Thanks & Gratitude Day 1

Welcome to November. To begin this month of Thanksgiving & gratitude, I’ve got a pretty big one. Last week I was involved in what was actually a major car accident. I was driving on my merry way to work, about 6:45 in the morning, still in the dark, along the Farm to Market road I’ve driven daily for months, and regularly for more than a year before that, with no problems.  As I rolled along at 60 mph, largely in the dark, save for my headlights, and those of the pickup behind me, visibility was limited, but everything seemed normal.  Little did I know that “normal” was about to blow up in my face, literally.  There suddenly appeared, in my vision, a HUGE black cow’s ass. Apparently the deer whistles on my bumper do NOT mean a thing to cattle. I barely had time to register what it was, let alone get my foot off the gas and to the brake, before the cow was on my hood, and my airbag was blowing up as I slid off the roadway into the gully between the road and a fence line. I landed between a tree and the fence.  I was able to get out of the car on my own by the time that the pickup behind me pulled over (having also hit the cow) safely onto the shoulder, and got down into the gully to check on me.  He went back up to see if he could see where the cow was. A guy in a Cadillac stopped to see if he could help out, and was out of his car, near it, on the fence side, rather than the street side, when I heard another vehicle hit the cow, and saw a pickup skidding on its roof (having knocked the cow out of the roadway), right into the back of the Cadillac, which caused it to throw its driver right out of his shoes, farther up into the grass, near the fence.  The guy in the upside down truck managed to get himself out of his truck, and he and another guy came down to see if I needed help up out of the gully.  

My car is totaled, 

with only liability insurance (since it was 21 years old), but I am so very thankful that I walked away with some scrapes, bruises, a mildly scratched cornea, and a small laceration near my hairline which required 2 staples. 

The only others transported and with undriveable  cars were truck #2, who had a small cut on his forehead and another on his elbow; and Cadillac, who, while strapped to the backboard and the gurney, could feel them touching his feet, move his feet, and was completely lucid, so it seemed no spinal cord damage or obviously broken bones. Given the condition of the vehicles, It could have been so much worse.  I spent a few days with my dear friends, and came home on Saturday night to spend a day loving on the kitties before I went back to work on Monday.

 I was blessed with a generous gift from a cousin that provided me with a down payment on  a newer, nicer vehicle. My payments are affordable, and my mileage is looking very close to what I was getting in Stellaluna.

What are YOU thankful for today?

update

Wow, it's been almost 3 months since I posted. It got pretty crazy that last month of Scarborough, I worked more hours this season, and half the weekends, including closing, I worked full time, which was hard, but I'm pretty pleased with how my body handled it. I didn't even have to go in to my weekday job late on Mondays. Now, the first weekend of June I pretty much stayed on the couch or in bed for the whole weekend, but there was no flare.  I am attributing it to the fact that things have settled down and I've actually felt that I had some sort of control over my world for the first time in more than 2 years. It's not perfect, by any means, but it's mine, and back in a balanced harmony.

I'd had some tentative plans to head north to meet my friends from Galveston at the PA RenFaire, but I figured out several weeks ago that I couldn't afford the airfare, and instead decided to head west to a new Highland games in Odessa, taking a long weekend to use up my vacation days that expire the week after the games. Unfortunately, my boss had other plans, to be out of the country, and there's just not another time between now and then that it will be convenient for me to take the days, which, in the end has worked in my favor. I had to have some fairly extensive work done on my car, so it would pass inspection, oh, and not burn up the engine. She's 21 years old, with relatively low miles, but several things began to fail at once. I was blessed to find an honest mechanic, and my boss allowed me to cash in the unused vacation days in order to cover about a third of the repair cost.

The move back to the home office has been an adjustment, there are many days that I spend frustrated with other people's habits (I don't understand why you can get to the vet's office with your dog at 8:30, then get her home & settled, and up to the office by 9:30, but you can't make it the 3 miles from your house to the office before 9 on any other day), but overall I'm so very grateful to have a job that I like, working for a boss that I like. The real upside to working over there is that there's an HEB grocery store a block away, and I LOVE HEB for all sorts of things. It allows me to shop economically (in general their prices are competitive with Wallyworld, and, in my opinion, their meat department blows Wallyworld out of the water!

My goal now is to spend a little time each day reflecting on the good, and putting any negative in the past.

