Back to work Monday…

The last two weeks have been amazing…to have two 4 day weekends in a row was such a gift.  I couldn’t have accomplished what I did had I not had that freedom.  Now it is time to go back to work and try to figure out how to get it all done.  One of the first things I need to do when I get to the office is put together my to-do list.  I’m terrible at to-do lists on an ongoing basis, but it is very helpful the first day.<G>

We are still in a holding pattern with respect to returning my in-laws to their nest up in Maine…we should know a lot more in the next few hours.  We are so thankful that mum-in-law is doing really well in the hospital and is chomping at the bit to get out, and that dad-in-law has embraced the walker we forced on him provided him with.  It is also providing some physical therapy, I think, as he has to lift the whole walker up, put it down, walk into it, lift it up…upper body workout as well as having extra support…win/win, methinks!

I think my dad-in-law is really going to miss our little Sophie cat when he goes home…she is an incredible source of amusement…she goes from being snuggly and sleepy and loving to tearing around like a whirling dervish, leaping in the air, performing twisting and turning aerial acrobatics and playing pounce with her own tail.    Then there is the way she stalks Phoebe and Buddy, enticing even the grumpy old Buddy into playing a little hallway race tag.  They are the perfect entertainment system for a housebound elder…especially since there is no upkeep with someone else’s cats!<G>  And just look at this face…

And this one…

Mr. Grumpy…

2010 blows in like a lion…

Whew!  The first few days of the new year have blown in with a vengeance…howling winds and lots of snow…light, fine snow because it is so cold outside…we’re only forecast to have 6-8″ total, but they’re still talking about a total of 18-24″ up in my in-laws’ neck of the coast of Maine.  Mum-in-law should be released from captivity the hospital tomorrow.  As soon as all the arrangements are in place at their assisted living apartment, they will be magically transported home (with hus providing the magic carpet and the driving skills) to begin the next chapter of their good, long lives.

I celebrated a first on New Year’s Day.  Up until then, I had never cut my own fingernails.  The back story is that when I was 4 years old, my parents told me that if I quit sucking my thumb, they would give me a dog.  I stopped sucking my thumb, got a beautiful collie (who one day presented us with 10, count ‘em, TEN puppies) and started biting my fingernails.  I bit until about 10 years ago, and when I finally managed to quit, my nails grew in so strong and hard that I couldn’t cut them myself.  Besides that, I had never had to “do” fingernails, so I had no idea how to do it.  Nail salons have been my friends.  However, life has been very crazy and I haven’t been able to get out to get them done.  So, bright and early on Friday morning, I sat on my bed and wielded nail clippers with abandon.  The results were far from professional, but I got them as short as I like and they are only slightly crooked!  Yay me!

I have become seriously addicted to clementines.  It happens every winter.  Yummy sweet little orange balls of seedless juicy goodness are consumed by me as long as they are in my presence…I can easily polish off three or four at a time.  I have to eat as many as I can now because they will very soon go out of season.

If I was superstitious, which I’m really not, I would think that certain theatrical endeavors are cursed from the start.  My group’s winter show was to be Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.  However, after difficulties hit George after George after George, causing them to drop out of the production, we finally had to come to terms with finding something else we could get done in the time left before opening night, some seven weeks away.  We’ll see what we can pull off.  Someday, we are going to have all three shows of our season come to be with no sturm und drang and fireworks and pain…that can happen, right?  Later this morning, I’m off to meet with a fellow board member to try to find a director and cast a couple of additional actresses in the show we hope to do.  Fingers crossed.

P.S.  Realized yesterday that I haven’t been out of the house since Wednesday afternoon…I predict some frolicking in the snow this morning!!

Hap-py New Year…

Just taking a moment to wish all of my friends and family and anyone else who reads my blog on occasion a very happy and healthy new year 2010.  I’m not into resolutions, except that I want to do the best I can this next year to take good care of myself and those I love.

Most of my fellow bloggers have posted lists of their most memorable posts and experiences over the past year, but I am too sleepy to attempt such a complicated post.  Maybe tomorrow, maybe not…

Boxing day blues…

Well, not exactly blues…it is one of those “I am SO glad it happened while they were here” scenarios.  My in-laws came to visit for Christmas.  They take the bus down from Maine to our house in greater Boston…now, that is pertinent mostly because dad-in-law will be 96 in a few days and he has mobility issues…walks with a cane, should use a walker.  We rented a lightweight wheelchair (something he loathes) because it is a long haul from where the bus leaves them and the car.  All went well, they arrived, he sat in the wheelchair without protest and home went the group.  Of course, the one you worry about is never the one who ends up in trouble.  My mum-in-law passed out in the middle of the night Wednesday night; we heard her fall and hus found her unconscious in the hallway.  She has a seizure disorder, so appropriate action was taken, we determined she had hurt her back in the fall but that she was didn’t seem to have broken anything and was otherwise okay.  We set up a system using our cordless phone’s pager system so that she could call us in the night if she needed us.  Since then, we have administered Tylenol and a heating pad to help her with her back pain and have tried to keep a good eye on her neurological condition.  We decided that if her back wasn’t better by today, we would call her neurologist in Maine for advice.  We ended up in the ER this morning; hus drove her to our nearby hospital and I stayed home with dad-in-law.  Hours later, now, it has been determined (after a CAT scan) that she is fine except for some imbalances in sodium and something else, so they have admitted her for tonight.  Still awaiting a final update from hus…think he’ll be home later tonight and that we will decide tomorrow what happens next.

