Well, we're home.

I drove the RV back to the house day before yesterday. We unloaded after we arrived, in the dark, and I did a quick wipedown of everything. Then yesterday morning we took the RV to the car wash and then back to its home. So, we are done with our trip, officially, now.

Beast's shoulder is still really sore. The oxycodone and fentanyl is keeping him functional (and sleepy). He will see his regular doctor on Monday first thing. I'm trying to figure out if I'm going back to work early or not. I'd prefer 'not' but we'll see.

This might rank up there as one of the weirder weeks of my life. I'm glad Beast is ok, I'm glad we're home safe and sound, and I'm glad nothing was worse than it was. But it was pretty bad--though I keep sugar-coating it for public consumption.

Sparky was able to come visit today after meeting some friends for lunch not to far from here. He is doing well, I think. He's excited about a date he has set up on Monday, someone he's had his eye on for awhile, I guess.

Laundry from the trip is done. Most of the stuff from the trip is out of boxes and bags and replaced where it belongs. The shot glasses I thought I bought at the antique shop apparently didn't get included, which is irritating as they were gifts. We are blessed with wonderful friends who brought us homemade Indian curry for dinner. It was delicious, and there's enough left for lunch for me tomorrow. I sound the first of Sparky's used and no-longer-needed/wanted books on Amazon today. We're watching OSU and Penn State...until Beast falls asleep anyway. The "s" key on my laptop is flaking out, so typing is annoying.

"Nature"

I found this at Kwizgiver's blog who in turn found it at Live, Love, Work.

This is my favorite time of year outside. It's crisp and cool and not-humid and the bugs are mostly gone along with most of the pollen and other sneezy things. We've had a couple of frosts, so that's put an end to most everything but some leaf-mold. It's been windy enough this week, though, that the leaves are sticking around long enough to get moldy. Plus, Halloween. Which is really the Holiday Where I Buy Too Much Candy on Purpose So I Can Eat the Leftovers.

Yes, we've already had a little snow on the ground, but it doesn't last long. The sun is out most days for a bit, and we've only just today changed our clocks.

I really like being outside, but I can't do it here where I live except in the fall. It's too cold in the winter, most days, and spring brings rain and the onset of allergies that blossom into nighmarish levels in the summer, also known as Sticky Season (except not this summer, which was delightfully cool if not humidity-free). I grew up in Denver, so when it got hot in the summer, we just went to the mountains to cool off, and there was NEVER humidity! And I wasn't allergic to every-damn-thing there. Sigh. I would love to just drive up a twisty dirt road where there isn't anyone around and sit on a blanket for an afternoon. Sleep, read, watch the sky...sounds delightful, even though every time I did this in Colorado I ended up burnt bright red.

Nature in its worst guise is coming over the next six months. I hope I'm ready for snow, cold, tornadoes, and thunder and lightning.

"Home"

I found this at Kwizgiver's blog who in turn found it at Live, Love, Work.

Home. I love that word--anyone who has lived in a happy, comfortable place must feel that way. At the best of times "home: is a haven, a safe place to relax and center the self. It isn't always so, never has been so for some.

My current physical-space-home is just perfect in terms of layout and comfort. I really love it. I've said that many times over the years. For the past five or so years, it hasn't always been a haven, or a particularly emotionally-safe place, but that is improving again. Still, there are times when all I want in life is to sit in my nest and block out the insanity of the world and be still. I'm fortunate to have a place to do that, a place that is warm, dry, pretty, quiet, stable, and otherwise full of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

My first home has been on my mind a lot lately, thanks to a family member spotting it on the market for a new owner. I miss that house. It was (is) a very good house, built by my dad with only one other like it in the world. My current house can't probably say that last part, but I think my dad would approve of it: the walls are straight, and it's well-constructed with some fun architectural details that don't get in the way of practicality.

Would I be just as happy in a tent? No. I'm never likely to say that. I like my house.

Thankfulness

I found this at Kwizgiver's blog who in turn found it at Live, Love, Work. Since I tend to try to use November for this purpose most years, this is just a more codified and organized format. So, maybe I'll actually be posting here for a change.

