I had to say it....

This afternoon, just after I finished grocery shopping and putting away groceries, I found 2 small pudding packs hidden in the fridge. I have to hide these items from my boyfriends son, who happens to be 16 and though he eats like a pig, is still built like a recent escapee from a concentration camp. I decided to share my pudding with him and offered him the 2nd pack.

As he pulled himself a spoon from the top drawer, I used my best "we walked a mile uphill in the snow to school" voice and said to him, "you know, when I was young, we didn't have little pudding packs like these. If we wanted pudding, we had to buy the pudding powder, get out the hand mixer and mix the powder with milk. Then we had to put it in the fridge and wait an hour for it to chill and thicken before we could have pudding. We didn't have any of these ready-made packs that you can keep for a year and eat whenever you wanted..."

"Wow," he replied with his sarcastic smile. "Look how much we've evolved."

Happy New Year!!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The mornings are cold, the cars and rooftops frosty. The outside animals seek shelter inside.

My anti-social Fatty-Maow cat has suddenly fallen in love with me, because I provide her the necessary heat to sleep well. She and all her fatness comes to the living room each winter, puts her front paws on the couch and looks longingly at the space next to me. Is it because I cover myself with a blanket when lounging on the sofa? Apparently, yes. It only takes me lifting the blanket and she jumps right up, scoots under the blanket, gives my arm 2 quick flicks of her tongue, and settles in for a nap. It doesn't take much to keep her happy, does it?

The Christmas tree is lit and decorated. It's full of colorful lights and plenty of ornaments - both from my childhood and from recent years as my SO and I make new memories together. However, due to our cat population, the bottom of the tree is fairly nekkid, as-is the side of the tree that sits along the back of the couch where the kitties like to sit and stare at the tree. So far, they have behaved in that we haven't found any ornaments on the floor. So far...

I found a small rubber ball in the hall closet the other day. A real rubber ball, like the clear kind with swirls in the middle that you use to play jacks. I left it in the dining room for the cats since they play there on the wooden floors. The other night as I'm studying in the living room, I hear this noise, and one of the cats running around. It's Fatty-Maow, and she's batting the ball around. She had it going pretty good until it hit the wall and came back at her. Convinced she was under attack, she ducked her head, arched her back and tail, and took off running at mach 1 down the hallway. Kitties make Christmas time funny.

Flying south for the winter

When I lived 20 minutes north of here, there was a large lake nearby and the Canadian geese would constantly fly over, heading for the lake. Inside the house you could hear their loud honking as the formation came right over your roofs. I got so used to the sound that when talking outside on the phone, my friends would comment, "what's that noise?" "What noise?" I thought, then noticed the geese going by.

Thankfully I had my wits about me enough to cover my dwarf lemon tree and my brussell sprout & cabbage seedlings last night. This morning as I went out into the chilly air to remove the sheets and tarps, I heard it. It was quiet, but it was the one warning honk to let me know they were nearby. The air was crisp and the sky was blue as I looked up and said, "I hear you, where are you?" No answer. I watched, I listened, and then I heard the faintest, softest "wwwssshhhhhhhhh" as their fat bodies came over my roof and headed towards the neighbors. "honk honk"

Thanks for coming - Merry Christmas! I waved....
[truly, I'm sure my suburban neighbors think I'm the utmost bizarre]

I'm short...

.. on patience with the world lately. Whether it is people that don't know how to drive or follow the basic rules of the road (don't switch lanes if it's not safe - slow traffic, move to the right so others can pass - LOOK before you turn a corner and into my lane!) or CEO's who get millions of dollars in bonuses while asking the American people to fix their business mistakes, or politicians with power complexes looking to sell seats on the Senate (seriously, those are for sale?)

C.S. Lewis

Waaaaay back in 1979, I stayed up one night to watch an animated movie called "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." I absolutely fell in love with the story! Fast forward to 2005 and you'll find me sitting in a movie theatre, watching the trailers for upcoming movies. In true life and all it's glory, I watched in amazement to see they had made a full length film about my favorite childhood cartoon! I couldn't wait for it to come out - and even though I typically hate to see movies in the theatre (people truly are so rude nowadays) we went to see it on the big screen. It was fascinating and beautiful all over again.

This weekend we rented "The Chronicles of Narnia; Prince Caspian." Though it wasn't as great as "The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe," it was a good movie.

If you'd like to see the original animated variety, you can find it on Amazon. Keep in mind this is 1979 animation - you remember, when they used to do this by hand with ink? I now have the original version on DVD and I enjoy it just as much as I did way back when.


"We're in a horrible, repugnant place now where kids are told it's their right and due to be hugely famous. Not good at their job, not good at anything, just hugely famous. This is not sane. Little girls think they'll be famous if they have vast breast implants and might as well die if they don't." James McAvoy (aka Mr. Tumnus)

Along those same lines....

How did it get so late so soon?
It’s night before it’s afternoon!
December is here before it’s June!
My goodness how the time has flewn.
How did it get so late so soon.

**Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss

December already

Where has 2008 gone? November flew right by without so much as a wave or a spank, and December just slid right in, starting bright and early on a Monday morning.

I have less than 2 weeks left until my finals and this semester will be complete. I have a major test tomorrow, which I am stressing on right now. Unable to focus or absorb any more information, the 2 hour break I took to watch mindless tv and eat dinner did nothing for me. With only 20 minutes of reading under my belt, I turn, once again, to the internet for mental relief of what I should be studying. Back to the books, ole gal - get back to the books or you'll kick yourself tomorrow.

Access....DENIED!

A few years back I went to Dad's house to help him with his computer. I quietly giggled when it came time for him to login to some online system and he had to pull out his printed Word document that had a list of all his login names and passwords. "Daddy," I said to him, "if you just make all the names and passwords the same, you don't have to have new ones to keep track of." After all, I was in the IT field, and it worked for me for years.

Then, the systems started to change. They required my password to change every 90 days, and you can't use the same password twice. As I signup for new online systems, they require my login name to contain letters AND numbers, thereby throwing off my process as my old logins didn't have numbers. I have three logins for my work computer and all of them have different requirements for my usernames and passwords, and they all expire at different times. One of them requires that your password not contain any word in the English dictionary, so I had to use my old password and cut it in half with numbers.

Now I have a list of logins about 30-40 long that I have to keep updated and current, lest I have to click on the dreaded "Forgot your username/password?" link. And all I can do is sigh and update my list.