Sunshine On My Shoulders Makes Me Happy.....

Cadence took back the climbing tree today.  He's been much happier since he reclaimed the top spot.

Boo doesn't mind so much at all.  He and Ed hung out and got some sun today next to one of the other windows.  One of them even left a little hair ball gift on the carpet nearby.

Tattletale

This morning as Ken (aka The Murph) and I were about to walk in our gym, we saw this little old lady trying really hard to pull into a parking spot.  It was the first spot and she had taken a sharp left and then had to take another sharp left to get into the spot.  A large, white minivan was parked next to the spot she was trying to get into, so she had to maneuver her car for several minutes to get into the spot without bumping the white minivan.  She wasn't doing very well and from our vantage spot, it looked like she was bumping the side of the van at least 3 times as she backed up, went forward, bump, backed up, went forward, bump..... this went on for at least 5 minutes as Ken and I watched horrified.

We could still see her maneuvering when we went inside the gym.  Ken told the girl at the desk about it.  We then watched as the little old lady got parked, fumbled around inside her car for another 5 minutes, hung a handicap sign from her rear view mirror, and hobbled out of her car to the beauty parlor next door.

Ken was beside himself.  The girl at the gym and I felt sorry for the little old lady and didn't think he should tell on her.  Rude, idiot drivers are one of his pet peeves, but this was just a little handicapped old woman.  He always complains about drivers around here so when he sees somebody hit another vehicle and not even put a note on the car she hit, well, that's it!  The old woman just got out of her car and went to get her hair done.

 To top it off, he then sees the owner of the white minivan, another elderly woman,  come out of the beauty parlor and get in her car to drive away.  He runs out of the gym to stop the woman in the minivan to tell her about the little old lady bumping her car.  She sees him running toward her and looks a little scared as she's trying to hurry away.  Ken was able to stop her before she got away and tell on the little old handicap woman.  Luckily, there was no damage done to the minivan and the minivan wasn't in that great shape anyway.  The minivan owner seemed to know the" hit and run" lady and said everything was all right.

 Ken felt better.  I couldn't help teasing him a little though for "telling on" a little, old, handicapped lady.  Ken the Tattletale.

Happy Groundhog Day!

  (this was a groundhog picture, but it got axed by Google)

Apparently, Groundhog Phil saw his shadow today.  What that means is 6 more weeks of winter.  We have had a very mild winter here in the South, but I am still ready for Spring to get here.   I think we need a second opinion little Mr. Groundhog Phil.  I have never seen a groundhog hanging out in my backyard or even when I've gone hiking at a nearby park.  I could be wrong, but I don't think there are any groundhogs around here in Alabama so how can one in Pennsylvania predict our weather.  We have plenty of squirrels and chipmunks and opossums (nasty!), but no groundhogs.  While Groundhog Phil is awfully cute and furry and I am partial to furry things (I'm engaged to the Murph after all), we definitely need a second opinion.  Maybe from a local rodent.  Since I don't know where to find a local groundhog, maybe we could us a chipmunk.  I don't know though.  Happy "Chipmunk" Day would just sound weird.

Piggy Back Ride

Boo keeps pulling different toys out of his toy basket.  This puppy is his latest.  I wish I could've gotten a picture of him carrying this thing around in his mouth, meowing as he always does when he has something in his mouth.

Dreariness

I am so ready for Spring to get here.  How dreary it is outside right now.  I love Fall and then the holidays, but now I wish I could fast forward through the next couple of months and get right to Spring.  This is what the swimming pool area looks like now.  Ick!

This is what's left of our herb garden from last summer.

I don't think this hibiscus plant survived the cold temperatures.

Dreary.  Press fast forward now!

Sweet Tea - Gotta Have It

My fav sweet tea

Ken and I usually do our grocery shopping on Friday or Saturday, but I'm already out of sweet tea which I have to have, so we went to the store today after our walk.  Ken doesn't really appreciate sweet tea and thinks I shouldn't drink it.  He thinks I am too obsessed with it and it's almost like a drug that makes me way to hyper for him to handle.  Ha! Ha!   He doesn't even recognize his refrigerator and pantry since I moved in.  His diet was way healthier than mine.  His idea of flax seed is this....ground up and added to his morning smoothie....

Mine is this...  right after I've had a couple of handfuls of chips and always accompanied by a glass of sweet tea in the largest glass I can find...

