Friday-9:45am

This is morning in Fargo this day after Thanksgiving.  I hope those of you who celebrated had a wonderful day--well, and everybody else, too.  ;)

 Besides working on letters (and that's my current raspberry-colored journal I write in every morning)...

...I've been reading a lot because my library lady, Amy, will be here Sunday to pick up books.  In a month I managed to get through all of these Cat Who books! 

And since I last posted, I added these two "food-related" books... 

...and I'm started on this one.  

Which leaves me only the Proust book.  I haven't asked for any new books with Proust to look forward to and Christmas cards to make.  I can email her when I'm ready for a new stack.

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I've read enough about our food industry and how eating a WFPB diet (whole food plant based) is really good for me.  Not sure I can actually accomplish that 100%, but I have been leaning heavily in that direction.  Been tweaking my grocery cart for December.  ;)  Due to my most generous anonymous grocery-gifter I can take a bigger next step than I would have, too!  I am just plain overflowing with gratitude.  :):)

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Besides reading, I was also watching a British police series that was going to be knocked off Netflix streaming at the end of the month--Trial & Retribution.  (Dropping movies and series off streaming and only giving you notice of a week or less to watch them is a huge pet-peeve of mine with Netflix!)

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Anyways, I kind of had a marathon yesterday on Thanksgiving to finish it.  It was generally a quieter show where I had to turn the volume up to hear it over my tinnitus.  Suddenly a smoke alarm went off on the show--very loudly!  For a second I thought it was mine!  Karma did, too!  I told her not to worry--that it was on TV and that she was safe.

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I went back to watching the episode...and the next one...and I think I was into a third one when I noticed I hadn't seen Miss Karma for a long time, which is unusual because she's normally within eyesight.  If not--she's in the kitchen or the hallway...but she wasn't there.  I start looking all over for her and can't find her.  Come on!  This place is small.

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I finally located her.  I'd forgotten all about the fire alarm on the show, but Karma had gone in the bedroom and crawled into her stroller...and fallen asleep.  She was all ready to be zipped in and hauled down the stairs--just in case--LOL!  

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Which made me take note that it has been a long time since the fire alarm has gone off here.  Used to be at least about once or twice a year.  Which is why I bought the pet stroller in the first place.  Carrying 20 lbs of Karma in her carrier down three flights of stairs and all the way out to our garage to sit and wait for the all clear which was given every time (have a chair out there) and then haul her back again--with my back--was torture!  I don't think we've had a fire alarm go off now for could even be going on two years??

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Knock on wood!!!

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Karma also gets zipped into her stroller when we have tornado sirens.

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She wasn't taking any chances, I guess.  

Miss Karma highly values her life.  ;)

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And, obviously, she doesn't really trust me to tell her the truth.  Now, that offended me.

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Anyways, I probably won't get back to working on the Christmas cards until after the library lady comes on Sunday or until I finish the last food book, whichever comes first.  It's 22 degrees right now.  The wind is rattling the windows and pounding against the building in hearty gusts.  The sun is still battling the clouds...and winning for brief periods of time.  It's a lovely day to read.  

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I count you all amongst my blessings!!  :):)

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"Gratitude is when memory is stored in the heart and not in the mind."

-Lionel Hampton

Tuesday-9:30am

T Stands For Tuesday already.

I think T stands for Too stiff and sore--LOL!

I never got any farther than getting the card fronts all set up and ready to be embellished after my big Sunday shopping trip with Leah.  But I slept well last night and am feeling better today--so look out tree baubles!  Maybe.  ;)  Everything is still sitting on the other end of the table and you can see our huge stack of new paper!  :)

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Sixteen degrees and sunny out this morning.

Karma says hi.

[For those of you who wondered--this is not a heating pad Karma's lounging on.  It's an ancient little cotton oval bath mat that she loves for some reason.]

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Short and sweet today.

Have a blue sky day!!  :)

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"Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognise how good things really are."

Marianne Williamson

Monday-9:30 am

Woke up to a little bit of snow one morning--can't remember which one.  (When you're home 24/7 it gets hard to keep the days of the week straight--LOL!).

And another day it snowed the same dry, fine, drifting snow... 

...for a few hours in the morning. 

Was cold enough to keep most of what little there was on the ground. 

Single digits. 

First true sign of winter.

A frozen car needing to be jumped. 

Well, we didn't have enough time on Saturday (K&Krafts closes at 5pm) so Leah and I went craft shopping yesterday afternoon.  Was supposed to be a lot warmer than the 9 degrees on Saturday, too, and maybe hit the low 30s.  (It might have but the wind sure felt cold.)