12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

12 Goals for 2014 (5th January)

1. Lose weight and get the cholesterol in a better place.
2. Continue with Al-Anon and therapy.
3. Read more, internet less.
4. Get better about journaling.
5. Travel more.
6. Keep my mouth shut more.
7. Visit, hug, and play with ALL my great-nephews (OK this is kinda the whole traveling thing again).
8. Support and acknowledge my friends, however I am able.
9. Eat less fast food and make more homemade meals (kinda goes with #1, but I'm running out of ideas).
10. Get rid of the excess stuff in the house: old textbooks, clothes that will never be worn again, etc.
11. Organize those damn family papers!
12. Do the next right thing more often than not.

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12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

10 Books you'd like to read in 2014 (3rd January)

Here are the top 10 on my Goodreads Up-Next List:

1. Perfect Escape - Jennifer Brown
2. Trapeze - Simon Mawer
3. Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk - Ben Fountain
4. The Fear Index - Robert Harris
5. The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen - Thomas Caplan
6. Life After Life - Kate Atkinson
7. Five Days at Memorial - Sheri Fink
8. Tenth of December - George Saunders
9. Fosse - Sam Wasson
10. With or Without You - Domenica Ruta

There are 25 on that list and 97 titles on the To-Read. I'm never, EVER, going to catch up!

11 Memories from Christmastide throughout your life (4th January)

These are purely random.

1. The Christmas of the Barbie Dream House
2. The Christmas I Got the Flu AND a Sickroom Visit From My Dad
3. The Clothes Christmas (no toys, nothing fun---it was either the year before or the year after the Barbie Dream House)
4. The Christmas I Got No Books (Beast never did that again!)
5. The Christmas of Revere-ware
6. The Christmas of 1994 (two family funerals the month prior to December 25)
7. Sparky's Third Christmas (his grandparents sent so much that he actually got bored with opening presents...smh)
8. The Christmas Katherine Went Gonzo
9. The Christmas I got a The Huge Box (it was big enough to be my coffin ... filled with newspapers and bricks--with a record album taped inconspicuously to one side)
10. The Christmas When Death Trumped Both an Emergency Hospitalization and a Ransacked Hotel Room
11. The First Christmas My Mother Ever Spent Away From (her) Home (at age 50-something)

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12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

9 Places you'd like to visit in 2014 (2nd January)

I know we're going these places for sure:

1. The shore of Lake Michigan in a cabin weekend we won at a silent auction. I have no idea precisely where this place is.
2. Vegas, probably. Next month.

Places I would like to go (in decreasing likelihood):

3. The Ozarks--I just want to visit them.
4. Dallas-Ft. Worth to see my new great-nephew!
5. England to see my the other great-nephew I've yet to meet.
6. New York City, to see Central Park and Ellis Island. Nothing much else, though.
7. Ouray.
8. Moosehead Lake.
9. Valley of the Kings, Egypt.

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12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

7 Wonderful things that happened in 2013 (31st December)

1. Babies!!
2. Sparky passed Organic Chemistry!
3. New boss
4. New children's librarian
5. Al-Anon
6. Support of friends
7. Wake-up calls
8. Packers made the playoffs

8 Minutes to share your opinion on New Year’s Resolutions (1st January)

Dude, I do not need 8 minutes to give my views: I think they're pointless. I like the "looking back at the past year" activities, but the "I swear I will..." stuff is ludicrous to me. Part of it is just so artificial, part of it is I don't like going along with the crowd, part of it is that I have hard changes to make nowadays, and the biggest part of it is that I have a bad history of follow-through so I know it's just setting myself up to fail. About the only resolution I'm making this year is to read more books.

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12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

6 Regrets from 2013 (30th December)

1. I wish I would've gotten my house more organized
2. I wish I would've not eaten so much junk food
3. I wish I would've made more home-made dinners
4. I wish I would've handled ... things differently
5. I wish I would've started going to Al-Anon sooner
6. I wish I would've been able to not think of any regrets at all

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12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

5 Life lessons you learnt in 2013 (29th December)

I'm still working on internalizing and living most of these, but they are the ones that I had to keep going back to revisit because they are HARD for me.

1. Detachment from drama is necessary. I've never liked drama, or dramatic people, but this year was a solid reminder that this is a wholly rational thing--drama isn't good for me.
2. Babies' births are everyday miracles. I watched one arrive this year, and it's pretty unbelievable. Another addition to the extended family looks like it will be arriving any day now, and I'm beyond excited even though I won't be there this time.
3. Grades in school do not indicate success in life. I hope. ;-)
4. Say no and mean it, and then don't feel guilty about it.
5. People, in general, are good and helpful and friendly. I think most of us have a much larger support system than we recognize, or utilize.