I go from eating something salty such as pretzels, crackers and potato chips, right to something sweet, usually cookies.  This amuses him.  Salty, sweet, salty, sweet.  This process goes on for most of the day.  Ken always has a grocery list when he goes to the store and he use to tell me to "just add what I wanted/needed to the list."  This didn't work for me because I don't know what I want or need until I get to the store.  It's usually Cape Cod Chips, some sort of cookies, crackers, cheese, bananas, power bars, fitness water, etc.  I have my favorite brands and I usually stick with them.  Now he just lists my stuff under "Barbie's (insert my real name here) Crap".

My crap includes, but isn't limited to some of these items....

Whenever Ken starts up on me about the sweet tea drinking, I come back on him about his beer drinking.  Ken's "crap" always includes these items....brands vary, but never, ever include Budweiser, Miller and most of the other domestic beers.  He's kind of a beer snob....

It's been over a year now and I'm still a sweet tea drinking, cookie eating Southern Gal and he's still my "piss drunk Irishman". ( I heard that expression once and thought it was funny so I use it on Ken since he's Irish even if he's not usually piss drunk.)   I told him if he wants me to give up my sweet tea then he's going to have to give up his beer.  I think I can safely say I'll be drinking sweet tea for a long, long time.

Found this and thought it was funny -Kamakura house and Maru.-

Sulking

Boo took over the cat climbing tree today, Cadence's favorite spot to hang out.   The top where Cadence usually sits was vacant, but Cadence wouldn't jump over Boo to get up there.

Boo loved it.  He hung out on the climbing tree most of the day today, looking at birds out the window.   At first I thought Cadence and Boo would get along and hang out together on the tree watching the birds together.  But, oh no, not Cadence.

Instead he ran downstairs and jumped on The Boy's bed and hung out down there sulking for most of the day.  He wouldn't even let me pet him.  He ignored me.  He ran away from Ken.  He tried to bite my hand when I got near him.

 Sulking...

 Sulking....  and maybe a little hint of a stink eye......

 More Sulking........

Then the "how dare you let Boo climb on my climbing tree" look.....

Conspiracy

Today I actually got up at 4:30 a.m to do a long run with the Running Nazi and another friend, who I will call "Ms. Harry Potter" or just Ms. Harry for short.  Ms Harry is actually a female, but she is obsessed with Harry Potter books, movies, etc so that's what The Running Nazi's hubby, Mr. Running Nazi calls her, so that's good enough for me.  I was rather proud of myself for this increasingly rare act of  training discipline.  Once upon a time, I was very anal about my training plan, but now I rarely have a training plan to get anal about.  These days that's the way I prefer it.

This morning there was a very large group of runners, who are training for a local marathon/1/2 marathon and today they were running the marathon course which is two 13.1 mile loops.  The group was meeting at 6:30 a.m. and some were doing the entire 13.1 mile loop (the marathoners) and some were doing an 8 mile loop (the half marathoners).  We decided to park about 3 miles away and run to where the group was starting, run the 13.1 mile loop with them, then run back the 3 miles to our car and then add another mile to run a total of 20 miles in all.  The Running Nazi and I are training for a later marathon than this one so we needed the 20 miler.   Their marathon is in two weeks so this group was tapering.

Initially, The Running Nazi and I were going to park where the training group was meeting and start with them to do the loop and then add on later.  Yesterday, I receive a text from the Nazi saying that there was a "large" group of runners doing 20 miles and they were meeting down the road at some mysterious church, the place changed twice before it was decided.  I had my suspicions.  Was this just another ploy of The Nazi to get me out a little further away from the group so if I changed my mind and got to my car I wouldn't be able to just quit at 13 miles and head home for coffee and a biscuit?  I would have to actually run the extra miles to the car at this church where the "large" group of 20 mile runners were supposedly meeting instead.  Also, this was 5:30 in the morning and it was still dark and we were meeting in an area that I feel isn't the safest.  It's kind of creepy when it's dark, but it's near Ms. Harry's apartment and I also think that she prefers to run from her apartment rather than drive somewhere.  Besides, she and the Nazi love running from there think the area is safe and that I'm just being a paranoid baby.

The Nazi already knows I don't care to run in this area of town alone, early in the morning, when it's still dark or with just the 3 of us women running alone, in the dark, at an ungodly hour.  Did I say it was dark?  I didn't like parking my car there and leaving it either.  Before I could even protest the place or the hour, The Nazi offered to pick me up and drive me to the meeting place and assured me that there was going to be a lot of people at this church to run with us.  I asked her how many people, who they were,  names, addresses, social security numbers (just joking on the last three).  She didn't know, but Ms. Harry assured her that there was going to be A LOT of people.

