All Laced Up

Today I wore these new Jeffrey Campbell lace up boots since my Uggs have been occupied and turned into a cat bed and are now covered in cat hair.  I really like these boots, but I have to say I have been very spoiled with pull on type boots (such as the Uggs and my cowboy boots) and it was a job to lace these babies up.   Phantom didn't help matters either as he tried to chase the laces and chew on them as I struggled to get them laced up.  I almost lost a couple of fingers with those fat paws and sharp teeth coming dangerously close.   Lacing these boots up would probably be much easier without the Jazz cat's help, but oh well,  he was having fun and I still have all my fingers and no scratches.

After all the trouble to get them laced up, I have to say they are really starting to grow on me.  They are really super cute and versatile since they are two-toned ( black and brown) and a great alternative to my Uggs and the cowboy boots.  Ken isn't all that crazy about my cowboy boots, but I do love my red ones.    

He only called me "prairie girl" twice, but thinks they are just too much trouble to get on and off.  (He saw me struggling to get them on with the help from Phantom).  They are very comfortable though and even fit well over my large calves, which are very muscular due unfortunately to way too much running and biking.  Once laced up, these boots are decidedly on the way to my fave list.

Caught

Should I just wrestle the boots out from under the cats??

I made the mistake of leaving my Ugg Boots in the living room where Ed and Boo like to hang out.  Now they've abandoned the pink chair in favor of my Uggs.  They've been on the boots for most of the weekend, at least it seems that way every time I go in there and attempt to put the boots away.   I'm sure the Uggs are nothing but hair balls by now.

I could tell you what our new name for these two are, but it's not very nice!

Boo even has his little Christmas doll nearby.

Hey!  Get off my boots!

Ed And Boo And The Antique Chair

Ed and Boo (Ken's cats) are the sweetest cats of the bunch.  The other two cats (mine) are little rascals.  When I moved in with my cats and all my furniture, Ken wanted to give this antique chair to charity.  We couldn't find any of our friends or family who would take it.  After seeing these two kitties always hanging out on this chair, their favorite, I refuse to give it away.

 Ken says, "It has to go!"

I say, "No!"

The chair and these cats have endeared themselves to me.  Besides the chair is my favorite color.  Pink!

Internet Mystery Solved

This morning the Internet kept going down for some "unexplained" reason.  I was on my laptop and Ken was on his desktop computer and suddenly, for no reason at all, the Internet was gone.  I thought it was just being slow at first, but I tried for 20 minutes to get back online.  Ken finally gave up and got dressed to go work out.  Finally, I went downstairs to The Boy's area where our wireless router is located and just turned everything off and then immediately back on.  I came back up and got on my laptop, but the Internet still wouldn't come back up.  Frustrated, I gave up and went to work out at the gym.

When I got home I had ten missed calls and a text message from The Boy demanding to know why his servers were down.  I called him back and said I don't know, but I would like to know why our Internet isn't working. (We had a feeling The Boy had something to do with it)   I told him what I did earlier and he said "Oh, my gosh! I can't believe you did that!  Don't turn things off unless you call me first."

Apparently, The Boy was backing up his laptop to the server he has downstairs and it took longer than what he thought it would.  Ten hours.  So when we got up this morning and logged on our computers, he was taking up space with his backup almost 300 miles away.  Needless to say, it took me over an hour on the phone with him while he guided me through what to do to get the Internet back up and running.  I told him to NEVER do that again in the morning when we are always using the Internet.  He said he would let me know if it took that long again.  I just got a call from him wanting to start the back up over again now, since I screwed up his back up last night when I shut everything off this morning.

I told him to wait an hour or so and that seemed to be all right with him.  I really need to know what's going on downstairs on all those server things.  He was laughing at me today because I couldn't even figure out how to use the wireless mouse.  It had more buttons and things than I'm use to.  It's kind of scary knowing that The Boy is in control of our Internet set up!  If we ever have a problem with it, I don't think even the cable company that we get the Internet service from would know what to do to get us back up and running.  Not to mention the noise coming from down there....

