Category Archives: Life

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Y’all, we got snow! *twirls like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music* There was a chance of snow a few weeks ago, but it didn’t make it this far south. Now, many of you may live in areas where snow is a fact of life, but around here, it’s as rare as hen’s teeth. (The last time we had snow at our house was 2018.) When the forecast hints that we may get snow and/or frozen precipitation, I become a big kid. While I may be calm on the outside, on the inside, I’m all pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease. So, when snow was predicted for January 21st, all of my fingers and toes were crossed. It started snowing shortly after lunch and continued through the next morning. We ended with a respectable four inches, and, for once, we didn’t get a layer of sleet to top it off.

Yes, that four inches shut everything down for a couple of days, which makes northerners snort and roll their eyes. However, we have reasons for our caution. Here in the South, we don’t have snow tires or equipment to clear the roads. Okay, Atlanta has sixty snow plows, but the rest of us just have to wait for everything to melt. However, the biggest reason for us to stay off the roads is because we don’t know how to drive in the snow; it’s best for everyone if we just stay home.

In true southern weather fashion, last Wednesday, we had snow on the ground, and this Wednesday, the temperature is expected to be seventy degrees (Fahrenheit).🙄 I know we’ll have a few more cold snaps before spring, but I doubt we’ll have more snow. So, I’ll leave you with a few photos.

The snow was too powdery for a snowman, so I made a snow angel instead.
Already the top contender for our 2025 Christmas card.

Smackdown!

I look back at 2024 and I’m not sure what we spent the year doing.🤷‍♀️ We didn’t get to take a big trip, but we did take a few short ones. At least we didn’t spend the year making a lot of expensive home repairs; we only had one appliance die on us in 2024: our range. Now, I’m side-eyeing our refrigerator because it’s the only appliance we haven’t replaced since we moved in.

I’m not really a resolution maker, but I have set myself a few goals:

  • Exercise more
  • Keep going through the items that I’ve allowed to pile up because I either a) don’t know what to do with them, or b) just haven’t wanted to deal with them.
  • This one is more of a wish than a goal: selling our old house. Our youngest son and his girlfriend rent from us and had expressed an interest in buying the house. Unfortunately, J (the girlfriend) lost her job and it took a few months for her to find a new one. However, she now has a new job she loves so it looks like we may be back on track to sell this year. I really hope it works out; Kenn and I are both tired of being landlords.

As for the title of my post, my word of the year was chosen by Merriam-Webster. Participants just had to take a screenshot of their GIF that was scrolling through a series of words, and I got “smackdown.” I showed it to Kenn and he said “Oh, crap.”😂 So… *crack knuckles* let’s do this?

Do you make resolutions?

If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em

The day last week’s post went live, I woke up to this.

Someone, presumably Roxie, managed to knock the whole tree over while leaving the bungee cord securing it to the table intact. It was at this point that my enthusiasm for a tree began to wane. Don’t get me wrong. I love having a tree, I just don’t enjoy it becoming an ongoing hassle.

In a moment of desperation, I did an internet search and placed an order for a new tree. While waiting on the new tree to arrive, Roxie’s depredations continued. By Saturday, there were only three ornaments left on the tree. All but two have been recovered for use again at some point in the future.

The new tree arrived today. Kenn and I had it unboxed  and assembled in less than ten minutes.

Bear has climbed the tree a couple of times and sharpened his claws on the base. Nyx lounged under the tree for a few minutes. And Roxie? Well, she has pulled a couple of the “ornaments” off only to pay them no attention when I put them back. So, yeah. The great destructor of trees is completely ignoring the one designed for her. Jerk.

How many Christmas trees do you have? None? One? Multiple?

Meowy Catmas?

Y’all know I’m a cat lady and that we have several cats. I’m an old pro at introducing cats to Christmas trees and dealing with the occasional ornament on the floor. All of our ornaments are shatter-proof so, no big deal. Then, Roxie joined our clowder.