I reluctantly agreed, but had serious doubts about it all.

The Nazi picked me up and we headed to the church to meet the large 20 miler group near Ms. Harry's place.  We get there, it's pitch black, the place looks deserted, no runners at the church.  Surprise!  We park and see Ms. Harry running toward us.  She tells us to come on and we'll just keep running on by the church if we don't see anybody there.  NOBODY was there.  It was dark, it was creepy.   We had 3 miles to run, in the dark, all alone, to get to where the real large group of runners were beginning.  I'm looking around for thugs, crazy people, rabid dogs, who knows what could be out there in the dark around the corner to grab us.

It's barely 6 a.m and I am out of my cozy bed where I would've been snuggling next to Ken with little Cadence curled up next to me, purring and instead I am in the freezing cold, dark, scary streets running with a Running Nazi and Ms. Harry Potter, who I am starting to suspect to be two crazy nut cases.  These crazies were running and chit chatting like they were having the best time, catching up, girl talk and I'm looking around, thinking we were going to get mugged any minute, even though all I had on me was some chap stick and a couple GU.

When we finally got to the place where the REAL large group was starting, I was extremely happy.  I can't begin to tell you how happy I was.  Civilization!   I told The Running Nazi I was going to blog bad things about her.  Not to mention the fact that she kept trying to add more miles to our 20 miler.  I was keeping count of the mileage though.  If not we would've run 24 or 25 miles today.  She said she really, really, really didn't know that nobody would show up for the 20 miler.  That Ms. Harry had told her there was going to be people running with us.  A LOT of them.  I have my doubts.  Now I think The Nazi and Ms. Harry have a conspiracy going to get me up to run at ungodly hours just to scare the shit out of me.  I'm onto them now.

Mood Indigo - Atlanta

Fox Theater 

The past couple of days, Ken and I have been in Atlanta to attend a seminar and to look around at real estate.   Atlanta is a city on our short list of places we'd like to move since there's a good possibility of finding jobs there.  The reason we went to Atlanta, however, was to attend a seminar on a franchise we are interested in starting up together near the coast.  There are three franchise opportunities we are looking into opening, not in Atlanta, but down near the coast.  If we move to Atlanta, it will only be for a job, not to start a franchise.  The franchise idea came up because we both want to move to the coast, but there's not a lot of job opportunities down there.  Surprise!   Starting a franchise would probably be our only option if we want to be able to earn a living down there.

We have narrowed our list of cities we are considering moving to down to about five, one is to just stay where we are for 5 to 10 more years and get a job or open a franchise of some sort here.   Only my mom likes that option.  Ken and I are ready to move somewhere different.  Sorry mom!

We always try to pack lightly...

We were in Atlanta two nights, with one night at a hotel near the airport for the seminar.  The other night we stayed at a really cool, but sort of small, hotel in Midtown Atlanta called Hotel Indigo.  My first impression was that I had somehow become trapped inside a Pottery Barn catalog.  We had a huge mural on the wall behind our bed that looked like a giant knit sweater or blanket.   I felt that at any moment it was about to fall off the wall and smother us.  The floor was imitation hardwood instead of carpet.  That was different.   The hotel is in a building built in the 1920's or 30's.  Guess that's explains the small room.

Cozy room, very comfy bed

Weird "sweater" mural behind bed

Reminds me of something you would find in a seaside cottage

Very Beachy

The lobby, bar area and sitting areas were really cool.  I loved the pink accents and especially the pink chairs and chandeliers.  The walls were cool too.  The hotel is right across the street from the Fox Theatre and so the hotel walls in the lobby area had a movie ticket, movie type theme.  Really cool.  For extra safety they even had a "guard dog" patrolling the area.  A cute little Jack Russell terrier.

Love the Chandeliers

Love the colors and the walls in this area.

Love this pink chair!

Pink!

The bathroom was way to small for us though.  We need room to spread out, especially me, but Ken needs his privacy too.  Also, whenever one of us flushed the commode it made a really loud noise at the end that sounded like a cruise ship horn blowing.  We kept thinking we were heading out to sea.  This really amused me for a while and I kept flushing the commode just to hear the noise.  I'm easily amused.

Beware!  Flush at your own risk.....