Halfway through

It’s almost unbelievable that I’m halfway through with my busiest season of the year, Scarborough. It’s been a whirlwind of fun, busy, and some stress over the changes at my pays the bills job.
The day job has settled into more of a routine, and while I’m still on “probation” until, umm Memorial Day, I’m not particularly concerned because I’m proving myself (again), and getting everything done that has been asked of me. My goal this week, while the T is on vacation, is to finish getting everything that was waiting for me when she left completely entered, so that next week I can hound the boss and get the pre-emptive paperwork processed to keep us from getting nastygrams on the 15th. She can never manage to do it, and as a result on the 12th of last month I worked a 13 hour day with no real lunch break. That is NOT going to happen this month, I am determined! I am a bit frustrated by one co-worker who’s sort of abusing her absence by spending more time than usual talking to her boyfriend on the cell phone and trolling the internet for barrel racing videos. Hopefully tomorrow that’s going to get resolved, but we’ll see.

The Faire job has been fun, as usual, and I’ve done pretty well with not overdoing anything. We’ve made it through 2 weekends on our own, without any incidents, and I’ve learned a few new recipes to mix up existing scents, as well as making up a few more.  This coming weekend is my last weekend with my awesome friends from Galveston, which kind of makes me sad, but next weekend is the weekend that my BFF and identical twin from another mother will be in for our jaunt. We missed it last year, and it was a real downer.

For now, it’s off to bed for a good night’s sleep so I can get up and get an early start. Tomorrow’s laundry night, so I can get packed to leave Friday morning.

The Madness Has Begun

Yes, it's that time of year again, Scarborough has begun, and so has my 61-day work week... It's all good, because I don't hate my weekday job, and I LOVE working at the perfumery on the weekends.  This weekend should be interesting, because the owner will not be in town, so my co-worker & I are on our own, which means minimal breaks and virtually no time to run amok. I've always worked a part-time schedule on the weekends, instead of full-time, so we'll see how my system manages that!

 One of my co-workers is umm, militant about her beliefs, and is relatively intolerant of other people's opinions and beliefs.  Last week, another employee asked her about Easter eggs in conjunction with a program she's involved in at her church. Her response was to look directly at me and say "I object to the use of Pagan symbols in relation to Christian holidays". Yeahhh, she's made an assumption about my beliefs, based entirely on the fact that I am part of the Renaissance Festival community. Never mind discussions we've had over the last 18 months about my CHURCH. I refrained from pointing out to her that 1. my beliefs are none of her damned business, 2. My Bibles (I own at least one KJV, a RSV, an NIV, and a Living Bible) ALL include "Judge not, lest ye/you be judged", and 3. I object to Christians believing that they have the right to judge others AND cram their beliefs down everybody's throat.   Hmm, perhaps she thinks I'm a Pagan in the Spring, and a Christian the rest of the year? So yesterday, I noticed that she'd clipped a tract to her wall-mounted inbox entitled something like "Becoming a Christian is as E.A.S.Y  as A.B.C".  Yeah she's a passive-aggressive B!#(H, and her life truly only consists of Work, Church, and living with her parents & 2 dogs. She lives to get a rise out of people, and she's not going to be successful with me.  I have no doubts about where I stand with God, and I also know that on my WORST day, I have an amazing support system of friends and family from diverse walks of life, all of whom love and accept me for who I am, without trying to make me conform to what they think is right.

Last Tuesday, I came home after the storms that were in the area, to find that the mama kitty that's been hanging about (I believe she & her boyfriend were abandoned, as they are way too social and keep trying to get into the house to really be ferals) had delivered 5 kittens. 4 have survived this long, and even on my cranky mornings, seeing them in their box on the porch brings a smile to my face.

On that note, I think it's time to shut down and head for the bed with the kitties.  Sleep is kind of hit or miss these days, and tomorrow's an early morning.

