Earlier this month I had the opportunity to read and review Rules of Civility, the debut author from Amor Towles. The book is a beautifuly written story about polite society in 1930's Manhattan. If that sounds like your kind of thing, feel free to click through to my review on BlogHer and leave a comment.
Note: I received a free copy of this book for my Kindle and a small amount of compensation for an honest review.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Fat Cats
It's been awhile since I dedicated a post to the little fur freaks so I might as well give an update. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that since I was doing my best Exorcist impression, Joe took the kitties to the vet for their annual appointment without me.
The vet says Tonya needs her teeth cleaned again. Only, because of her "attitude issues", they want to put her in some kind of gas chamber instead of giving her a shot of sedative. I have to admit that the idea kinda freaks me out. A lot.
In addition, turns out the fuzzbutts are a bit overweight. Tonya's about 16 lbs and Rusty's around 17 lbs. So once again, we've changed their food to a more expensive, lower calorie variety. And in order to tell what each kitty is eating, we now feed them separately and then take their food away rather than leaving the uneaten portion out.
As a result, Tonya has decided she now has permission to crawl all over the tables and counters to forage for food. Because, you know, we're starving her. She's also decided 4am is roughly the proper hour for her to receive another go at the dish and lets us know by screaming and knocking things off the dresser. Rusty has voiced his displeasure by pooing in the bathtub whenever he wants to eat and his food dish isn't available.
To say my patience with kitties is wearing thin would be a bit of an understatement right now.
With Joe traveling this week, many people have told me that it's nice I'll have the kitties to keep me company. They must've missed the part where I'll have the kitties constantly interrupting my sleep and crapping places they shouldn't. Maybe a kitty gas chamber isn't a bad idea after all.
P.S. I'm not around this week. I mean, I am, but I won't be responding to comments because I'm unplugged and focusing on writing.
The vet says Tonya needs her teeth cleaned again. Only, because of her "attitude issues", they want to put her in some kind of gas chamber instead of giving her a shot of sedative. I have to admit that the idea kinda freaks me out. A lot. In addition, turns out the fuzzbutts are a bit overweight. Tonya's about 16 lbs and Rusty's around 17 lbs. So once again, we've changed their food to a more expensive, lower calorie variety. And in order to tell what each kitty is eating, we now feed them separately and then take their food away rather than leaving the uneaten portion out.
As a result, Tonya has decided she now has permission to crawl all over the tables and counters to forage for food. Because, you know, we're starving her. She's also decided 4am is roughly the proper hour for her to receive another go at the dish and lets us know by screaming and knocking things off the dresser. Rusty has voiced his displeasure by pooing in the bathtub whenever he wants to eat and his food dish isn't available.
To say my patience with kitties is wearing thin would be a bit of an understatement right now.With Joe traveling this week, many people have told me that it's nice I'll have the kitties to keep me company. They must've missed the part where I'll have the kitties constantly interrupting my sleep and crapping places they shouldn't. Maybe a kitty gas chamber isn't a bad idea after all.
P.S. I'm not around this week. I mean, I am, but I won't be responding to comments because I'm unplugged and focusing on writing.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Six Word Saturday
Keeping a wary eye on Irene
She's far enough from my undisclosed location that we shouldn't see more than heavy rain and a little wind. She's also close enough that we need to pay attention in case she shifts this direction. I hope everyone in her path will be safe.
Want to play along? All that's necessary to participate is to describe your life (or something) in a phrase using just six words. For more information, try clicking here. Feel free to explain or not explain. Add an image, a video, a song, nothing. I love seeing what everyone does with their entries.
Each week (probably on Sunday or Monday), I use random.org to select a bunch of entries to visit. Or I visit everyone. Or even numbered entries. Or odd numbered entries. Or multiples of three. Depends on what's going on that week. In addition, please visit the person ahead of you on the list (or visit everyone if you like!). That way everyone receives at least one visit!
If you play along in your blog, please add a link to the Mr. Linky. I appreciate a link back (shiny code below if you like!). Otherwise, you're welcome to leave your six words in this post as a comment.Please be sure to link either to your main page or (preferably) directly to the 6WS post. Links to blogs that do not contain a 6WS entry will be removed (sorry, just the button in the sidebar doesn't count as participating).
Friday, August 26, 2011
Fractional Friday
Don't worry - there's no math involved. I'm just going to barf up a whole bunch of tidbits in no particular order.
Bits:
Joe takes off Monday morning for 5 days and nights in San Francisco for work.
My retreat begins Monday. You've given me excellent ideas and I'm really looking forward to it.
One of my retreat goals is to come back feeling a bit more enthusiastic about writing and blogging. Maybe I'll update more than once a week or so.