Dorm Rooms and Pillow Shams

Basic Bedding, no pillow shams

I tried to get some pictures of The Boy when we dropped him off at his dorm the other day.  He wasn't being very cooperative.  This is all I could get of him and his dorm room.  The dorm wasn't in extremely bad shape although I'm sure he doesn't get around to cleaning it very often and left it in somewhat of a mess when he came home for the holidays.  I was a little surprised that it wasn't worse though.  


The comforter we picked out for his dorm room last summer came with matching pillow shams.  Neither he nor The Murph really knew what use pillow shams were (they weren't really even sure what shams are until I explained it to them) and we didn't have enough pillows on his bed to use them anyway. The shams are still sitting on the dresser where I left them last August when we moved him into the dorm.  I really should get a couple of pillows for those things.  The Murph and The Boy love to make fun of the shams.  I guess shams aren't really a guy thing.  The Boy's bed at home has both regular pillows with shams and European pillows with shams. His bed probably has a total of 9 pillows if you count the decorative ones and he doesn't even realize he has pillow shams on some of his pillows.  If I ever get brave enough to go down to his room and make the bed, I will take pictures.  He has a really nice Ralph Lauren comforter and sheet set that are very masculine and perfect for a guy.   His dorm comforter is a plain, dark grey, basic comforter purchased at Kohl's with matching sheets and pillow shams, of course, unused for now.

The Boy, not wanting his picture taken

One more try....

Busy Race Weekend

I know it has been several days since my last posts, but it has been a very busy weekend traveling, racing, and getting The Boy back to school.  I am just now getting back on the Internet and have only been using my phone to check emails.  I had about 200 to delete today when I finally hooked my laptop back up to the Internet.

Thursday we were on the road headed to the beach with a stop at The Boy's college to purchase his text books for the upcoming semester.  He is only taking 4 classes, but still the tab was almost $500.  Amazing what books cost these days.  He started reading one of them this weekend and says he's almost finished.  It was one on programming, of course, his favorite subject.

Saturday I competed in a 1/2 marathon in Pensacola Beach.  It was cold at the start, but not as cold as I thought it was going to be.  I thought the a.m. temp was going to be around 28 degrees F, but actually it was 47 F.  Not too bad when you are running.  It was a great race.  Only half the pain of a full marathon and there was no swimming involved since it wasn't a triathlon.  Not bad, not bad at all!  I can handle it.  I wasn't as under trained for it since I just did a full marathon in November and have been doing some faster running on the treadmill and a 12 miler and an 8 miler during the holidays.  My time was 1 hr 57 min which put me 4th in my age group.  My goal was to run it in under 2 hours, so I fulfilled my goal and only went through one bad spell around mile 11 when my feet were screaming in pain and my calves felt like somebody was sticking pins in them.  I decided for a brief moment that I hated myself for being so slow and out of shape.  Then somebody yelled that I was almost finished and I was coming in under 2 hours.  That made me feel better.  I started liking myself more and more and really felt great as I crossed the finish line.  Big hug to myself for being slow but not that slow and finishing the race in under my goal time and a bigger hug for Ken for being there to support me.  He's a great "athletic supporter."

My legs are still sore and I am walking funny.  Ken and The Boy make fun of my funny tip toe walking, but my calves are so tight and sore that I can't help it.  They need to get out there and run 13 miles before they make fun of me!

Today we just got back from dropping The Boy off at school.  I have my fingers crossed that he makes straight A's this semester.  I know he can do it!  (if he doesn't, I'm signing him up to run a marathon with me - ha!)  When he was little, he did participate in some very short triathlons and some fun runs and I pulled him behind me on my bike until he was old enough to ride his own bike.  That's the price a kid pays for having a parent who's a triathlete.  He's a good sport most of the time!

