If it wasn’t for my good pal Karen, I would have gone through this ENTIRE day not realizing what an important holiday it is! Hey, to us smooth-skinned homo sapiens, it’s not much to toot about, but to our furry friends, National “Hairball Awareness” Day is right up there with National “Change the Litter Box” Month and “Take Your Cat to Work Day”!

Because I am too lazy to write a new post To celebrate this momentous day, I thought I’d present a little blast from the past. I wrote this on my home improvement blog a few years ago. It was SO memorable that I thought I’d include it here for posterity!

Have a GREAT HAIRBALL AWARENESS Day, peeps! I hope you become aware of many a hairball on this grand day!

***

You know it’s going to be “one of those days” when you’re on the phone, making a VERY IMPORTANT phone call looking for employment, and the cat decides to choose THIS moment and THIS room to hack up her hairball. Yep.

So I’m on the phone, exchanging pleasantries with the secretary, and Livvy saunters in. Suddenly and without warning, she starts that HORRID retching sound. I’m trying to remain cool on the phone, but am frantically signalling for my son to GET THAT CAT OUTTA THE ROOM. His eyes grow big as he realizes what’s going on, then starts calling loudly, “Livvy! LIVVY! You got a hairball? Come here!! Come on!”

The kitty leaves the room, WHEW. I finish the call and hang up the phone…. and all is quiet. Preoccupied, I call the next telephone number in my list. Lo and behold, the cat walks back into the room and STARTS UP again! GAH!

And I don’t know if it is the bizarreness (is that a word?) of the moment, but my cockatiel then starts a huge commotion, squeaking and clacking in his cage…. ????

I’m doomed to be unemployed… the animals are against me….

Here’s the weekly Meet Me on Monday! How would you answer?

1. What are your plans for St. Patrick’s Day?
Uhhhh… St. Patrick’s Day?? (glimpses at calendar to see what day it falls on). Oh, it’s Saturday. Um, I’ll probably spray paint myself in green, don a leprechaun hat, and go out dancing in the fields in search of the pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow. Mmmhmm. Aye, my Scottish sarcasm is leaking out….

2. What is your favorite room in your house?
It WOULD be the living room… but I don’t even HAVE a living room right now. Because I homeschool 4 kids and work at home, the living room is cluttered with desks, bookshelves, file cabinets, musical instruments, and boxes of junk stuff that I must review for the websites. My 8-foot long couch is crammed against one wall. Oh, I have plans for a living room, of course. I have to convert the attached garage into a family room, so the gang can keep all their musical instruments in there. Then I’m going to revolutionize the living room into this wood-paneled English country style library. My desk will be in here, with sitting room chairs and a nice gas log fireplace (with mantel that I will make myself). Yes, it will be my favorite room, then.

My dream room. Of course, I'd have to scale mine down just a bit.

3. What ‘gadget’ do you have that you can’t live without?
I can actually live without them all (and definitely will, someday), but I really love the iPhone. I love it because I can connect to the Internet at any time. SO many times in the past, I;d be driving or out walking with the kids and we’d wonder, “When did this happen?” or “What is that all about?” and I’d go home and completely forget about it until 3am, in bed. Now, thanks to the iPhone, I can check it immediately. I can also check my email, maps, social networking, blog comments, everything! It’s marvelous little piece of machinery.

4. What will your first thought be when you learn that you won a lottery?
Oh my word, it’s a MIRACLE!! A REAL MIRACLE!!!

(because I don’t play the lottery!)

5. Other than Acting Balanced and your own, what is your favorite blog to read?
Haha, nothing like a bit of shameless promotion in the MMoM questions, eh? *wink wink* Well….. I have a lot of favorites, although my online reading has become very sporadic. I have about 12 “must reads” every day with about 1,000 in my reader.

How is your Monday turning out? Have a great one, pals!

My stove was on fire this morning. Yeah. Fun times.

Let me start at the beginning since I do so love to tell a good story. I’d baked an apple pie in the oven for Christmas dinner. I used apples from our tree, apples that we had pre-sliced, pre-diced and froze in the freezer for such an occasion. Unfortunately, this variety of apple is *pretty* juicy, and freezing them wasn’t such a great idea because when they thawed, they were like little cubes of applesauce mush. Still, we all wanted apple pie and I was loathe to run to the grocery store on Christmas morning for a can of that pre-processed slop they call “apple pie filling.”

So I took the chance and made… well, it turned out to be applesauce pie. lol. Even though I’d set the pie pan on a round metal cookie sheet to catch drips, the pie virtually melted at the bottom of my stove (I have an electric stove so you can imagine the fun it is to clean the caramelized apple sugars that spill all over it). It created quite a bit of smoke BUT the smoke detectors didn’t go off! Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if that’s a silver lining or if it’s another thing I should be worried about….

