February Update
I seem to be incapable of making more than one update a month or every other month or so. I realized the last post I made was at Christmas, and the one before that at Thanksgiving! (You can kind of track the times when I had extra days off by my postings to LJ, apparently.)
So, January and February... they've kind of passed by in a blur. Not that there was anything exciting going on - no ninjas, llamas, or circus clowns invaded our house, no family tragedies, no major workplace drama. Here is a summary, for those following along at home:
- We both still have our jobs, by the grace of God. The economy is rather terrifying at the moment. I'm frustrated with it, since I feel like it has been brought on by crooked Wall Street and crooked government - as well as living in a culture where buybuybuybuy and mememememe seem to be the mantra.
- I am writing again - finally! I had writer's block for many years. I felt like I didn't have anything to say, and felt like a fake whenever I tried to say something anyway. My new work is a work of fiction, and I think it's going along pretty nicely. I'm almost 50 pages into it, which is the furthest that I've ever gotten on something in a long time. I need to be a bit more discipined about it - all week went by without me updating it. If I ever am to make a living at this, I am going to have to go back to my new year's resolution of writing daily.
- I have assembled a plant shelf with grow lights in the basement. I planted some seeds yesterday - about six tomatoes, a whole bunch of mixed color heirloom impatiens, about 30 red wave petunias, about six snapdragons, a dozen dusty millers, and a dozen coleus. Next month, I'll plant some red cardinals, some more impatiens and snapdragons, and a couple of banana pepper plants. I really hope that this goes well. The last time I went on a seed planting spree, very few of the seedlings survived. I keep telling myself that I planted a bunch of very exotic, difficult plants then, had no grow-lights, and was 11 years old. :P But I guess time will tell. I'm worried that our basement isn't warm enough for them. For now, I've got saran wrap over the containers of soil, to raise the germination temperature, but will have to take that off once things have started sprouting. It's not the end of the world if some of these don't turn out - I can certainly buy any of these at the local nurseries this spring. But there's just something cool about the idea of doing it yourself.
- Our cats are all settled in, finally. The two adult cats, Annie and Charlotte, took awhile to adapt to life with us. But I get the sense that they finally have. Annie has started to lose that lean and hungry look, and is starting to lose some of her anxiety about being with us. She is filling out, and right now is stretched out across the bed looking very fat and content. Charlotte is eager to see us every night when we come home, even though sometimes she tries to hide it. Sadly, she has not adapted to the idea that she now needs life-saving medication every morning and night. She looks like she feels very betrayed every time one of us hunts her down and gives her meds. Q-bit, the kitten, has been settled in from day one, of course. She is our little trouble-maker. If any of them are responsible for breaking things, eating things, or waking us up, it's going to be her. She supplied us with some drama last month when she swallowed a foot of yarn... this required a rather expensive trip to the emergency vet's, where they x-rayed her gut. Fortunately, nothing came of any of it, and the yarn didn't end up hurting her. As I type this, she is on the footstool between my feet, sleeping soundly.
- Renovations have slowed way down for the winter. I'd like to paint the walls in the stairway, the upstairs hallway, and the guest room walls and ceiling, but am afraid that the paint odor would be too strong with all of the windows closed. It will need to wait until spring. Maybe by April it will be nice enough to take the plastic storm windows down and open them back up. Right now, I am trying to find paintings and artwork to hang on some of our walls - they are awfully bare. I am very picky about wall decorations, though, and have not had any luck finding anything that I like.
- I am back on Weight Watchers again, sigh. I am hoping to be more successful this time. My firm is having Weight Watchers at work, with meetings in one of our conference rooms over lunch on Thursdays. I think it will help that I know several people at these meetings. It's a little better than sitting in a room full of strangers. I need better willpower. I need to want to lose weight more than I want comfort food.
And hmm... that's really life in a nutshell lately. Mostly it's been getting up, going to work, coming home, going to bed, and then doing it all over again the next day. I suppose that's a good thing; sometimes excitement is terrifying and usually means that something has gone wrong that we now need to fix.