Sunrise with Ken, my athletic supporter

Beautiful day at the beach

Front group of runners

Here's my gloves....

The last of civilization until the turn around

Boo Says "Roll Tide!"

 Boo wearing the houndstooth scarf,  Ready for the Alabama/LSU game.  He must be trying to channel the late Bear Bryant, greatest coach ever in college football next to Nick Saban.

Bama Rules!  Roll Tide!

Possessed Kitty

Cadence looks a little possessed in pictures with his glowing eyes.  Sneaky, yes.  Possessed, not sure.  We finally realized that it isn't just Phantom chasing Ed around the house at night.

Zoning Out

 It only looks like I have a dead cat at my feet.  Boo's not dead (at least I don't think he's dead).  He's just totally relaxed and completely zoned out.  He does this all the time so I think he must really love me or maybe he just knows I have yummy snacks nearby that I share with him on occasion.

This is Boo kitty from my perspective.  Yep, pretty zoned out!  Conscience completely clear.   Not a care in the world.  Probably dreaming about playing with dolls and his next meal.

Breakfast Of The Champs

This is what I actually had for breakfast this morning.  I was having a craving from my childhood days (about two years ago, ha).   A fruity blast from the past.

Ken couldn't believe I was really eating it this morning.  He actually tore himself away from his daily morning ritual of reading the news on his computer to come look at me shoveling it in my mouth.  He's never had any high sugar, artificially colored cereal in his life or any cereal that wasn't low sugar, high fiber for that matter.

He was better supervised on Saturday mornings as a child.  My brother and I were totally out of control and unsupervised on Saturday mornings.  My poor mother was worn out from trying to get us up for school during the week.  We could eat any sugary thing we wanted too including her soft drinks and chocolate candy bars if we could find her stash.  (My brother always could!)  All I needed was some Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker and Scooby Doo cartoons playing on the television.

Shopping With The Boy

New Diesel shoes for The Boy

Today I spent the afternoon with The Boy shopping and having a late lunch (Mexican food, his favorite).  This is the very first time ever that The Boy actually went shopping with me of his own free will.  He actually WANTED to go with me to pick out clothes.  He has never, ever done this in his entire life.  Usually, I have to drag him kicking and screaming and when we get there he doesn't know what he likes, wants or even cares.  Most of the time he would clam up and refuse to speak or even look at me or acknowledge the salespeople in the stores who were trying to be helpful.  When he was really small he would run and hide in the clothing racks so I couldn't find him.  Stores were just not a fun place for The Boy.  Too bright, too noisy, too stressful, sensory overload!

I gave up taking him with me a long time ago.  I would either order things online or go to the store by myself and buy lots of different things I thought he might like, bring them home and let him try them on.  What he didn't like or didn't fit, I would return or exchange until he had things he would wear.  Buying things I liked for him didn't work unless he like them.  If he didn't like it, he refused to wear it.  Collared shirts - Out!  Blue jeans - Out!  Long sleeved shirts - Out!  Sandals or flip flops - Out!  He would wear the same pair of pants over and over again so I would just buy him a few pairs of the same exact pants.  I wasn't going to wash clothes every night and he doesn't wash so it was either that or wear dirty, smelly pants that could walk by themselves by the end of the week.  I prefer to make it as simple as possible.  If there is only one color and style of pants The Boy will wear, then that's what I would buy for him.  I prefer to save my energy for other more important battles than what he wants to wear.

When The Boy was in elementary school and high school, believe me we had more than our share of battles.  Clothing wasn't going to be one of them.  I would've sent him to school in a burlap sack if that was the only thing he would wear.  (well, maybe not that extreme).  He stopped wearing jeans cold turkey in about third grade when I sent him to school in a pair of jeans from the GAP and another kid told him GAP stands for "Girls Are Pretty".  That was enough to traumatize him from wearing any pair of jeans forever.  I tried to convince him to wear a pair of grey 7 For All Mankind jeans a couple of years ago.  He wouldn't go near them.