Anyway…

I’ve been pretty busy with a zillion things (half of them emergencies or urgent matters) since Christmas, so I procrastinated cleaning the oven. We don’t use the oven all that much, so I knew I could wait for a more convenient time. Like this morning. My oven has a “self cleaning” mode. You lock the door and turn the dial to “clean” and the oven basically heats up to a billion degrees and incinerates all the dirt in the oven to ash. I’m in a hurry, I lock the door, I flip the dial and I’m off to do all the other things I have to cram in today. About a half an hour later, I hear my husband call me. He called me “Beck.” I thought that was odd, he rarely ever ever calls me that. I think this is perhaps the second or third time he’s ever called me that in our 22 years together.

“Beck.”

Odd. Why is he calling me that? I wonder. “Yes?”

“Uh. There are flames coming out of the oven.”

MAD DASH TO THE KITCHEN.

I see flames and heavy smoke shooting out from the bottom of the oven door, with more smoke belching out of the oven vent. The kitchen is thick with Los-Angeles-style smog.

“Oh no!” I flip the dial to “off” and watch as the flames continue to lick the bottom of the oven door. I ponder whether I should open the door or not. I hesitate, knowing that opening the door will create a whoosh of oxygen inside the stove, which will feed the flames inside…. oh boy. I pray that the fire goes out on its own. I don’t know what to do. The house is filling with huge, swirling clouds of smoke.

We rush around the house, opening windows. The kids groan (it’s 16 degrees out today, a bummer day for driving smoke out of the house) but the cat is wildly excited hopping from open window to window.

I check and see that the flames have disappeared. They have, whew. But then I got that sinking feeling that my stove is probably dead. I’d JUST said to my husband that morning that the stove has been a really terrific appliance– we got it when we bought the house 16 years ago, and it’s been in perfect condition since then. Famous last words, lol.

The only thing I could do about the stove right now was wait until the lock mechanism let me in. It locks automatically at high temperatures and unlocks when the sensor senses that the temps won’t incinerate me when I open the door. I sit down and it is then that I realize:

OH MAN. I never got a photo of the flames for the blog!

:blink:

Bad, bad blogger!!

I don’t know about you, but I am always amazed at those times when folks just seemed to have their cameras at the ready, snapping the most terrific moment in time for the world to see… but I always miss that opportunity. I guess it’s because I’m just too durn busy doing silly thing like putting out fires. Rats. I’M SUCH A LOSER!! :whyohwhy:

There’s no way I’m buying a new stove right now… So my heart is in my stomach…. and then I suddenly think: “Hey, I don’t think we even need a stove.” When we gutted and renovated the kitchen in 2010, we had to cook and eat in the garage. I had purchased a nice electric skillet, a small hot plate and we grilled out food on the barbecue. I think I would rather NOT have a stove, come to think of it. It’s a huge electricity eater and it takes up a lot of space in the kitchen. I think I can get one of those electric oven roasters and do marvelously well with that. I checked online and these suckers can cook a 22-pound turkey, bake casseroles– they can do anything a regular over does except bake a cake or pie. And maybe for me, that’s a very, very good thing….

CHRISTMAS CAROLS FOR THE DISTURBED –

1. Schizophrenia — Do You Hear What I Hear?

2. Multiple Personality Disorder — We Three Kings Disoriented Are

3. Dementia — I Think I’ll be Home for Christmas

4. Narcissistic — Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

5. Manic — Deck the Halls and Walls and House… and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and…..

6. Paranoid — Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me

7. Borderline Personality Disorder — Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

8. Personality Disorder — You Better Watch Out, I’m Gonna Cry, I’m Gonna Pout, Maybe I’ll Tell You Why

9. Attention Deficit Disorder — Silent night, Holy oooh look at the Froggy – can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away?

10. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder — Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells……

Questions:

1. Monday’s are _________?
Terrific! I love Mondays. I like the fresh start to a new week, I like being encouraged and energized after Sunday’s church service. Because I work at home, however, I sometimes get a late start on Monday. Ooops, hee hee.

2. What is your favorite kind of milkshake?
I don’t often drink milkshakes. If I did, I guess I would say vanilla. I mean, what else is there beside strawberry and chocolate, right? Why don’t places offer other flavors, I wonder? And those weird, plasticky “shamrock” and “pumkpkin spice” shakes don’t count! How about a raspberry shake– one that tasted like raspberries and not “artificially flavored goop”? That might be a favorite.

3. What monthly bill do you most dislike paying?
Do I have to choose one, lol? It would definitely be the credit cards bills. :-p I hate being beholden to them. But I used a bunch of them at 0% interest to pay for my kitchen and dining room renovation. Yeah, I’m STILL paying that off. About half way and it’s been over a year!!! At times, I wish I had saved up the money before starting the renovation and paid that way, but I know that my kitchen would never have been renovated if I did that. Plus, the ceiling was falling down and we had no electricity…. I can’t wait til all those bills are DONE.