So, January and February... they've kind of passed by in a blur. Not that there was anything exciting going on - no ninjas, llamas, or circus clowns invaded our house, no family tragedies, no major workplace drama. Here is a summary, for those following along at home:
- We both still have our jobs, by the grace of God. The economy is rather terrifying at the moment. I'm frustrated with it, since I feel like it has been brought on by crooked Wall Street and crooked government - as well as living in a culture where buybuybuybuy and mememememe seem to be the mantra.
- I am writing again - finally! I had writer's block for many years. I felt like I didn't have anything to say, and felt like a fake whenever I tried to say something anyway. My new work is a work of fiction, and I think it's going along pretty nicely. I'm almost 50 pages into it, which is the furthest that I've ever gotten on something in a long time. I need to be a bit more discipined about it - all week went by without me updating it. If I ever am to make a living at this, I am going to have to go back to my new year's resolution of writing daily.
- I have assembled a plant shelf with grow lights in the basement. I planted some seeds yesterday - about six tomatoes, a whole bunch of mixed color heirloom impatiens, about 30 red wave petunias, about six snapdragons, a dozen dusty millers, and a dozen coleus. Next month, I'll plant some red cardinals, some more impatiens and snapdragons, and a couple of banana pepper plants. I really hope that this goes well. The last time I went on a seed planting spree, very few of the seedlings survived. I keep telling myself that I planted a bunch of very exotic, difficult plants then, had no grow-lights, and was 11 years old. :P But I guess time will tell. I'm worried that our basement isn't warm enough for them. For now, I've got saran wrap over the containers of soil, to raise the germination temperature, but will have to take that off once things have started sprouting. It's not the end of the world if some of these don't turn out - I can certainly buy any of these at the local nurseries this spring. But there's just something cool about the idea of doing it yourself.
- Our cats are all settled in, finally. The two adult cats, Annie and Charlotte, took awhile to adapt to life with us. But I get the sense that they finally have. Annie has started to lose that lean and hungry look, and is starting to lose some of her anxiety about being with us. She is filling out, and right now is stretched out across the bed looking very fat and content. Charlotte is eager to see us every night when we come home, even though sometimes she tries to hide it. Sadly, she has not adapted to the idea that she now needs life-saving medication every morning and night. She looks like she feels very betrayed every time one of us hunts her down and gives her meds. Q-bit, the kitten, has been settled in from day one, of course. She is our little trouble-maker. If any of them are responsible for breaking things, eating things, or waking us up, it's going to be her. She supplied us with some drama last month when she swallowed a foot of yarn... this required a rather expensive trip to the emergency vet's, where they x-rayed her gut. Fortunately, nothing came of any of it, and the yarn didn't end up hurting her. As I type this, she is on the footstool between my feet, sleeping soundly.
- Renovations have slowed way down for the winter. I'd like to paint the walls in the stairway, the upstairs hallway, and the guest room walls and ceiling, but am afraid that the paint odor would be too strong with all of the windows closed. It will need to wait until spring. Maybe by April it will be nice enough to take the plastic storm windows down and open them back up. Right now, I am trying to find paintings and artwork to hang on some of our walls - they are awfully bare. I am very picky about wall decorations, though, and have not had any luck finding anything that I like.
- I am back on Weight Watchers again, sigh. I am hoping to be more successful this time. My firm is having Weight Watchers at work, with meetings in one of our conference rooms over lunch on Thursdays. I think it will help that I know several people at these meetings. It's a little better than sitting in a room full of strangers. I need better willpower. I need to want to lose weight more than I want comfort food.
And hmm... that's really life in a nutshell lately. Mostly it's been getting up, going to work, coming home, going to bed, and then doing it all over again the next day. I suppose that's a good thing; sometimes excitement is terrifying and usually means that something has gone wrong that we now need to fix.