We found some really cute cargo pants (no jeans) and t-shirts at Express.  The Boy doesn't really care for when I say something is "cute"because he's a guy and guys don't wear "cute" things,  but oh well, I thought they were cute and they looked really good on The Boy.  He only wears short sleeves so all shirts with long sleeves were ruled out immediately and then we only had to find some t-shirts he liked.  Easy!   This is the first time I've bought anything for him at Express.  Usually we shop at Old Navy, American Eagle or Abercrombie and Fitch.  Next time I might even try Banana Republic.  We even found a pair of black Diesel shoes he liked at Saks Fifth Avenue.  The Boy is branching out!  There might be hope!

Longing For The Beach

With the holidays over I am now longing to get back down to the beach.  I have had enough of the "ham."  I love having The Boy here on college break though.  I will miss him when he has to back to school.

Ken is ready to head back down to the beach too.   We love the beach and can only be away for short periods of time before we have severe withdrawals.  It's been almost two months now so I think we are over due.

Next week are going to head down to the beach for a long weekend.  I am running in a half marathon next weekend and The Boy needs to buy his books for this coming semester.  We are going to swing by the college and get the books and then head to the beach to get ready for the half marathon.   We can only stay a few day days this time though.

After we get back, we are all going to be extremely busy getting the house cleaned up and ready to put on the market and The Boy will be back in the swing of things at school.  We are looking at several options as far as permanent moves, all but one involves being near the coast.  Of course, we are pulling for the coastal options first, but it depends on jobs, career opportunities, and finding a place we love.  Our first choice is being near The Boy and not being to far away from The Girl, Ken's daughter, who still has one year left of college unless she decides to go to grad school.  Both of "The Kids" are so smart and talented (in different ways ) and have so many options available to them.

It's all very exciting!  An adventure!  We can't wait to get started.

Packing Up The Christmas Decorations

Well, it's finally here.  The day I have been dreading, but knew it would come.  Time to take down all the Christmas decorations and pack them away.  It's been really great and super festive having all five trees up and all the other Christmasy stuff all over the house, but what a job to get it all down!  The cats are really going to miss them too.  Their new favorite spots to hang out were under those trees.  I think they have been nibbling on some of them too because we've found Christmas tree looking green things intermingled with some hair balls in the dining room.   At least they are too old to try to climb the trees and knock the ornaments off.  I went through a couple of years of that with Phantom and Cadence.  I would decorate the tree and the next morning ornaments would be everywhere except on the tree.  After a few nights of this I just gave up and left the ornament on the floor for them to play with.   It was no fun for them after that.

The house is covered in fake pine needles, snow glitter, cat fur and dust balls.  Taking down the trees was only a start.  Now it's time to start cleaning.  The cats weren't as happy with the tree going down as they were with the trees going up.  I know how they feel.  I like the less cluttered look in the house now though.  The Boy hasn't even noticed anything different around the house.  Lately, we only see him when he's hungry.

Tomorrow I am tackling the outside decorations.  It's time to get on with the new year.   I don't think I will put as many trees up next year either.

Tree's gone, but Ed and Boo's favorite chair is back.

Christmas Decorations all packed up.

Kitty Shit Ramblings

         The new litter box for the Murph's cats.  Simple, unpretentious,
 non self-cleaningso the cats have to do what Ken calls the "turd dance"

Yesterday Ken (aka The Murph) and I went to PetSmart to purchase new litter boxes for our four cats, fresh ones for the new year.  I keep one downstairs for my two cats, Phantom and Cadence and he has one upstairs for his two, Ed and Boo.  His cats have always used the basic, uncovered plastic box which is the cheapest and most economical one.  Mine use to use one of the more fancy covered ones with the filter on top until a couple of years ago when they started using the self-cleaning one.  This is the cadillac of all litter boxes and the most expensive.  They sell for around $100 compared to the most basic one for around $7.  The cats jump in, do their business and after a couple of minutes (to make sure the cats have had time to cover up their poop and jump back out) the litter box cleans itself out by pushing the kitty crap down to a special storage container at the bottom of the box while leaving the litter in the box ready for next time.  All you have to do is change out the storage container once a week and the cats don't have to jump into a dirty litter box if you forget to scoop.  Ken and I never scoop so I really liked this feature.