4. How many email addresses do you use on a regular basis?
Wow, good question. I’d have to say….. 7 right now. I also have a couple for my Instant Messengers that I use for my mobile devices, but I don’t include those.

5. What color lights are on your Christmas Tree?
I don’t have a Christmas tree. I do, however, want to hang white rope lights throughout the house. I have very high ceilings and the rope lights would look so purdy up there. Somehow, I gotta get my husband to do it.

So how would you answer these questions? Have a great week, friends!

There seem to be a LOT of silent monks singing The Hallelujah Chorus lately, as I spotted at least a dozen on YouTube alone! LOL. Must be one of their favorite renditions. I watched some of them, and many of them were much more polished than the video I posted here… but I like mine because it’s done by kids and they make it very fun.

Then today, I visited Karen’s blog who had posted a video of The Hallelujah Chorus as done by students in Alaska. Wow! These kids are terrific and I laughed out loud a number of times.

What a great video!

I looked up the history of Handel’s Messiah and found it so intriguing that I thought I’d share it with you. Handel’s full name is George Frederic Handel, and he was born in Halle in 1685. He’d been a relatively successful composer, but had difficulties with his royal patrons (all music composers were supported by various royal houses of Europe at this time) and sometimes lost funding. Handel also became severely ill (so he said) from a stroke, and suffered debt, financial ruin, and severe depression. Handel retreated to a private life in London and stopped composing music.

George Handel with King George of England.

In his depressed state, Handel came across a piece of music written by Charles Jennens. The work was entirely Biblical verses put to music. Handel read the verses and was “deeply affected.” He plunged into creating a composition about the Messiah, Jesus Christ: the first part involved prophecies from the Old Testament (the book of Isaiah, specifically) that gave information about Christ’s coming to earth. The second part dealt with Christ’s birth, ministry, death, and resurrection. The third part centers on the New Testament book of The Revelation, and concerns Christ’s next coming. Handel’s work is SIMPLY AMAZING. When Handel wrote the Hallelujah Chorus, he said, “I did think I saw heaven open, and saw the very face of God.” That is exactly my response, too. It’s nothing short of inspiring.

Handel performed Messiah for King George of England, who was so overcome with awe and praise for the King of kings and Lord of lords that he stood up when the singers sang The Hallelujah Chorus of the composition. Back in those days, when the king or queen stood up, EVERYBODY stood up, so the entire audience stood with him for the entire performance. This has become a tradition whenever The Hallelujah Chorus is sung.

Me, I want to jump up and down. HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!!!

We visited Howe Caverns in Cobleskill, NY. It was fabulous.

Photo taking was tough. The place is dimly lit and my great lack of photography skills is showing….

We went on a boat ride on an underground lake!

The beautiful Schoharie Valley.

OK, enough photos, lol. I’ll be posting about the amazing Howe Caverns as well as narrating some of our usual crazy and quirky stories that always seem to be happening with us…..

Questions:

1. I really need to clean my _________?

Um… house. :duncehat:

2. What food makes you think of Christmas?

Anything cinnamon. I sometimes boil potpourri with cinnamon sticks to manufacture that nice nostalgic Christmas-y feel.

3. If you could choose to stay a certain age forever, what age would it be?

Tough one. I guess, like everyone, I’d like my 18-year old body back but I’d like to keep my 40+ wisdom, experience, and temperance. Funny how when we’re young (mid 20s) we think we are SO mature, SO experienced. Get to 40 and that’s nothing, baby. NOTHING.

4. What was your first paying job?

When I was a kid, my stepdad needed nails picked up from the driveway. He’d renovated a big barn and had scattered a ton of old nails around the property. No one wanted to do it. So my stepdad said he’d pay us a penny a nail. That was very inspirational, and me and my brothers went out to do it. The boys gave up after a day, as it was late October and bitterly, bitterly cold. I still remember that extremely painful feeling of my fingers freezing from clawing the mud for old nails. I was determined to make some cash (it was scarce and we never got allowance money back then). After a few days of my persistent digging and running into the house to thaw my hands and then running back out to dig again, my stepdad felt sorry for me and gave me a huge horseshoe-shaped magnet to collect nails. I tied a string to it and swung the magnet back and forth. I think I eventually got every bitty nail in the yard. I can’t remember how much money I got, maybe around $5.

5. Have you read the Twilight series?

Nope. I never will. Right now I’m reading a biography about William the Marshal, a medieval dude who served as regent to a few kings of England. It’s cool!

Have a great week, friends!