First we went to K&Krafts in the Moorhead Center Mall where we spent most of our time.

We were looking for some dark blue ink pads (for some landscape silhouette stamps).  They didn't have a refill for the Colorbox in Midnight, so I will probably find that refill online.

Can you tell we LOVE delicate snowflakes?

We bought some cutting dies. 

We mostly only have Spellbinder brand, so this will be interesting using these very thin ones. 

Those of you who get Christmas cards will have an idea of what several years worth of future cards will look like--LOL!  ;)

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We got a bunch of Liquid Pearls!  I only had a few here and I decided I do really like them.

Except for the (Christmas) Ruby Red, you can tell we are pretty conservative with bling colors. 

Next we headed back across the river to Fargo and hit Joann's.  We were looking for cheap, plain  8 1/2 X 11 inch card stock and discovered that Joann's had it on sale!  Whoohoo!  Jackpot!

  So we got both the regular and the textured in white...

...and black.

Got a multi-colored browns in regular and a textured brown. 

A regular in red and a different textured, dark multi-colored pack. 

The grand finale was a huge stack of multi-colored sheets for $12.99! 

Gives us quite a variety to choose from! 

So we are stocked up again on card stock.  :)  Nice!!

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By this time I was no good for walking anymore--even though I could go sit somewhere while Leah paid (there were some long lines at the big stores).  So I stayed in the car while Leah ran in to Michael's to look for more snowflake stuff.  (I forgot to take a picture of the store because I was watching a craft video on my cell phone and Leah was texting me from inside the store--LOL!)  She found this Martha Stewart snowflake punch that she liked and sent me a picture!  Pretty cool, eh?

Anyways, that was our shopping trip.  We go on a craft haul about once a year--sometimes it's longer than that, but it's always such fun!  We have such a good time.  It tickles me that we have similar tastes in a lot of things, too, so we both get excited finding this or that treasure...like--ahhhh--those snowflake dies!!  Yup, feels like Christmas over here this morning!!  :)

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Happy Monday, Everybody!!  :):)

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“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.” 

Mark Twain

Thursday-10:15am

The sun didn't last for long yesterday...

 ...but while it did... 

...I moved a chair over by the patio door...

...so Karma could catch the last rays. 

Woke up this morning to the first little bit of snow I've seen. 

 It's 14 degrees right now and solid grey outside. 

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I did get all the card fronts cut out.

And Dagan and Leah approved my tiny bit of bling idea so I'll start working on that.  Saturday (with or without me, I never know how I will be for travel) Leah's planning on going to the craft stores to buy card stock, etc.  I've been feeling pretty decent so the odds are favorable.  ;)    

We got sidetracked last night.  I blame David Blaine.  I had recorded his TV special and we ended up watching that while we ate dinner...and until it was done--LOL!  Since Dagan and Leah didn't arrive until after 7pm (Leah's working the later shift again) and it was quarter to nine before we were finished being grossed out by Blaine being amazed by the talented crazy man...I just wanted them to help me with the junk drawer box.

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They certainly did!!

This box had been piled high and was overflowing!

Looks pretty good now--TaDa!! 

We threw a lot of things away and I have these three bags for give-away. 

And Dagan had a surprise for me!! 

His old tablet !!

Leah will help set it up more and explain things to me on Saturday after craft shopping...but WOW!  Happy me!!  A new toy!  I've never had a tablet before.  Nice!  :) :)

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Caroline asked to switch to today instead of Tuesday.  That happens sometimes with her new job (she has two positions there now) and I certainly don't mind.  I'm always here, anyways.  I'd rather have her than get anyone new, of course.  Caroline has been coming to clean every two weeks for must be around seven years now--maybe longer.  :)

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Anyways, another shorter (for me) post.  Hopefully I will have things to show you on Sunday, for sure...unless plans change, of course.  Leah does have plans earlier in the day and they could possibly go long.  We're always flexible.  But for now--today--I am exhausted.  I wondered why I was wide awake at 2:30am and couldn't get to sleep--sure Dagan and Leah were here a lot longer than they normally are and left at almost 11pm and I do need time to unwind, but 2:30?  Then I remembered I had shut off my pill alarm...but had forgotten to take my melatonin.  So I took it and got to bed by 3am.  I guess I do need to take it, don't I?  LOL!  

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And, since I've turned into a day person, Karma has morphed into one of those cats who wake you up for morning food (her treat of a tablespoon of canned food).  She sometimes cries annoyingly in the hallway but keeps her distance.  Knows better than to try to jump on me or anything so intrusive...and risky.  If I tell her "No!" she usually stops...after a couple more cries as a show of protest and defiance.  (Karma finds the obvious display of her subordinate position hard to swallow.) 

