And It All Went To Hell

So things were nice up until Christmas Eve.

I have cookies made. All the shopping was done. The house was decorated and quite pretty.

Then Mokey got sick.

5 hours in the Animal ER on Christmas Eve, with an estimate that made me nauseous. Mokey was cathed and unblocked, but had to stay 2 more days for observation.

Yeah...so much for getting rid of debt in the new year. Boo to the hiss.

He's now on a special diet, and I'm trying to wean my other kitties away from eating in a grazing manner.

This is not making them happy at all.

The bill is not making me happy.

No matter how hard I work to make a holiday nice, things always get fucked up.

My Trees

This is our pretty little 6 ft tree in our living room

Most of the ornaments on this tree came from Dollar General and Dollar Tree.

Hey, I have cats, I don't want things that break.

As I'm sure you can see, I love owls...well...little birdies in general.

I love this tree.

The next tree is my little 4 ft silver tree, in my dining room.

I bought this little tree in 2013 when my dad was put on hospice. It was a crazy year, and we didn't have a regular tree that year.

This little one sat in the corner.

Its a more playful tree.

Its precious and I love it.

I only hope the kitties don't try to kill it.

That's why I have created a cookie container barrier around it.

Yes, those are all my Christmas cookies stored there.

Mike..get a box..come get some! You too Bill :)

Cookies Cookies Cookies

I'm not doing to well on the cookie haul this year. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I'm just so darn tired.

All I want for Christmas is to sleep on a bed for a few hours.

That said...

I've got

2 different kinds of biscotti made, Andes Candies Cookies (which are a fabulous cake mix cookie), coconut macaroons and I've got holiday shortbread in the fridge ready to be baked.

I just wish I didn't have to cook supper and deal with that sort of thing right now. Maybe I'd be a little further along with my baking.

At least they look pretty, right?

Well I Accomplished Something

Its a week before Christmas and all through the house.

Nothing is getting done.

The only thing that I managed to do today was bake 2 different kinds of biscoti.

How exciting is that?

Tomorrow's cookies will be Russian Tea Cookies and Spritz

Yes, the cookie craziness has begun.

I wish I knew why I did this.

Norman Lear Comedies Weren't All That Funny

Thanks to Antenna TV, I've been revisiting old shows that I watched growing up. One of them is One Day At A Time.

The episode on tonight is with Mrs Romano having a fling with a married man.

I'm baffled that an affair is considered funny.

Yes its a real life issue, but it makes you wonder. Ann was supposed to have been a divorcee whose husband cheated on her.

Makes you wonder.

I've always considered cheating to be pretty despicable. Nothing funny about it.

That's how I feel about most of Norman Lear's shows, especially All In The Family, which actually disturbs me these days. Sure there are laughs, but most of the "issues" are sadly still relevant now, which makes me sick to my stomach.

How can we, as a society not have changed much in the last 40 years?

So yeah, I need something more lighthearted than anything Lear did. I need something funny like Bewitched

An Early Christmas Present

Well today I bought a new laptop. I'll be picking it up at Staples tomorrow.

This comes after my external fell off my desk and hit the floor.

Can you say deader than spam.

The computer is half dead. (the clock doesn't work. Don't ask. I have no clue)

So I figured, even though I'm not financially at my best, now was the best time to replace the laptop. You know, before it totally dies.

Hopefully after this, I won't have any further HUGE issues.

HA!

A Little Kitty Humor

Admit it, you sang it as you read it!

OK, well, I did.

The Tree Is Done

I'm always happy when the tree is up.

I think it looks pretty nice this year.

I'll be doing a small silver tree in the dining room next week.

But the house is really looking festive.

I can't wait to get to baking. That will start next weekend too.

Scratty Went To The Vet Today

Scratty got her shots and all her happy bloodwork and poopy check today.

Such fun.

Scratty is much for the unknown, be it situations or people. In fact, Scratty hates strangers. So yeah, the poor baby had to wear a muzzle, because we don't want her biting Dr. Greg, who is a pretty awesome vet.

She seemed to know where she was going the second she got inside the building. She didn't want to go into the lobby at all.

Then there was Grizzly.

Grizzly was another dog about the size of the animal whose name he shared.

Yeah.

He was a happy dog too.

She was mostly ok with the vet tech, but Dr Greg, being a man, and those are the strangers she likes the least, well, she was all tooth baring crazy dog from hell.

The good thing was that by the time everything was done, she was too pooped to pop or rather bark at anyone else.

All in all, things went well.

No one got bit.

YAY

Mom's Birthday Cake

Mom would have been ok with a Pepperidge Farm cake, but I found one of her old cookbooks and there was a fabulous recipe for a Mandarin Orange Cake..

Isn't it stunning.

It was also very simple

One of My favorite songs

Hallelujah is one of my all time favorite songs. A friend posted Bon Jovi's version today on Facebook.

Believe it or not, I've never heard his version before.



I think he did a damn good job with it.

Now if only Elvis Costello or his wife, Ms Diana Krall would cover it.

The Daddy Birds

A few years ago I started to collect little bird figurines with ear flap hats.

Why?

My dad had this horrible ugly hat with ear flaps that he wore every winter. It was navy blue with plaid lining.

Dear god was it ugly.

But every time I see a hat like that, I think of my Daddy.

Hence, Daddy Birds.

I love them, because they make me think of him.

They also seem to hide every year and I have to go through ever bin of decorations that I have to find them.

Sneaky little birds.

Things I Don't Understand.

I don't understand all the hate in the world. I watch the news and I try to understand. There are always going to be different belief systems when it comes to politics.

At one point in time I could understand both parties.

These days, not so much.

I understand not wanting the country in debt.

I don't understand not wanting healthcare for all Americans.

I don't understand people that think it would be awful for their children and their children's children to have cheaper college educations. Just because you are saddled with debt doesn't mean the upcoming generations need to be. The more educated we are, the more jobs and new ideas there will be.

I don't understand people that don't read. Books are such a fabulous thing and so much better than most TV and movies these days.

I don't understand hatred of one particular group of people.

I do however understand how instilling fear can cause that to happen.

I don't understand how we can let the fear take over our lives and in all actuality let the terrorists win. There's a fine line between making things safe and making things a prison.

Its a sad world we live in.

I Accomplished Much Today

I have Christmas decorations up, well most of them.

Woo hoo!

The tree will go up next weekend when I'm not running like a fool to get stupid things done.

I'm proud of myself.

I'll get some pictures in the next day or so, when I've found all the decorations that I want up.

I even have the outside done, which is amazing considering that we have no outdoor outlets.

At least the house is looking festive now, which is better than nothing, right?

I need to give up Facebook

Facebook is the devil.

I got started there because of a friend that played one of those stupid farm games.  I've made some wonderful friends there, but Facebook is detrimental to my health.

Why you ask?

I have a tendency to read comments.

On political posts and recipe posts.

That is enough to make anyone's head explode.

Not to mention those time sucking games. The are freaking addicting. I really want to increase my reading next year. I am at 100 books so far this year. I'd really like to go for 200 next year, and I think the only way to do that is to abandon Facebook.

Plus it would be nice to get back to more regular blogging.