The reason we can’t have nice things.

Roxie may look like a Calico, but she’s actually a kleptomaniac. Nothing is safe since she joined the family. I have yet to find half of my fridge magnets. Among the things I have caught her carrying around: a 9mm shell casing, a screwdriver, and a roll of film. I didn’t even know we had any undeveloped film rolls!

Last year, I almost didn’t put up a tree because I didn’t want my ornaments getting lost and/or destroyed. I finally put the tree up a week before Christmas but didn’t put any ornaments on it. That worked okay, but I didn’t want to go that basic again this year.

This year, I decided to start introducing Roxie to the concept of ornaments. To keep from stressing, I’m only using “filler” ornaments – the ones that I won’t be upset about if something happens to them.

So far, things are going about as I expected. Roxie has spent a lot of time in the tree and on the floor swatting at ornaments. At least three ornaments are no longer on the tree, and I have no idea where they are.🤣 As a matter of fact, our tree looks a lot like the ones when our sons were young – most of the ornaments are on the upper half of the tree.

This is my life now.

Those of you with cats – or other pets – do they interact with your tree?

The end of an era.

It’s the middle of November which usually means I am in the middle of participating in NaNoWriMo. I made the decision not to participate this year a few months ago; several days out-of-town during the month and Thanksgiving made the event a no-go before it even started. I also decided I can no longer support an organization that has become such a dumpster fire. Organizations come and go, but it’s rare to have the opportunity to watch one die a slow, painful death at the hands of the ones who should be trying to save it.

Image from depositphotos.com

The problems began with complaints that one of the forum mods was grooming children – a big problem which took far too long for the board to resolve. The latest in a long line of bad decisions is a statement from the interim director basically saying that disabled writers need AI in order to write, followed by a statement calling anyone who disagreed with that statement (including all of the disable writers who complained) ableist and classist. After a year of one fox up after another, the entire board resigned. The last I heard, there are now only three people on staff at NaNo: the interim director, an intern, and a part-time IT person. There’s a whole Google doc detailing all that has gone wrong. If you decide to read it, I suggest you don your comfy clothes and grab some popcorn; it’s long.

NaNoWriMo meant a lot to me. I have always been a bit of a misfit. However, the first time I got together with the local NaNo group, I knew I had met my people; these people got me. It’s great when you meet a group of people whose weird compliments your own. The camraderie of the NaNo experience is a part of what made the experience fun. The loss of what the experience once was makes me sad. I have uploaded my NaNo stats to TrackBear and will use that site for any future projects unless NaNo can pull out a miracle. (IMO, the best thing they can do at this point would be to replace the interim director; her inflexibility and unwillingness to listen to any voices other than her own are a good part of why the organzation is where it is now.)

I guess as the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. For me, the only thing left at this point is to mourn and move on. Any other Wrimos out there? How do you feel about the state of the organization?

Cutting the (wireless) cord

I know, I know. Cell phones don’t have cords – hence the whole “wireless” descriptor. But, sometimes my brain settles on a title and there’s no changing it. Such is the case with this post.

I may have mentioned in previous posts that Kenn is not a fan of change. When decisions need to be made, I do my research, make my decision, and am ready to act. Kenn, on the other hand needs days/weeks/months to come to terms with the pending change. Admittedly, life doesn’t always allow a lot of time for decisions – some need to be made right. now. But, when a decision can be postponed without major consequences for us, they can drag out seemingly forever. Seriously. It took years for me to convince Kenn we no longer needed a landline.

Another potential change that has been dragging out for years is changing cell service providers.We have been with Verizon Wireless for twenty years and have been paying through the nose for that honor. We have discussed changing providers ad nauseum. One of the biggest hindrances to making a change was our concern about coverage when we travel. However, as the years have passed, the difference in coverage between the various providers has become minimal. And, no matter the coverage, this is a big country and there are still plenty of areas where there is no cell service.

