Caught An Eyeful

I was home sick the past two days and to amuse myself in between trips to the bathroom, I tried some things out with my camera. Each eye has a mini reflection of my windows and their views. Pretty neat huh?

Blue sky, curtains, one lone tree.

Trees, sky, shadow of my house on snow.

If you look closely in this one, you can see the white house that's across the street.

I'm Declared A Heath Hazard to Postal Workers

It's official.

See, up here in the North in the wintertime, if we forget/weather happens while we're at work/don't have time or tools/don't get around to shoveling, chipping, salting, sanding, clearing away, or doing any other form of keeping our mailboxes from being easily accessed, we get a nice little polite mass-produced note from the Post Office basically telling us we need to shape up and become a better contributing member of society.

Today I came home to find the notice in my mailbox declaring me a health and safety hazard to my mailperson and they'd appreciate my immediate action in making it safe for them to deliver my mail directly to me.

I would if that was AT ALL possible. We had some drizzle the night before and since I'd done such a painstaking job of clearing all the snow off the driveway this weekend, the driveway turned into a sheet of ice when the temperatures dropped overnight. This morning I boot-skated to my garage.

Now when your driveway is a smooth, shiny, solid (meaning impossible to chip away unless you want to damage the chipper or your arm), half to 3/4 inch thick, sheet of ice with single to low teen digits forecast for the rest of the day and the wind gusting like nobody's business causing major windchill factors and you've left yourself just enough time to leave for work and clock in on time IF you leave right now, the driveway is not going to be put into any sort of slip-proof shape. As it is, my little car shimmied to Eddie Money singing "she was shakin'... movin' round and round, just ashakin'..." Truly, any car was gonna shimmy on my driveway. Chains wouldn't have helped. Spikes, maybe.

So I came home and admired the slickness that is my driveway and found my notice and made sure I laughed after I'd entered the house. No sense in me falling on my ass.

I got some left over play sand (what? it's cheaper than salt and better for the environment) from a summer project and sprinkled a path right down the middle of my driveway and next to my stoop where the mailbox is. Hopefully that will satisfy the "contributing community member" requirement.

We Gots Chilly Willies All Up In Here

What do males do when it's this friggin' cold? Do their male parts try to do the whole male bird maneuver and tuck themselves up into somewhere warm? Do they even make underwear with warm padding that insulates the family jewels from freezing right off? What happens to male self-esteem when it's this cold?

Seriously, if I wasn't PMSing, my boobilicious parts would be at least 2 sizes smaller.

And as soon as I walk outside, my boogers get all ice-crackley in my nose. Not the most comfortable feeling.

I just saw on the news a place so cold, a guy threw water into the air and it came down as snow. How fun is that? Snow you make right in front of yourself? Too bad it has to be that f-in' cold for you do that little amazing party trick.

Today's LINE of Pics

"Lines" being the operative word in these black and white IceStorm08 photos.

There's something so dark and mysterious, almost haunting, about this one. I can't quite put my finger on what it is.

Food Dispenser, Toy Retriever, Surfboard

Sometimes I think that's all I am to the feline herd that hogs 2/3s of my living space and life.

But then I am always surprised by the individual morning love fests from each kitto.

Doodle wakes me up by leaning on my head and licking any skin showing out from under the covers. She will lay down on my shoulder and put her side up against my cheek and purr for almost an hour if that's how long it takes me to decide to get up. It's a nice warm cozy loving way to wake up to the day.

Hobbes will hang out on the bathroom sink and wait for me to get out of the shower so he can give me headbutts and nose-kisses. And because he's so reserved and squirrely, the fact he makes a point to put aside his general avoidance of the other cats makes his effort to let me know he loves me all the more touching.