Both mum- and dad-in-law are saying how much they regret all this happening while they are down visiting, but I’d rather think that it is a blessing that they were here with us when it happened.

Guess there was a good reason we rented the wheelchair this time, the first time we have ever done it.  Sigh…

Merry Christmas morning…

How different is Christmas these days…

First, there were the Christmas celebrations of my childhood, surrounded by my parents and sisters, great aunts and uncles, grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins…coffee for the parents first, then stockings, then breakfast THEN the presents…a box for each of the four of us to hold each gift as it was unwrapped, the train set that snaked its way around my aunt’s house, the tables full of people and food, playing with new toys and dolls, throwing the football with dad out in the street in front of my aunt’s house…then there was the Christmas I had the chicken pox and was relegated with my box to one corner so I would expose anyone else (of course, each of my sisters came down with them later)…too many to name, but delightful to remember.

Then there were the Christmases with my boyfriend/now husband, with a tiny Norfolk Island Pine with tiny decorations and a few presents underneath, followed by cooking and eating yummy food and remember with fondness and love.

Then the real fun began…Christmas with our kids…obscene riots of packages under the tree…skates, bicycles, skateboards that could or could not be played with immediately, depending on the climate of our then-current town…bags of wrapping paper to be recycled afterwards, cooking together the Christmas dinner, putting together toys and puzzles and playing whatever new technological marvel was the de rigueur gift of the year…I was terrible at stockings, copied my mom’s, wish now that I had made them special.  I wonder what my children remember of those Christmas celebrations?

Now, Christmas is a pleasant, quiet celebration of family (mum- and dad-in-law are down from Downeast) and food.  We decorated our Norfolk Island pine again, this year with tiny sparkly stick-on bows.  The day will be more about food than festivities.  Scrambled eggs and turkey bacon with freshly squeezed orange juice (well, half-and-half squeezed with boxed fresh), ham for sandwiches and picking, the boneless leg of lamb will be on the rotisserie this afternoon, to be served with roasted potatoes and butternut squash and homemade mint sauce (by my own hands and mint).  It has turned into another one of those “Thanksgiving” holidays…we are so thankful that our kids and sibs and parents and cousins and aunts and uncles are well and living good lives and are good people and, most importantly, that we have each other.  We are all very lucky.

OK, sounds the like the house may be waking up, so off to begin the day.  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good day! (loosely misquoted)

Yes, it did snow…

…not 4-6″ as originally predicted, not 6-12″ as it was revised (with us being in about the midrange of those amounts) but a healthy 1 foot plus.  Absolutely gorgeous… 

Did I shovel the snow off the deck so it won’t freeze on there and maybe collapse the deck?  No.  Did I shovel the front steps and walkway?  No.  I did make a big container of salad goodies (this time red cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli slaw, radishes, green onions and carrots) for my lunches this week and pork chops with orange rice in the crockpot for dinner tomorrow night and I did manage to put shelf liner in the drawers of the rehabbed dresser in the dining room and then moved my silver back into the drawers…not completely useless, were we. 

Looking across the deck to the back yard…

Looking across the street...

It’s beginning to feel a lot like…

The storm that is heading up the coast from the South is baffling the weatherfolk…every day, the possible totals rise a bit, the ferocity of the storm increases…I think we are now up to 4-8″ here in greater Boston, but parts of the Cape may get LOTS more than that.  It will be interesting to see what actually happens when it starts, which is now forecast to be sometime tonight.  I’m secretly hoping for feet, but I know it isn’t going to happen.

I’m finally starting to feel a bit of Christmas spirit.  Looking forward to setting up the guest room for the in-laws (means moving my big geraniums out into the dining room…guest room is the sunniest, warmest room in the house and the geraniums LOVE it)…think I may splurge on new towels for the guest bathroom.  When we are all set up, I’ll venture into the attic for the box of Christmas stuff.  We need just a few things for the Norfolk Island pine and bits and bobs of shiny things for various surfaces.