During our trip to Saint Augustine, we had yet another discussion about changing providers. I finally put my foot down. I didn’t want to talk about this any more. We either needed to pick another provider and change or just admit that we were going to stay with Verizon regardless of the cost. Kenn then took it upon himself to do some research. (Yay!) I’m always glad when he does this. I can give him all of the information in the world, but doing some of the research himself helps him be more willing to move forward with the change.

I am pleased to announce that, after years (and years) of discussion, we are no longer with Verizon. We are now Mint Mobile customers. Kenn changed over about a month and a half before I did so we could compare his Mint coverage to my Verizon coverage in the areas we visit most often. We were both surprised that in some areas of South Carolina near our kids, he had a stronger signal than I did. I made the change approximately a month ago and have had no problems. The best part is that I can pre-pay for 3 months of Mint for both of us for roughly what I was paying for one month of service from Verizon; this makes both me and our bank account very happy.

Just to be nosy – what cell provider do you use? How long have you been with that provider?

Not so mellow yellow

Our house (aka The Cabin) is very rustic and we love it. One of the only things I haven’t been crazy about is the fact that the front door and shutters are green. Green is my least favorite color. It makes sense; the green accents and brown siding help The Cabin “blend in” with our wooded lot. Over time, it has become obvious that the painting of the door was one of those sort of slapdash “fixes” to pretty up the house for selling. Everything door-related had been painted green: the window dividers, the door, and the doorframe. Over the years since we moved in, the paint had begun fading and started peeling. There were many discussions about repainting the door and what color(s) we should use. We finally quit talking about painting and actually painted. (Go, us!)

The Cabin with its original green door

I knew I wanted to paint the window dividers white like they were originally. Initially, I wanted to paint the doorframe white as well, but decided that that would be too stark against the darker shutters and siding. In a flash of inspiration, we decided to paint the doorframe brown. I’m a big fan of Behr paint-and-primer-in-one. (Behr is sold at Home Depot.) I’ve seen Behr work miracles covering some extremely dark colors with only one coat. I had a hunch that the front door would not be one of these miracles since the green we were covering was so dark. I was right. Even the dark brown took two coats (and a few touch-ups) to cover the green. Due to our cats, we couldn’t have the door open for hours while we painted and let the paint dry. We did as much painting as we could with the door in place. Friday, we took the door down and replaced it with a sheet of plywood, which remained in place until late Saturday when the paint was dry enough to rehang the door. (We also removed the weather stripping before rehanging the door since it had also been painted green. We’ll install new weather stripping in a couple of days when the paint is fully cured. The humidity level around here slows the drying time.)

The temporary door placeholder and its newly brown frame.

What color did we decide to paint the door itself and how many coats did it take? Kenn chose the color, which is appropriately named Extreme Yellow. (Or, as I call it, YELLow.) I’m the one who is all about color and sparkle, so the fact that Kenn chose such a vibrant color still amazes me. It took four coats of yellow to cover the green, and there are still a few places I may touch-up. Okay, I’ve yammered on enough, so it’s time for the big reveal. (Drum roll, please.) Kenn is thrilled with the finished product; he says it makes him smile every time he sees it.

The Cabin with its new, extremely yellow door.

We’re planning to leave the shutters green – at least for now. Of course, the more that I look at the “new” door, the more I think we need to change the shutters. If we do repaint them, they won’t be as bright as the door.

So, what do you think? Paint the shutters or leave them be? What color would you recommend for the shutters?

Thirty-eight and counting

It’s kind of weird to realize that you’ve been with someone well over half of your life. Kenn and I started dating at eighteen, so we’ve been together for forty-four years.😮 As of September 20th, Kenn and I have been married for thirty-eight years. We had some rough times early on (talking to a divorce lawyer rough), but we decided to work things out and came out stronger on the other side. Here’s to many more!

We look so young!