And Then There Were Three

Back in the summer, when the original roomies moved about an hour south, 2 cats from the cattery remained, because the new roomie was adopting them. I held these cats within 24 hours of their births (a day apart). One hairless, one haired. They were adopted together because the hairless really doesn't need to be an only cat, and the haired, while she carries a hairless gene, does not further the goals of the cattery, i.e. hairless with curled ears & short legs. By the time that the new roomie moved in at the beginning of September, the girls were bonded to me, but warmed pretty well to him. Thanksgiving weekend, when the Bestie, her man, the 5 year old & I left Thursday morning for our Clan dinner and then trip to TRF, both girls were a little sneezy, but they often were, as their mothers tend to run a little snotty as well. We got back around midnight on Saturday night and while we noticed the haired was not around, we assumed she was upstairs sleeping with the roomie, as she often did, little miss Baldy, on the other hand was ALL up in the business because 'WOO HOO, SOMEONE IS SLEEPING IN HERE WITH ME!' Sunday afternoon, the old roomies came to pick some stuff up from an outbuilding, and then left. After that was when I first saw the haired, and her breathing was terribly labored. When roomie came home, I pointed it out to him and he responded that he was going to keep an eye on her for a day or two, that he didn't think she needed intervention just yet. When I went to bed, she was asleep in the box on the floor. When I got up Monday morning, he had already left for the hospital where he was having day surgery on his shoulder, and her box was on the desk in the living room (about 8 feet from where it had been on the floor). She was twisted and broken on the floor in front of the desk. I absolutely LOST it. To this day, I don't know if she tried to get out of the box herself, or if the dogs tried to nudge her out of it. I do know, that at least one of the dogs either licked her or had her in their mouth, because she was mostly covered in drool. In order to keep from killing either the roomie or his stupid dogs, I've convinced myself that she was gone before the dog(s) got her. Well, Baldy can't be an only cat, and he had never really bonded to her. Ex-roomie was frustrated and angry, and didn't want to leave her with him. The weather got cold, so I started taking her to bed with me, for her own warmth and health/safety. Eventually roomie acknowledged that she was mine, and when I moved, I moved with 4 cats. Girlcat, will turn 15 this summer. Shortcat, the deaf munchkin about 9, Li'lcat, who is almost 4, and Baldy, who is a year and a half old. Shortcat's deafness is caused by a tumor in her left ear, that we always knew could begin to grow again at any time, either into her inner ear, outward toward the exterior, or backwards into her brain. Her equilibrium has always been a little wonky, so her gait, while rolling to some degree due to her short legs, has always been a bit wobbledy as well. When the barometric pressure changes significantly, so does her gait, and she looks positively drunk when she walks. Well, with the storm front that came in this afternoon, she's been kinda drunken for several days, which I attributed to the storm. She's been eating and drinking normally, and hadn't lost any weight, even trying to hog the food like she always did. What she wasn't doing, was climbing up on the bed, but again, not an uncommon occurrence when the pressure in her ear is really bad. This afternoon, when I was home for lunch, I looked under the bed to see her, and she didn't look right. I picked her up and she went limp. Her breathing wasn't quite right, her eyes weren't right. I called the Ex-roomie, who owned her before I did, and we agreed that she needed to be seen, but that it might well be that the tumor had started growing, and thus time to let her go. The vet looked in her ear, and offered antibiotics, but was not convinced that it would do a bit of good, based on what she'd seen in there. She had a good life, longer, I think, than anyone ever anticipated. She knew she was loved, and the last memory she has from this realm is my love and the safety of my arms as she relaxed and crossed to the rainbow bridge. Run free and without wobble or a cocked head. You had more voice and personality than cats twice your size, and my life was richer for having you in it! Join your brother Leo, who crossed a scant 8 months ago, your buddy Tabitha, who crossed in November, and scores of others waiting for you to come and romp with them.

That's 3 cats in 8 months. Surely my turn at loving animals who cross is done for awhile!

Slowing Down, FINALLY

Tomorrow's a month since I started the move, and I will get the last of my stuff that's in the other place at lunchtime. The new place is nowhere near sorted out yet, but it's functional, and it's getting sorted, in baby steps.

My allergies have been absolutely wretched this month, especially in the last couple of weeks. I had hoped to go down to Sherwood Forest Faire outside Austin this past weekend with some friends to celebrate a birthday, but I knew by Wednesday that it was better for me to stay home and not expose myself to the predicted weather and the abundance of cedar trees. In the end, I came directly home on Friday night and went to bed. Saturday morning I had to get up and get a couple of errands done, then came home and went back to bed for awhile, then got up to make some bread, in an effort to have less processed bread for my sandwiches. It was a dismal failure, as I don't seem to have a really good place with enough warmth to have it rise properly. By the time that I finished it and got it baked, it was after 10. I knew that I wasn't going to get to church for the 9:30 contemporary service, so I didn't even try. I spent most of Sunday also sitting on my butt, hoping that the crud I was coughing up was not a lung! I'm still only operating probably around 85 or 90%, but I've made it to work every day, and what I have to get done this weekend is fairly minimal. This is my last quiet weekend before NTIF and then a quick trip out west for the Midland Scottish-Irish Faire.

I have new neighbors upstairs, a young couple that seems very nice, they asked if their walking was too loud, and said that they're trying to walk softly, because they've noticed their windows rattle sometimes. The neighborhood overall seems pretty quiet. Of course, since all the units really close to mine are 2 bedrooms, that limits how many people can legally be living there. The building nearest my front door has both units occupied, a total of I think about 5 people, including a couple of kids, maybe 10 or so years old. The building at my back door is only half occupied and I know nothing about them, since I don't ever go in & out of my back door. There's another complex about a block away with more units and it seems lots of kids, but they stay pretty much near those buildings, and on the other side of the street. My cats are all much happier, although little baldy is going to be unhappy when I get my hands on a large enough crate to retrain her litterbox habits. I'm hopeful that it won't take more than a week or two to accomplish, but we'll see. In the meantime, I'm just grateful that she's using linoleum instead of the new carpet that was installed before I moved in! Overall, we're all much less stressed and feeling better, even my 2 little snotbuckets (such a lovely trait they inherited from their mother) are less snotty than they ever were in the other place. And we have central HVAC! And a REAL OVEN.

