Musings of a marginally sane feline-appreciating female.

The side door now has a lovely new deadbolt and doorknob and is up to fire code to boot! Only took about a half hour and there was shockingly very little swearing throughout. It’s a very nice brushed nickel/silver/whatever, much nicer than the flaking gold tone before, AND THE DOORKNOB TURNS EASILY! (And not a moment too soon, cause when I got back from the hardware store yesterday, the doorknob really did NOT want to turn.)

And I have been on a SOLID roll this week and it is all thanks to SOFT PANTS!

Stay with me – one of my blocks to exercise and cleaning is having to change into not-jeans. (Too hot for cleaning & not good for exercise.) During the week, I have been in the habit of wearing jeans when I work, because…IDK, I guess I got it into my head I “shouldn’t” wear PJ pants/joggers/yoga pants unless I wasn’t feeling 100% or it was snowing. But wearing jeans doesn’t get my brain to “work mode” – opening the work laptop is what gets my brain there.

So, this past week, I’ve been getting up and getting straight into whatever joggers I have at the ready – and then when I am not working, I have found that I can transition WITH SPECTACULAR EASE to either getting things done around the house and/or going for a walk or doing yoga. (Totally happened by accident, but I am so glad I made the connection!)

And as such, this past week – EVERY DAY – I have knocked out the to-do list, gotten exercise in, and had plenty of time to chill out and do the crossword and today I got started on my Lego bonsai tree!

I’d still like one more weekend day, but it has been an excellent weekend.

Hope yours was, too.

No, I don’t know why I am so chipper this morning, but here we are.

Exciting project on tap for the day – replace the doorknob and deadbolt lockset on the side door! Over the past couple weeks, the doorknob has been exceptionally cranky and I need to fix that before it just stops opening altogether.

I’ve already been on the Ace hardware site, I’ve found the replacement (these things appear to be very standardized, whew) and I think I should be able to do this, though I’ve warned little bro that he may be enlisted to hold things still on one side of the door while I work on the other side. My other thought was to just grab a roll of painters tape to secure things while I work if he wasn’t available.

Then the fun of finding all the old keys for that door, toss them out, and see if I can find a key cutter open today to make extras of the new key, or hit up one of the key cutting kiosks. (There are lots of the kiosks nearby, but I don’t particularly trust them for reasons I cannot explain.)

Time to go be handy – you have a great day!!

Hello my lovelies, you have made it through to not only Friday, but the first Friday of 2023 – you did it! Well done!

Not much going on around here, but the year has been off to a good start for me. I’ve exercised every damn day, gotten every last box ticked off on my household to-do lists, spent less money than I’ve made, and done a tiny bit less doomscrolling.

It’s also the anniversary of the insurrection and we don’t have a functioning House of Representatives, so that feels very on brand for the damn country. I’d love to think McCarthy is thinking “fuck, maybe we shouldn’t have welcomed these extremists into the party” – but that would require a level of introspection he doesn’t have. Whole thing is completely batshit. Honestly, the R’s need to kick the extremists out of the party and tell them to make their own party – but they won’t, because it will cost them power.

But honestly, I’m not really dwelling on any of it much today, because there isn’t a damn thing I can do about any of it – and that is what I’m trying to do this year – focus on what I can control and not get wound around shit I can’t control. (We’ll see how well I stick to that.)

You have a fabulous Friday, and don’t doomscroll too much.

And I fucking HATE the leagues that run them way too often.

Roger Goodell should be ashamed of himself.

The moment that Damar Hamlin was taken off the field after 10 minutes of CPR, there should have been an immediate statement that play would not resume last night, and that the logistics of all of it would be figured out later.

And there is no way any of these players will be in a fit state mentally to play in the next 48 hours, and we now allow ties in the NFL, so call the game a draw. Don’t make them get back out on the field that soon.

And to every jackass I saw saying “restart the game, I have an open bet” – I hope you get treatment for your gambling problem.

I hope Damar Hamlin recovers, and that the NFL takes a good hard look at itself.

Make space for peace, dammit!

As much as you can “oversleep” when you have the day off and no appointments, I slept later than I’d planned this morning and woke up annoyed with myself… Obviously my body needed and wanted that sleep, so I had to shake that off.

Then I picked up coffee, and popped into the market for garbage bags & little paper plates for Lily’s food – not realizing that this week I need to replace the Febreeze plug ins about the house and…we are out of them. And we’re low on cat litter. Oops.

And I’d felt so smart getting that trip into the market out of the way first thing, LOL.

But, it’s all good, the market is a mere 4 minutes away, I can pop back out and take care of it, and get a few more steps in along the way.

I will say that yesterday’s so very pleasant day reminded me yet again of how much I want to retire. I do truly like my job, but it just takes so much out of me.

So, that is another 2023 thing to work on – make significant inroads to not freaking working anymore.

And in the meantime, I’m gonna shake off the “Oh noes” of the morning, run back to the market, knock out the household to-dos, do some yoga, and putter around with temp chart patterns.

We’re gonna be batting 1000 this year. Or at least the first two days of it.

You have a great day!

I am very pleased with myself to have gotten things off on a very good foot for the year. Granted, it is in no small part due to having the day off, but it was a good day and I ticked off all my boxes, and I am happy for it.