Hurricane Irene is incoming. We're far enough away that we should be fine but we're monitoring closely.
I'm so fed up with these cats that I'd really like to send them away for awhile. We've changed their feeding situation and they're displeased. I still need to blog about that - maybe I'll schedule it for next week.
I've been super-productive lately and it makes me very happy.
Something random that made me laugh:
My twitter pal @daanando (can I call him that?) retweeted this and it cracked me up.
I may make this post a semi-regular thing. It's nice to look back over the week and have a place to tie up loose ends, even if it's just a few random items.
Bits:
Joe takes off Monday morning for 5 days and nights in San Francisco for work.
My retreat begins Monday. You've given me excellent ideas and I'm really looking forward to it.
One of my retreat goals is to come back feeling a bit more enthusiastic about writing and blogging. Maybe I'll update more than once a week or so.
Hurricane Irene is incoming. We're far enough away that we should be fine but we're monitoring closely.
I'm so fed up with these cats that I'd really like to send them away for awhile. We've changed their feeding situation and they're displeased. I still need to blog about that - maybe I'll schedule it for next week.
I've been super-productive lately and it makes me very happy.
Something random that made me laugh:
My twitter pal @daanando (can I call him that?) retweeted this and it cracked me up.
If you were a cop, you'd probably get in lots of trouble for walkie-ing "Officer Down" whenever you felt sad.
I may make this post a semi-regular thing. It's nice to look back over the week and have a place to tie up loose ends, even if it's just a few random items.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Stay At Home Retreat
We're all familiar with the idea of a "stay-cation" - too broke to take a real vacation, we pretend to do fun stuff while staying at home to reduce costs. Some people are better at this than others. My husband, for example, completely fails at stay-cations. If he's not on a flight at the ass-crack of dawn, it's not worth using a vacation day.
Along those same lines, I'm planning a bit of stay-treat. Free-treat? Me-treat? Whatever. The point is that I can't afford to take off to some meditation retreat or writing retreat so I'm planning my own without leaving the comforts of home. Joe will be on the left coast next week for work (Monday morning - Saturday morning) and I want to make the most of it.
What I'm really trying to do is take a break in my normal routine that will help ramp it up when the week is over. For example - I'm planning to workout, read, write, meditate daily. These are things I currently do sometimes. Or while multi-tasking on ten other things. I want to really focus and be mindful of these things next week, cutting out on a lot of the time-wasters like tv and aimless surfing. I want to really feed my soul and nourish my creative side. I want to spend the entire five days taking care of ME.
So how would you go about doing this? Do I set a strict agenda? No agenda at all? Since I'm not going to benefit from the change in location that a real retreat provides (though I have nothing against driving to somewhere local, especially if the weather would cooperate for some outside time), it will be tempting to fall into my usual routine. Those distractions that always get me will still be here. How do I ignore them? How do I make this different? Is it even possible? I suppose that's an advantage of going somewhere else for a retreat but since I'm home all day regularly, it's important for me to learn discipline when it comes to those shiny objects.
Any ideas, I'd love to hear them. Book suggestions, website resources, tip and tricks, whatever you've got. I'm excited to spend some time this week planning so I can make next week special without spending a million dollars.
Along those same lines, I'm planning a bit of stay-treat. Free-treat? Me-treat? Whatever. The point is that I can't afford to take off to some meditation retreat or writing retreat so I'm planning my own without leaving the comforts of home. Joe will be on the left coast next week for work (Monday morning - Saturday morning) and I want to make the most of it.
What I'm really trying to do is take a break in my normal routine that will help ramp it up when the week is over. For example - I'm planning to workout, read, write, meditate daily. These are things I currently do sometimes. Or while multi-tasking on ten other things. I want to really focus and be mindful of these things next week, cutting out on a lot of the time-wasters like tv and aimless surfing. I want to really feed my soul and nourish my creative side. I want to spend the entire five days taking care of ME.
So how would you go about doing this? Do I set a strict agenda? No agenda at all? Since I'm not going to benefit from the change in location that a real retreat provides (though I have nothing against driving to somewhere local, especially if the weather would cooperate for some outside time), it will be tempting to fall into my usual routine. Those distractions that always get me will still be here. How do I ignore them? How do I make this different? Is it even possible? I suppose that's an advantage of going somewhere else for a retreat but since I'm home all day regularly, it's important for me to learn discipline when it comes to those shiny objects.
Any ideas, I'd love to hear them. Book suggestions, website resources, tip and tricks, whatever you've got. I'm excited to spend some time this week planning so I can make next week special without spending a million dollars.
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