Don't buy this! , so of course I did . IN my defence, I did not feel well at the time.

I do not feel well a lot of the time. I closed on the house refi on Friday while feeling not well. I'm sure there were a lot of questions I should have been asking but the drive there and then having to sit up the whole time was just making me very tired. It would have helped if I had been notified more than twenty minutes ahead of time that I was closing!  I told them I would not be closing in twenty minutes and that we would have to reschedule the appointment . So we changed it to 2:15.

In their defence, they did call every number in the building trying to reach me. A lot of people wanted me know that a lawyer had called for me. Oddly, no one thought it was for a benign reason. Do I seem like someone who would have lawyers after them for non-benign reasons? I was a little concerned by their concern.

Hack, hack, cough, choke, gag

Friday Cat Blogging

I have been a very patient kitty Santa, for Christmas I want my own everything!

Sickness

Still sick. I have much more voice but much more sore throat and sore muscles and a new and improved constant hacking cough. Yay? progress? On the upside it is now 7:39pm EST and I'm not  surprised by this and feeling like it must really be much, much later because I am so exhausted.

As long as I don't swallow or breath deeply, I feel almost normal.

Tomorrow I'm going to check out the gas station to see if they sell hot chocolate. This morning, after I recoved from the triathlon of brushing my teeth - I had to stand up, I had to hold my hand up while griping  the toothbrush and I still had to keep myself upright - I picked some up at McDonald's and it set me back some bills. I know I said large but I know I did not say drain my wallet. They must think morning customers are just stupid. I, at least can say I'm sick so I have that going for me. The minute I'm feeling better though, no more McDonald's hot chocolate for me.

Typhoid Ace

Okay, my side of the story.

Monday night I was digging through a box of left over Christmas decorations and ran across another box that as it turned out, contained a cat sized Santa suit. A complete cat sized Santa suit. I thought that since Tex had enjoyed wearing it that perhaps Ace might also enjoy being festive.

Tex was a supermodel and he traveled with his own personal hair and make-up people and he knew his key light. Tex loved getting his picture taken and even seemed to enjoy wearing costumes. I have over a thousand pictures of him throughout his life time, attesting to how genuinely photogenic and co-operative he was. Ace is not a supermodel. Ace is  barely an adequate model. He's young, he'll learn.

Anyway, the costume comes with a hat and a beard= but I want to make it clear that I at no time put the beard on. I didn't even make him keep the hat one once it became clear that Ace is not a hat person, I respect that.

He did look very cute in the coat and it was a bit chilly, so I left it on. I decided that he would thank me when he noticed how toasty warm he was. Well, after a while it became clear that he is by nature, cool, and he didn't really like being warm and he was  laying on the floor looking really festive but oddly flat, fine, I took the coat off. It turns out he can be seasonally appropriate or walk  but not at the same time. Who knew?

And then later I went to bed. I woke up with laryngitis, a sore throat, a stuffed head, a raging chest cold and a headache. A normal cat would have just thrown up in my shoes.A real curb buster our Ace. I'm not sure that being some sort of feline Typhoid Mary is a marketable skill, but Ace has it in spades.

Joy!!

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare Him room,

And Heaven and nature sing,

And Heaven and nature sing,

And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.

Joy to the world, the Savior reigns!

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat the sounding joy,

Repeat, repeat, the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found,

Far as the curse is found,

                                                      Far as, far as, the curse is found.

(I have never heard this verse)

 

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness,

And wonders of His love,

And wonders of His love,

And wonders, wonders, of His love.

Why am I joyful?

Those are the cards and the dog cookies and they are going out,out,out! I mailed out the last two cookie boxes and I finished up the cards and mailed them out all ready. I am giddy about labels! The treats and cards for the people at the office are set to be delivered tomorrow. Yay!!!!

Adding to the pile.