                   

 

Old Commercials And Rock em Sock em Robot Kitties

I took this picture of Ed and Boo playing, but then it got a little out of hand when Boo got ticked off.  Reminds me of the rockem sockem robots that my little brother had as a kid....  I was waiting for Ed's head to pop up at any time.....

Sharing

Boo carries this red and white Santa cat toy around everywhere he goes.  The wild hair doll next to it, he usually drops in different spots near where ever I happen to be sitting.  The doll has one arm, one leg and a rat's nest in her hair.  Boo's been carrying it around in his mouth for at least 12 years.  It was his first toy, leftover from when The Girl (Ken's daughter) out grew it many years ago.  Now Boo enjoys "sharing" the doll with me.

New Mattress Adventure

No, the mattress adventure is nothing rated X or anything.  (maybe rated PG-13 for the drama)  Sorry!  The mattress adventure started today when Macy's delivered our new mattress and box springs and took away our old ones.  Anybody who has cats and are familiar with where they like to hide should know where this story's going.


We have needed a new mattress for some time now.  When I moved in with the Murph, we decided to use my bedroom furniture which has a king size bed instead of his queen size one.  The mattress was so old I don't even remember when it was bought and for some reason I'm thinking it might have been a hand me down mattress from my exe's parents back when I was married.  This could mean the mattress was for sure older than 10 years old and could possibly even be 20 years old, but I'd like to think it wasn't that old.  However old it might be, one thing I do know is that it was the most uncomfortable thing I've ever slept on in my life, including air mattress and tent floors back in the camping days when I was much younger.

When the Murph and I were in Hawaii last June, we stayed at the Four Seasons Resort in Maui and decided the mattress on the bed in our hotel room was heavenly.   Before we left, we took the sheets off to discover what kind of mattress it was so we could purchase one just like it when we got back home.  Sterne's and Foster pillow top plush.  We made a pact that when we got home we were going to order one.  Once home, however, we had a couple of unplanned expenses and so we put off the purchase until a couple of weeks ago.  My back was starting to protest the old mattress and I swear I would lie awake sleepless at night and occasionally hear a ping ping noise coming from deep in the box spring.  I think the springs were slowly collapsing.   Or maybe it was one of the cats crawling around up in the box spring.  It was Cadence's favorite hiding spot.

Easy to find Boo

So today, when the doorbell rang, all four cats scatter to their favorite hiding spots.  I knew right away where Boo and Phantom were.  They are just too large to crawl into very small spaces and so are easily found.  I didn't really think about Cadence being up inside the box springs because I thought he would be scared when the delivery men walked into the bedroom.  The delivery guys wrapped the old mattress and box springs in plastic and put them in the back of the truck.  I was checking out the new mattress (rolling around on it to be exact) when it suddenly hit me.  Where was Cadence??  I checked his other hiding places quickly and he wasn't there.  Terrified, I ran outside to the delivery guys who luckily hadn't left yet and told them I thought my cat might be in the truck inside the box springs.  The guys looked at me like I was nuts, but one of them went back inside the truck and felt around the outside of the box springs, shook them and said he didn't think the cat was there.  He said he thought he would've been able to tell if there was a cat inside.  I was doubtful, but took his word for it.  There wasn't much I could do.

Don't know what I'm going to do with little Cadence!

I went back inside the house as they left to head back to Atlanta and began searching for Cadence.  I spent the next hour pretty much on my hands and knees crawling around looking under all the furniture and feeling up inside the springs of all our couches and chairs upstairs in Ed and Boo's area and downstairs in The Boy's area and every place in between.  I even went outside calling and looking around just in case he was in the box spring and jumped out as they were carrying it outside.  Eventually, Ed, Boo and Phantom were all accounted for, but still no Cadence.   I called the delivery guys and left a message to please check the box springs again and pull the material off the back this time so that they could see up inside the frame.


Finally, when I was in total stressed out panic, covered in dust, kitty fur and god knows what else, who appears at my feet, but little Cadence.  I have no idea where he had hidden himself, but was so glad to see him I couldn't  reprimand him for ignoring my pleading calls.

And all this time I thought it was just The Boy taking years off my life!

Cadence making sure it's safe to come out

Maybe not safe, heading back under cover!

Phantom slowly coming back out

Traumatic day for me and all the cats!

Taking Back My Ugg Boots

I had a rare opportunity today while Ed and Boo were "sunning' to take back my Uggs since they were finally off of them.  The Ugg Boots have a little extra "fur" than usual, but none the worse for wear.

Sorry guys!