It was 65º and fantastically sunny, so I went for a nice long walk and being solar powered as I am, it was wonderful.

And I got this snap of some blue bunchgrass while I was out:

Then I got everything knocked off the household to-do list, which was very satisfying. (It usually is not particularly satisfying, so that was a pleasant bonus.)

Took a nice long hot shower and washed my hair and literally put my feet up for an hour in my K-beauty foot masks. We’re heading into the new year with exfoliated and moisturized tootsies.

On the creative front, I have decided I want to do a daily temperature gauge chart of some ilk. Probably cross-stitch and I’ve been noodling around with how to do it. I should probably pop over to Etsy and see what type of patterns for that are out there for ideas, or maybe just pick one out from there. I also may have started an origami chain with the high/low for the day, cause, why not?

And it was a very nice, very light, very easy day, and I still have several hours left to enjoy it.

I hope your new year has started off as nicely.

We got here, woohoo! (Quietly, tho, cause we’re not spooking 2023.)

Last night I swept out 2022, told the year it had done its best and it was time to go play with their brothers & sisters in eternity, and today we are not doing any laundry. No need to take chances, LOL.

It’s not even that 2022 was *bad* but it was just such a grind. No end in sight for the pandemic, the same bullshit politically, everything got more expensive and no one had more money. Everything just felt harder than it needed to be.

I just really want 2023 to be lighter and a little easier for all of us.

If at all possible, I want you to put yourself first this year. The ol’ “put your own oxygen mask on first” song & dance, cliched as it may be.

Take some walks, do some yoga. Find a bit of time to meditate. Eat your veggies and take your vitamins. Make some art! Buy a houseplant and nurture it. Hug your pets far too often. Get a good nights sleep whenever possible.

Make space for your own peace and happiness.

I know you’re looking at this whole hot mess of a situation on earth and thinking, “Do I have to?” and trust me, I get it. But I assure you – the bar is very, very low.

As for myself – when my lovely baristas asked about my New Year’s plans, I said, “Gonna go in quiet, and not make any sudden moves, we are NOT spooking 2023 right out of the gate – gonna treat it a bit like a feral kitten.”

My big goals for 2023 are pretty tame – I’m setting the bar reasonably low myself.

– Keep avoiding Covid. 33 months so far!
– Get every room in the house properly deep cleaned over the course of the year. Yes, this is a year long thing, cause ain’t no way it’s happening in a weekend.
– Make more money than I spend. (Hmm, OnlyFans for my feet? LMAO.)
– Create more – whether it is writing, drawing, sewing, legos, whatever, just spend time creating things, even if they never see the light of day.
– Spend a little less time on my phone. If I didn’t need the GPS to travel anywhere more than 2 miles from my home, I’d think about throwing it into the ocean, but, needs must and all that.
– Move a little more – and yoga absolutely counts.
– The last is the most specific – take a class at the local arts center. Anything, just pick one and go do it and make something neat.

I’ll be closing out 2022 quietly here at home – I’ve got champagne and chocolate and the LilyMonster, and really don’t need more than that. Maybe when Covid is properly over, I’ll go out and paint the town red, but only if I am at a five star hotel and not checking out until January 2nd, preferably in Aruba.

You have a lovely and safe New Year’s Eve and may 2023 be better for all of us.

So, when the super cold couple of days hit, the air pressure on my tires went down, as one would expect – not dangerously so, but enough to trip the sensor – and I know from experience, the car will continue to be chirpy about it until it senses that you’ve actually put compressed air in it, even if the temps come back up.

So, remembering what a fuck all pain in the ass it was to find a working air pump at a gas station and quarters to go with it after the first cold spell this fall – I bought myself a mini air compressor for the car.

AND IT IS GREAT!!! You set the PSI you need, plug it into the lighter socket, attach the hose to the tire and turn it on and it automatically shuts off when it hits the PSI you set. And it continually shows the PSI as it is working.

It was $36 including taxes and damn, worth every penny for the fact that I had it all sorted out in under 10 minutes without even leaving the driveway.

And the last one of 2022, and YOU MADE IT!! I AM VERY PROUD OF YOU!

Do something safe and fun and kind for yourself this weekend – you’ve earned it. I myself have no big plans right now, but I think I may break out the Lego Bonsai tree I got for Christmas. Even MeeMaw from our local transportation department has a reminder this morning that it’s OK to go low key.

Today I am reveling in a “go in a bit late and leave early” Friday. It’s been a lovely, super quiet workweek and I wish more were like this. I like my job and my coworkers, but with so many on PTO, my email is quiet and Teams isn’t beeping at me every 5 minutes, and my lord, that’s so nice, and I’ve gotten so much done.

Losing both Pelé & Vivienne Westwood yesterday, damn. The accolades for both are well earned. Pelé, well, even as a little kid, I knew he was amazing. Tho, BBC keeps saying Ms Westwood “gave birth to punk” – um, slow your roll on that one. She was a hella designer and brought punk into the mainstream, but punk would have been there regardless.

I’m still doing a lot of navel gazing on what 2023 will be for me. No actual answers yet, LOL.

And now I have to go fake my way through 4 hours to get to the weekend.

You have a great Friday.