Did lots of Dogger-centric things this weekend ( made cookies, took Dogger to see Santa, made her Christmas cards), did not spend a lot of time with Dogger. I also saw every single house on the Historic District Christmas Tour of Homes. All eleven, on foot thank-you-very-much. In order. In order damn it! No skipping around for me. They call me hardcore.

All this did not kill me, no it only made me stronger. I took this new personal growth and  bought plastic sheet protectors and a binder - No. I did not steal these items from work, where we have lots of them that no one keeps track of other than myself  which would be easier and cheaper but morally wrong, and put all my recipes that I've run off the computer or tore out of magazines. Prior to this burst of organizational  do-gooding, they were folded up in the front of a cookbook. On topic but it wasn't easy to find things. Now it is easy to find things. Yay.
I also put up my creche set and brought out my Christmas paper. No word as to when I'm going to to wrap anything, but its good to be prepared, because I might just get crazy and wrap stuff. I think I would rather just tell people where their gifts are and have them go get them. Maybe play hide and seek or something or "guess which gift is meant for you". I think that one would be fun and telling.  Good for the environment too. I think its something to pursue, maybe I'll alert Moveon and the Conservation people.

I made more dog treats because there is nothing I need like more dog cookies on premise. I got rid of most of them but there are still some on the shelf and I thought they were lonely. To cure this, I made some big cookies for the big dogs. It didn't make near as many as the little cookies for the little dogs. Double edged sword, that. I also experimented with a cookie sheet I bought that looked like it would make neat, shaped cookies. It didn't. It made un-neat, shapeless cookies that made me sad. Lesson learned.

Another lesson learned? LABELS I can make labels for my cards! I don't have to struggle with my lousy handwriting, I can just print out labels and be done with it! It was a real light bulb moment. I went through my list from 2004 and added all the lose envelops I have scattered around and made a nice, neat list of everyone I know.  Yay me. And NO, labels are not impersonal.

Friday Cat Blogging

Small Cat is very tired of being asked about spots on the carpet.

Pack up your troubles

And how was your evening? I only have two more boxes to get mailed.  One, I have cookies but no address and the other I have an address but no cookies. Pro-tip: Packing tape is something that you get what you pay for and it is no place to save pennies. Lesson learned.

Checking my lists

Yay! One more thing kind of off the list, kind of part one  of a multi-part  project done!

I bagged up the cookies!

before

after

left overs!

I came out with eighteen bags. I had them all made and discovered I had sixteen instead of seventeen as planned  and I was not happy but I resisted the urge to destroy the dinning room even though I had all ready put everything up and thought I was finished with the endless circles around the table and the counting to twelve by twos over and over and over again - eight flavors times sixteen times each -  and  without any self directed rage at all, simple filled another bag and then I decided that I could send my friend on Facebook with the brand new dog, cookies from this batch, because if you are filling one bag you might as well fill two. And she didn't need special puppy cookies anyway, I think the dog is at least half grown.

I think  with the left overs I could still fill a few more I inadventanly forgot someone or three with at least six of the eight varieties and still  have some extras for Dogger.

 Today at work I wantonly misused state resources making  ingredient stickers for the bags only to  forget a couple of add ins, so tomorrow I'm going to miss use state resources again to make corrected ones. Wantonly

And now I need to get address labels made - hello more  miss use of state resources! then I need to remember to insert Christmas cards into the packages, which will get me going on getting the cards out, another Yay!

Sing a song

I decided to go shopping for some new Christmas CDs for work so to avoid another day listening to boy choirs squealing in Latin. True, most of those squealing boy choirs are my squealing boy choirs but after eight hours with them it makes you almost not vomit when someone slips in a Yanni. Almost. To correct this Yanna positive climate, I bought  Brian Seltzer and Ella Fitzgerald.  Seltzer rocks the Grinch song.