Unfortunately, the litter box stopped working while we were living at the beach last fall.  I'm not sure what happened, but probably the motor burned out.  That's my best guess anyway.  Special litter has to be used in it and maybe I forgot and put the wrong litter in it.  All litter looks alike to me.  Ken thought the litter box was a little much.   He said his cats were perfectly happy with their litter box and he thinks all cats should have to dance around their turds when they jump in the litter box.  Why should my cats be any different?  Personally, I kind of liked the idea that when my cats got into their litter box they weren't stepping in old poop and their paws were staying a little cleaner because of it.  Cadence slaps me in the face with those paws every morning to wake me up!  I don't want any germy residue on them!

Since I couldn't spend $100 on another litter box that cleans itself but breaks in less than two years, I had to decide on another kind of box.   Ken goes into PetSmart and picks his seven buck cheap, dark red box right away.  I decide to go with another covered one so I can use plastic liners.  This helps when cleaning the box and a cover is needed to hold the plastic liner, otherwise the cats pull the plastic liner off the sides of the litter box when they are covering up their poop.  The entire time, Ken was shaking his head, rolling his eyes, saying how his cats were perfectly happy with the simple uncovered litter box, how nice they are, how unspoiled they are, how my cats were spoiled, not nice and not very happy, how every cat should be happy to dance around their shit and enjoy it.  How his cats have a fine litter box that any cat should be honored to take a shit in and what the heck are "liners" anyway...   I heard this rambling all the way to the cashier and across the parking lot to the car and all the way back to the house.  I was laughing so hard at his kitty shit ramblings, I thought I was going to be sick.

I am happy to say all the cats love their new litter boxes and Phantom can even get his large butt through the small door of the covered box.  I was a little concerned he wouldn't be able to and I would have to go with the simple, uncovered box sans liner.

My cat's new litter box that offers a little more privacy, but the cats will
still have to do the "turd dance" since there's no self-cleaning function

New Years Resolution

I don't usually do New Year resolutions so should I start now?  I have the same goals year round, year after year as far as fitness goes and that is to stay fit, to be as thin as I possibly can be and still eat cookies and chips.  That means I am not as thin as I could be, but that's ok if I can eat cookies.  I will just work out a little harder and do those long runs every once in a while with the Running Nazi.   I guess if I did have a New Year resolution it would be something like the following:

1)   Run faster

2)   Bike faster

3)   Swim more than just occasionally (at least once a week would be great, but I'm not committing!)

4)   Run one or two marathons in a different state so I can count them off my list

5)   Eat less cookies and more broccoli or flax seed or anything "healthy"

6)   Be nice to ignorant people (Hey, I haven't mentioned any names here, it's just in general)

7)   Finish the novel (or start one that I can finish)

8)   Buy less shoes and give the money I "save" to homeless cat shelters (or maybe just start a homeless      cat shelter of my own.   I'm sure the Murph wouldn't mind)   ;)

I guess that's enough on the list.  I don't really know how long the list should be.   I'm sort of new at this "resolution" thing, but those are my goals for the year.  I always have goals.  Resolution must be just another word for goals, but stronger and more determined for those who need it.

Hmmmmmm....  like me!

res·o·lu·tion

noun

a resolve or determination: to make a firm resolution to do something.

the act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure, etc.

the mental state or quality of being resolved or resolute; firmness of purpose.