Moomin will not even wait for me to get out of the shower. Sometimes he shoves the curtain aside to see if I'm done yet. Then when the water is off and I'm in my robe towelling up my hair in the stall (it's too cold to just jump right out), he will loft himself onto my shoulders, chainsaw-purring up a veritable storm. He sometimes gets his paws wrapped up in the towel but he backs up to get ready for when I stand up so that he can balance on my shoulders. Then I fold my arms up and he steps on to them and gives me a plethora of headbutts, butt shots (coz he's walking back and forth on my arms), and nose-kisses. He loves it when I headbutt him back and rub my cheeks and chin on his cheeks and forehead. We do this for about 2 minutes. Pure purring love.

I'm very thankful and grateful for the wonderful start to each and every day.

No Resolutions, Just Continuing Good Habits

New Year's Eve:

1) Cleaned my bathroom "company clean".

2) Removed shower gunk from my shower curtain.

3) Had one of my all time favorite dinners and cleaned the pan afterwards.

4) Ran the dishwasher... finally.

5) Watched Two and Half Men.

6) Read.

7) Went to bed before 12am and read some more.

8) Three cats sleeping and some untold time later, the phone rings in the dead of night.

9) Friend calling to wish me Happy New Year.

10) Back to bed to not quality sleep for rest of night.

New Year's Day:

1) Woke up, showered, dressed.

2) Went to lunch with friend, exchanged gifts, browseshopped.

3) Came home, took tree down, put ornaments away.

4) Started laundry, dryer not happy so either it needs fixin' or I need a new one.

5) Dinner at Mom and Dad's for the most fabulous tasting ham EVER and best cake+ice cream EVER!

6) Played with dog in below 0* weather.

7) Went home and put up icicle lights my father had gotten me years ago to see if I got the same effect my mother does. I have to say no.

8) Read.

9) Went to bed to read some more.

10) No quality sleep again but the cats were zonked right out.

Post New Year's Day:

1) Woke up at 5am and actually got out of bed at 5:30am to shower and dress.

2) Got to work at 7am, 7am is unheard of for me.

3) Early co-worker humorously refused to acknowledge my presence until 8am.

4) Was industrious and efficient (except for mechanical/computer/printer snafus) up til lunch.

5) Had a laughing lunch with co-workers.

6) Ran out of steam but found something to do.

7) Left work early (coz I got there early) to go home to nap.

8) Nap unsuccessful but resting was nice.

9) Ate dinner, M called to say all set to go out.

10) Picked her up, went out but not buckwild, had someone offer to pay for my drink and insist that they do so (so free drink to start the year off right!), learned how to play arcade bowling with a trackball (what a treat that was - I'm officially in 104th place!), messed with some minds with the psychic quarter game, and generally had a fun evening.

Good habits to continue: watching portions and calories, putting clothes away right away, cleaning up after self in kitchen, scooping poop every morning, shoveling and mowing the old fashioned way.

New habits to start working on: running the dishwasher more often, cutting cat claws more often, keeping clutter to a minimum or at least manageable, clean the shower curtain gunk more often, add more veggies, walking more.

HappyNewYear! I've Grown Horns

Yes, to splendidly ring in the new year, my forehead has sprouted two horns. And my skin has been doing so well the past few months since summer ended and I've not been all hot, humid, and sweaty, oops, sorry, "glowy".

No lie.

Two ginormous zits on either side of my forehead midway between my eyebrows and hairline, perfectly matched in size, level, and mirrored location.

No lie.

What a great gift to wake up to. Apparently when I woke up a while ago in 2008 (can't remember which post that was) with the gift of sight (which ultimately turned out to be me leaving my contacts in overnight) I offended the Supreme Upper Being with my obliviousness and grumbly tetchiness. So now I've been blessed with a gift of horns, most likely from the Supreme Lower Being.

Well, I'm not any where near as oblivious as I was with the sightgift, but I'm way beyond the grumpiness. Horns! Zits!

And right before Friday night when I'm planning on breaking the Hermitting Since Halloween and going out to get all buckwild and stuff. (Well, not really buckwild as I drive myself, but max and relax and laugh and stuff.)

Here's to Horns for New Year's!