Today we listened to  a selection of  perhaps the most funereal Christmas music recorded. It seemed designed  for play as the musical accompaniment  burying your murdered Grandmother on Christmas Eve, in a dungeon. It made me dream of the soothing sounds of protestants in flip flops singing Ave Maria in August - another CD we listen to too often. Its only been two days and I am already a little over our selection. I am also over being the designated  office Christmas  Music DJ - hense the squealing boy choirs. They feel my pain.

While I was at Wallyworld again - it turned out Dogger was down to food crumbs, which I didn't notice because it was thick crumbs, two meals worth of thick crumbs. It also trues out that my Wallyworld in Knightdale is the worst Wallyworld in the world. The one in Garner is much nicer. I had gone out to hit the Sam's Club, also, by the way, better run than my Wallyworld in Knightdale.  I discovered cat dust in a 42 pound bag. I like this, how many of those plastic boxes do you really need? I mean, unless you are building some sort of extension on your house with them... I imagine you could fill them with cement and do something with them but, really, the bag is a better choice, much less waste. In the future, this will be my go-to dust buying method.

Earlier, speaking of Dogger and her food. Dogger woke me up at 1:15am. I feel much better about my dog mama-ing skiliz - I heard her whimpering through a closed door, up a flight of stairs, under three blankets and deeply asleep.I went out in my pajamas and a heavy coat and discovered that at 1:15 it was surprisingly muggy and featured a rather lot of pedestrian traffic. You miss so much hidden behind your burgler alarms and locked doors. Dogger made like a whole herd of goats and left my front yard looking like a new recruit. Then she dry heaved for a while before puking her little doggy guts up. Fortunatly, for Dogger this time it wasn't her guts, this time it was her food.

She seemed fine in the morning but when I left she had made herself into the smallest dog ball ever. I vowed to come home and if she hadn't unballed herself, we were going to the vet. I left her under a blanket. Happily, when I came home at lunch she had unballed herself and kicked off the blanket. She was very hungry at dinner and everything else seemed to be coming out okay too. I always worry when Dogger has any kind of health complaint because Dogger doesn't usually do best case scenarios. Thankfully, this time she did. Thus far.

Making a list.

Dog cookies  - done. I was going to make a couple of batches of red and green stars but I did a quick count and I don't really think the padding is necessary, in fact, I might end up having to cut the number of cookies each because I'm afraid they might not all fit in the bags - a real trauma. Also, I ran out of room in the refrigerator for more cookies.

Of course, the dog cookies aren't "done" until I get them into the mail but before I get there I need to figure out how much of each make it into the bags, get all the cookies bagged,  get mailing boxes, prep the boxes for mailing, get the long distance cookies in the mail and get the rest to the office. I also have to make ingredient list and come up with labels. I'm trying to think positive thoughts.

I had to stop with the cookies because it was time to start decorating for Christmas - its about priorities. Decorating the tree is a big job so I asked my parents and niece and nephew to come over and help with the job. It was really fun. Later I decorated the mantel and the next morning I got the out door stuff taken care of. On top of all that, I got my cards into their frames.

I can't wait do go back to work so I can get some rest.

You better watch out

You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
He's making a list
And checking it twice;
Gonna find out Who's naughty and nice
Santa Claus is coming to town
He sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake
He knows if you've been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!

O! You better watch out!
You better not cry
Better not pout
I'm telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
Santa Claus is coming to town

Joy

Apropos of nothing, I have to say, when left to my own devises I make a really good chicken pot pie. I would have started on this earlier but Dogger and I were very happily dozing on the couch admiring the tree and the mantel. We would still be there except I got cold and I decided that Dogger and I needed to go to Walmart.

I tried to avoid a trip to Wallyworld but after touring three thrift stores looking for a table for my office Christmas tree, I gave in to the inevitable. I found my table and a couple of rows over, shipping boxes for cookies. Two birds one trip to Wallyworld. Score. Sadly, it was a low score.