The other excitement this week has been the birth of my first great-niece, who arrived on Monday evening, beautiful and perfect. I'm hoping to be healthy enough to go meet her on Sunday. I've got a book for her, but before I give it to her, I have to get my voice back, because I need to read it onto a CD for her.

It's been a rough couple of years, but 2012 is shaping up to be a fabulous turnaround, and for that I'm grateful!

Moved, mostly

I hate moving, more than just about anything I have to do. I think it goes back to my childhood, when, courtesy of the US Army, I was moved 5 times from the time I was born until I was 3 years old. Until I was 25, the longest I lived in one place was 5½ years. To the best of my recollection, all of the army moves were done by professionals, right down to the packing, and several pieces of my furniture bear multiple identification stickers from those moves. I hate packing, and I kind of don't really like unpacking, but I do a little better at the unpacking than at the packing. Saturday, courtesy of some of the most awesome friends, and my 2 youngest nephews, all of the furniture, and 97% of the boxes got moved. Most of what was left is hanging clothes, and miscellaneous stuff, only about half to ¾ of which will get moved, the rest is just plain crapola, and will go in the garbage.
The cats have done very well, especially Trinity & Tegan, who were born in the house we just moved out of. I think the best part for them is that they don't get locked up in the bedroom at night, so if they want to go out on a perimeter inspection in the night, they can, at least as much of the perimeter as the walls will allow. There's only been one accident, and it was on the linoleum floor, so easy enough to clean up. They are still very much sleep with Mom cats, at least 3 of them are. Mollie, however, has decided to proclaim her independence, and she's not going to sleep in the bedroom unless it pleases her to do so, thankyouverymuch, a point she made last night by staying out in the living room on the ottoman.
We have less space overall than we had access to in the old place, but their confinement has gone from about 120sqft (our bedroom, which is where they HAD to spend their nights, and where they remained confined anytime I was gone overnight) to 790sqft, although part of that is closed off until I can get to sorting all those boxes and such. We now live in a 2 bedroom duplex with NO DOGS in our space. The bedrooms are a little bigger than the one we had, and they are also more square, while the previous one was Longer than it was wide. I chose the larger (by about a foot's width) of the 2 rooms simply because it IS larger, but I discovered on Saturday night that I chose even MORE wisely because the window in that room faces the back of the property, which is essentially an open field, whereas the other bedroom's window faces the parking lot on that end of the building (I am in the downstairs unit of a 2 story building), and while the security light is AWESOME to have lighting the parking lot, it also lights up that bedroom pretty well too.
I am quite pleased with the fact that I have finally pared down (9 years after Mom died) everything I own to that which I will actually USE, or I truly LOVE. Now if I can just find those organizational faeries to come get everything unpacked and organized, it will be fabulous! I am not pushing myself to get it all done at once. Last night I picked up a load of stuff (mostly clothes and my small garbage cans) from the old place on my way home from work. My goal for last night was to get the kitchen cleaned up (dirty dishes from the chili I cooked on Saturday to feed my moving crew, plus what hadn't gotten washed on Sunday & Monday), unload at least 1 moving container in the kitchen, and get all the clothes sorted. I managed to accomplish that PLUS clean out a drawer in my dresser that was holding random stuff instead of the clothes it could/should have! I also got the window security locks installed on all the windows except the one I can't get to in the spare bedroom (aka storage bedroom) because of all the boxes. Tonite I have several loads of laundry to get done (thank heavens for the inexpensive Laundromat a mile from home with 25-cent washers & reasonably priced dryers AND free wi-fi (since my home internet is STILL not working, tyvm AT&T for telling me lie after lie throughout the process of getting moved. If you'd been honest in the first place, I would already have everything I need & not be hatin' on you today) that I can use to get my internet fix, and get caught up on some of my FB apps that have suffered the last 5 days since I unplugged on Friday before the move… I figure that by the time I finish the laundry, I'll be ready to get home, hang what needs to dry in the bathroom, put the rest away, and empty another tote in the kitchen before I am ready for bed. At this rate, the kitchen will be put together by the weekend, but not a whole lot else. I just HAVE to finish it before Scarby starts, though I'd like to be able to say it's finished before NTIF, which still gives me 4 weeks to get it all done (aside from the monster in the spare bedroom, which will be reasonably done by the beginning of Scarby, if for no other reason than I'll need to be able to get all my garb organized & easy to choose from & pack for each weekend).