I’m going to try to take advantage of a couple of longer weekends ahead to get my phone and computer organized.  I have a Blackberry Storm that is full of things I could use if only I knew how to use them.  I also just discovered that I pay for GPS…have never used it, have a Garmin in the car…hmmmm….wonder what else I’ve got and am paying for that I don’t know about.  Time to do some investigating.  And we finally got our family pack of Windows 7 upgrade, so I need some time to figure out how to get my laptop into shape for the upgrade.  I have an amazing 160GB hard drive which is almost full…how can that be????  I have most of my documents and photos moved over to the external hard drive and it is still full.  I wonder how one figures out what is necessary and what not to run the laptop.  When I go to the “delete programs” program, the names of the files are quite beyond me.  Is it worth taking in somewhere to have it cleaned out?  I just worry so much about losing major programs I’ve paid for, such as Office and Publisher, and minor ones I’ve downloaded.  I never imagined I could fill 160GB.  What a blessing to have a couple of long weekends to fuss with it all.

OK, off to try to accomplish some of what needs accomplishing!  Happy Saturday to all…

Ho, ho, ho…

For me, this holiday season has been, so far, slow and easy.  The house isn’t decorated yet and our Norfolk Island pine is patiently awaiting sparkle and twinkle (this weekend, I think).  I got the kids’ Christmas packages filled and mailed (the hardest part) yesterday, so that pressure is off.  Hus and I are foregoing big gifts to each other this year in favor of contributing to our house repair fund (lots of wood that needs tending and clapboard nails that need to be renailed), so that pressure is off. My in-laws arrive a few days before Christmas, so there will be lots of good food and companionship…and experimentation with alcoholic beverage recipes we have been collecting.

I LOVE reading other people’s blogs.  A lot of them are listed on my blogroll…I have wide and varied interests.<G>  It is also THE very best way to keep up with SillyTaterTot , NightAtTheHops, MrAndrewIan and Brigid’s Garden…wish more family members blogged (hint, hint!)…

My community theater group is funded by ticket sales, advertising and grants.  Over the first many years, we built up a healthy balance, but times have been tough everywhere.  For the past few years, we have applied for grants which have allowed us to purchase equipment we would otherwise not be able to afford, which, in turn, allows us to put on higher quality shows for our “community.”  I just received notice that it is time to apply for this year’s grant from a local group that has been very generous in the past.  As I get ready to decide what would best enhance our group’s abilities, I wonder what, if anything, you all want/need from your local community theater groups.  Do you go see shows?  Work on shows?  Are you even aware of groups in your area?  Just curious.  I’m also always on the hunt for community opinions as to what shows they would like to see…drama, comedy, classical, modern…what would bring you into the audience?  Drop me a comment if you have anything to share.

Oh, my darling clementines…

The best thing about this time of year is that it is clementine time again!  Boxes of the juicy, sweet, SEEDLESS little yummies…wish this post could be in smellavision…love the smell of peeling clementines…

Sophie is in love with the tissue paper some of my recent acquisitions came wrapped in…she rolls herself up in it and kicks it and bites it to make it make that crinkly sound.  The best part is that the tissue paper is a similar blue to her eyes.

Mouse Hunting 101…

Don’t read if you are squeamish about cat and mouse activities…

It has been fascinating to watch the cat dynamics in this house since we brought Sophie home.  When we brought Phoebe and Puck home the year before, we only had to deal with crotchety old Buddy, who wasn’t going to like ANY other animal we brought in.  When Sophie came home, it was much more complicated, with Phoebe and Buddy as mistress/master of all they surveyed.  We have seen signs recently of Phoebe starting to interact more with Sophie…the two of them play chase all over the house and Phoebe no longer hisses at Sophie unless she is doing something really stupid.  Even Buddy has been seen watching the girls play with a slightly interested, possibly tinged with a desire to participate look in his eyes.

Sometime in the wee hours of this morning, I was awakened by the squeak of a mouse and the thump thump thump of cats playing with their new toy.  This is not uncommon, as Phoebe loves to bring me her prey.  However, when I pried my eyelids open and followed the sound, I discovered that Phoebe had brought her young protegé Sophie a toy…a tiny mouse…Sophie chased that mouse all over the bedroom, batting it with her paw, watching it run, catching it, batting it, the soccer game she plays with her stuffed mouse toy….all well and good, except that she had no idea what else she was supposed to do with it.  Phoebe kept watch and occasionally entered into the bat the mouse game, but mostly just observed.  At one point, Sophie got tired of the game and lost the mouse…she loped back to Phoebe, who cuffed her and who then ran off in search of the little mouse.  At that point, I lost interest in this game and went back to sleep…as I drifted off, I heard Phoebe teaching Sophie what any self-respecting mouse hunter knows…how to finish the job.

I’m only sorry that Phoebe saw fit to conduct this seminar in my bedroom…they had the whole rest of the house in which to hold the event, but they chose my bedroom.  I guess I need to be alpha cat if it ever happens again and instruct them as to appropriate venues.