And then I went to check out and I lost the game. I walked up and down the row of check outs, most of them without a checker because why staff up for the holiday? I thought I found the best of the long lines and settled in for a wait.And waited and waited and waited. It turns out I found the only Wallworld employee in the world who had never seen a WIC check before. I thought working at Wallyworld made you eligible for WIC checks and this girl was completely befuddled.  An hour later I was going to just leave but I really didn't want to have to make a second trip back to that place if I didn't have to. I all ready have to hit Sam's this week and I don't want to give those people anymore of my time than I have to.

Tuesday, I'm going to get back to work and get the cookies in bags. I took a good look at the bags I got and they seem small and I see some stress and over thinking ahead. Maybe I'll think about getting my cards addressed instead.

FRiday Cat Blogging

Christmas Carol fu!

I did not make cookies. I came home, took Dogger on a brisk walk through downtown, returned home and fed her and changed clothes.

And then I sat down in front of the TV, just to rest a spell to catch up with my DVD and in short order decided that the TV was very annoying. I decided that what I would really rather do was watch the tree. It did not help that Small Cat joined me.

Small Cat  likes me much more in the winter.  So long story short, I fell asleep in front of the TV and didn't do anything useful.  I will be useful though, I got my cards! and it turns out they are lovely! and exactly what I wanted. The opening is a bit on the smaller side, but I think its going to work out. I should be loading those cards right now.  My to-do list gets longer every day.

I was going to go out and get dinner, but instead I made a cherry tart for dinner. I had a huge, awful lunch so I think it all evens out. I had thought that Burger King was the height of  lunch timeself loathing but I was wrong, Pizza Hut buffet is the worst and not in a good way either. Its disgusting, it was like eating grease covered mattress.  On the upside, I think my new and improved lack of appetite comes at the ideal time! All I have to do is think about that meal and immediately become nauseous! Christmas Cookies? yuck!, brownies? gawd! , pie? blergh . Yay!!

1. We wish you a merry Christmas,

We wish you a merry Christmas,

We wish you a merry Christmas,

And a Happy New Year!



Refrain

Good tidings we bring for you and your kin;

We wish you a merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!



2. Now bring us some figgy pudding,1

Now bring us some figgy pudding,

Now bring us some figgy pudding,

And a cup of good cheer! Refrain



3. We all like our figgy pudding;

We all like our figgy pudding;

We all like our figgy pudding;

With all its good cheer.2 Refrain



4. We won't go until we get some

We won't go until we get some

We won't go until we get some

So bring it out here!3 Refrain



5. We wish you a merry Christmas,

We wish you a merry Christmas,

We wish you a merry Christmas,

And a Happy New Year!

And a Happy New Year! Refrain

Days of whine and cookies

11/29 - Another day, three hundred and fourteen cookies. And as it turns out, the secret to increased bulk in broth cookies is "add more flour". I also learned that playing Christmas music in the background is a good way to make the whole tedious process less tedious. It turns out doing the entire tedious process total silence was a bad idea, it actually adds to the tedium.

Also, eat a slice of excellent pie before you start said tedious process.

Tomorrow I make bacon cookies and after that, banana and after that a batch of  milk cookies, a batch in  red and a batch in green. These will be larger stars. See , "tedium".

11/30 Well, yet another day, I was thwarted by my Google Tool Bar disappearing and not coming back. It wouldn't be a big problem except that the tool bar has custody of the spell check and I really need the spell check feature.  Even while dealing with this lose, I still managed to produce two hundred and sixty-four more cookies. I went off the rez a little though, instead of going with my scheduled bacon cookies, I went crazy and made banana instead. I was surprised that about a cup of creamed bananas did not add significantly to the amount of dough I ended up with and in the end the yield was less than I wanted. I'm going with the idea that the cookies will be more dessertish in nature due to the addition of some molasses and vanilla to the mixture so maybe they won't need as many. I've also changed my mind about the bacon cookies, I'm still making them but I think they are going to be bacon/cheese cookies. High yield city.

Oh, and after I made the cookies...

And so it begins...