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 But if it gets to be a late morning for me and I am snuggled in bed past about 9am...Miss Karma has been known throw herself on the kitchen floor and cry piteously...where she pretends there's no way she could possibly hear me telling her to shut up from that great distance.  

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Oh--did I wake you?  So sorry.  I was just crying to myself in my misery as I was wasting away from this dire hunger...but I am so delighted that you're here to save me!  (leg rub...leg rub...purring loudly...sucking up) 

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Sometimes she wins these occasional morning battles now that I am a day person.  But don't let on that I told you.  I am still the boss around here.  ;)

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 Have a battle-free day!!  :):)

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“I hate to be a kicker, I always long for peace, 

But the wheel that does the squeaking is the one that gets the grease.” 

     From a poem by American humorist Josh Billings (1818-1885)   

Wednesday-10am

Sunny morning!

What's On My Workdesk Wednesday?

Well, I am all set up to cut out the fronts of the Christmas cards--which I never did get to yesterday.  ;) 

Miss Karma loves the winter sun because it comes in at such an angle that she can not even bother to move from her chair to soak in the morning sunshine... 

...for a while.  Then she follows it across the floor. 

Karma knows what she likes. 

Well, Dagan and Leah are coming over tonight.  I am off to cut paper.  I know!  You're shocked!  

Short and sweet today.  ;)

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"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."

-Mother Teresa

Tuesday-9am

Good T is For Tuesday morning!

I guess the T stands for Ticked off for me today...well, yesterday.

Things were going just fine.

I had used an iconic example I found on google images to draw some simple ornaments--doodled on them and then colored them with copic markers. 

Meanwhile, my kitchen cleaning had dominoed into the hall closet...

...where my "junk drawer" box is kept. 

Some of the things from the kitchen junk drawer needed to go into the overflowing box in the hall closet...and so it starts, right?

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  When I moved here from Moorhead across the river--well, I used to have two normal sized junk drawers in the kitchen over there (plus a kitchen utensil drawer and a silverware drawer--all much larger).  When I moved here to one 9 inch wide 2 inch deep junk drawer--well, I had to start a junk drawer box for the overflow...which has since become a big catch-all in the closet...especially for furniture construction and techie leftover parts.  Trouble is, I don't know what half these cords and multitudinous do-dads are for.  So I am hoping Dagan will help me when he and Leah come over tomorrow night and we can toss some of this mess and sort it. 

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BUT I need the craft table free because Leah and I are planning to work on Christmas projects...so out came one of the folding tables and I moved everything off the table...right in front of the printer--LOL!

I needed the printer to print the Christmas cards.  There was a lot of table sliding...and then some cursing!  

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I have decided I hate my printer.

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No matter what I did my printer would not print the cards framed in black--evenly.  It would cut off the sides or top of the black frame no matter where I tried to adjust or move or which way I flipped the sheet in the scanner--awk!  So I thought--okay--what if the entire background on that side is just black?  But my printer will not copy without leaving a white border--no matter how much black paper I added...and it still cut off black on the tops or sides!!!  GRRRR!!!

So, I eventually I had to just give up.  Decided to copy the original white picture...

...and even with white on white paper my printer makes tell-tale dark lines...but somehow managed to fade out the original colors even though the copies were brighter to start with that very afternoon and my touchy printer was not out of any of the inks.  AWK!!

That's an hour and a half of my life I'll never get back--LOL!

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But at least now I can cut these apart--manually frame each one with colored paper (which we need to buy now because I don't have near enough for 70-80 cards)--do some layering--bling them up a little--and we'll have our Christmas cards.  Will take longer than I thought now, but I think we'll be done to mail at a decent time so they will arrive before Christmas--whew!

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Anyways...that's why I was ticked off yesterday.

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I am hoping to be up to going craft shopping with Leah on Saturday to look for card stock, so there may be a silver lining after all.  ;)

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Whisker shot!

Face shot with flash. 

Karma says hi!

She couldn't imagine what in the world I had to be upset about with the noisy black paper contraption.  Paper was coming out, for goodness sake.  After all--I can go out on the porch whenever I want to, can get my own food and treats whenever I feel like it, know how to scoop a cat box, and she's there for lap sitting more often now that it's colder in here.  Humans!  Who can figure them.  ;)

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Wasn't bothering me last night.  Once I changed the stubborn plan in my head to adjust to the stubborn computer...I simmered down.  ;)

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Butting heads with a printer, eh?  

Was kinda silly--ROFL!

Happy Tuesday!  :) :)

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"Who is it that can make muddy water clear? No one. But left to stand, it will gradually clear of itself."

Lao-Tzu