Hello, it was 11 IN THE MORNING on Thanksgiving Day!!!

I’ve done the “Black Friday” thing. I got up at 4am to stand in line for 2 hours in the freezing cold. Even though there was a loooong line ahead of me, I still waited. The doors opened at 6am and BANG people rushed to the doors. By the time I got inside, everything was gone. Never doing that again. What a waste.

But still, let’s say you have tons of time on your hands and, say, you REALLY REALLY need a new 50-inch plasma TV. I mean, the necessities of life, right?! Hey, if I REALLY REALLY needed a plasma TV, I guess I would wait in line, too. But I’ve never needed one, nor do I foresee EVER needing one.

Anyway, I was pretty surprised to see folks lining up in front of stores already. Wow. These folks have got a long wait, and in here in New York State, it can get pretty cold outside, after dark.

I don’t have anything against Black Friday, per se. It’s good to save money, and if it is worth your time to wait in line– hey, that’s cool. But I do not like Thanksgiving Day being marginalized. It’s supposed to be a holy day, a day when we publicly and personally give God thanks for the amazing blessings He’s given to us. No, Thanksgiving Day is not the day we give thanks for the Indians saving the Pilgrims’ skins, as nice as that was. It’s God’s day. He deserves it.

So as much as I think it’s great to save money, I greatly dislike the commercialization of yet another holiday. Marketers have already wrecked Christmas, blown Halloween WAY out of proportion, and now they want to scarf up my Thanksgiving holiday?! Must the money lovers encroach on our holiest national holiday of the year?! :hmph:

Weird! Unfortunately, I have a whole slew of things to do on the computer today. I’m going to have to cancel my writing assignments, RATS. Do you know anything about bloodshot eyes when you wake up in the morning? All I could find was conjunctivitis and I don’t think I have that….

Questions:

1. I wish I had more time to _________?
Relax. I am a busy person by nature, and I can never be idle for long. I am always inventing things to do! But then I get exhausted from the overwork and it seems I just chug, chug, chug.

Another thing I wish I had more time for is travel. Ooo, I am really enjoying traveling lately! That probably falls into the category “I wish I had more MONEY,” though, lol.

2. What is your favorite kind of soup?
I am not a soup eater. I like to either drink or chew my food, and soup is a bothersome inbetweener. So I suppose the best soups are those I can either DRINK straight or chew up…. I like cream of broccoli. I like my recipe for Manhattan Clam Chowder. Chicken broth is good when I don’t feel well… that’s all I know because I haven’t tried a lot of soups.

3. Where will you eat Thanksgiving dinner?
At my own dining room table. It’s a quiet holiday. We exchange a simple gift that day.

4. What is your favorite time of day?
Probably right before I go to bed or right when I wake up. I just love the enormously satisfying feeling of going to bed — lying down on my cushy mattress surrounded by my pillows — after a long day. In bed, I can do my own thing: read and relax.

Morning are nice, too, because I like the sunshine and the new start and the possibilities.

5. Did you start Christmas shopping yet?
No. We don’t celebrate Christmas. Some of you have asked why we don’t so I’ll leave a quick version here. When my husband and I first married, he worked in retail and I worked in radio- these jobs don’t pause for the holidays and we were always working on Christmas. Our kids never went to public schools or watch TV and didn’t get caught up in the commercial Christmas hype like we did when we were kids. We tried Christmas for a few years when they were older, but after going into debt to buy toys and finding out that Jesus was probably born in spring time (Christmas was a Christianized form of Saturnalia worship, and the pope combined the two holidays to make people in his churches happy) we decided to skip Christmas for a more quiet and meaningful holiday. Thanksgiving is more like Christmas to us. We give thanks to God and each other, give ONE nice gift and keep everything simple.

It was hard at first, for me. I didn’t mind skipping the debt and the hype of Christmas, but I like the colorful lights, the pretty wrapped gifts, the festivity of it all. It held a nostalgic flair to me. On Christmas Day (since we do have the day off, now), we just relax. I might put on A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott or play the radio station Christmas songs. I’d still like to hang lights because winter can get so dark and the lights make everything better but I haven’t gotten around to it since we renovated the downstairs…. anyway, that’s what we do. We celebrate Jesus year ’round. His big day is Resurrection Day for us.

Have a great week and a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving, friends! We have much to be thankful for.

For folks who may have delved a little too deep, maybe you’d want to look into rmcn credit services. That link goes to a video explaining the services and how to get started. Credit services can actually help, if you choose the right one. We were on a program once many years ago. My husband had lost his job and things were very difficult for a time. The credit service did help us reduce the percentage rates and pay off the debt. But you have to read the fine print and choose very wisely.

Don’t go overboard this holiday season with gifts and debt! It’s just not worth the heartache and stress.