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12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

4 Favourite movies (or TV Shows) of 2013 (28th December)

This was the year I discovered "Criminal Minds" and "Cold Case" reruns on the Ion channel.

The only movie I saw in a theater was the latest Star Trek movie, which was visually wonderful, but plotwise...SUUUUUUCCCCKKKED!! The actors are great, but the "alternate timeline" thing is stupid, and Cumberbatch as Khan? No. Just...no.

We rented the first Hunger Games movie, which I thought I had seen, but don't remember when. The plan has been to watch that and then go see "Catching Fire" but we haven't gotten there yet.

So, that's four. I have also watched, and (surprisingly) enjoyed "Duck Dynasty" though that show is permanently tainted now for me by Phil's idiotic comments. These older Usual Suspects remain strong: "CSI", NCIS", "Life in the ER", "American Pickers", "Deadliest Catch", and the various L&O shows. And NFL games, naturally. ;-)

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12 Days of Christmas Blog Challenge

3 Favourite songs of 2013 (27th December)

I can't possibly pick three songs, but I can probably manage three musicians I enjoyed listening to: Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, and Pink are probably top of the list right now. Their songs makes me happy, or at least they make me feel like I can handle life.

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12 Days of Christmas Challenge

2 Foods you can’t get through Christmas without (26th December)

Well, there's peppermint. And fudge. And cookies, and more cookies, and cookies out the wazoo! Usually I get a bag of Sour Patch Kids in my stocking, but Santa brought me Ghirardelli this year instead. Obviously, Christmas for me has nothing to do with meals, just dessert. ;-)

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12 Days of Christmas Challenge

1 thing I got for Christmas (25th December)

Hard to pick one material item. My best gift is a drama-free day, but I got some good books and silly things too:

• A Chia cat grass planter (for the guinea pigs, ostensibly)
  
• Two packages of Ghirardelli's Holiday Impressions chocolate squares
  
• The Complete Beat, all of The English Beat's recordings on CD [squee!]
  
• A Cash Cab daily calendar 
  
• Jesus Christ Superstar on CD
  
• A Hogwarts snowglobe kit
  
• Now Panic and Freak Out
  
• Salt & Pepper Shaker price guide [Beast says he ordered it at Amazon and it was sent from a town 10 miles from us--and it's a withdrawn library book. Wierd....]
  
• Kirk and Spock magnetic salt & pepper shakers [squee! and cue the K/S fanfic] 
  
• National Geographic's Who's Who in the Bible 
  
• One large, fat candycane  
  
• The Last Week
  

So yeah, I cheated but by far the best gift is the one that isn't pictured.

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Holidailies

12-17 -
Elf on a Shelf - adorable childhood tradition, or creepy stalker? Discuss!

I only heard about this for the first time about 3 years ago (at most). I think it's bizarre. The Elf isn't even cute, and the concept is vaguely annoying. Then again, I know someone who moves the Wise Men into the creche, closer and closer, all throughout the Christmas season till they actually arrive on Three Kings Day. That's equally bizarre, to me. Way too much heavy thinking involved in both of these traditions. How long has this Shelfy Elf actually been a 'thing' anyway?

Holidailies

12-15 -
What do you miss the most from your childhood holidays, now that you are an adult?

The fact that I didn't used to have to plan anything, and things just happened magically (through a lot of hard work from my mom, mostly). Now I realize how much effort she put into things, and I don't even come close to that level of work. And I'm not interested in it, since there are no little kids around. Sparky couldn't care less, and Beast isn't in a great place for celebrating this year, so we're kinda doing the bare minimum.

Holidailies

12-13 -
Grinch Week: Holiday pet peeves. Everyone's got at least one. What's yours?

I wish people would listen to the message of Christmas more than they participate in the rest of the Christmas folderol. I can't really understand the point of celebrating Peace on Earth if you're busy causing LESS PEACE. ...sigh.

12-12 -
Grinch Week: I cannot stand "It's a Wonderful Life". Now it's your turn. What beloved holiday movie / TV show /play just leaves you cold?

I've never seen that movie. Beast loves "Scrooged" but I just think it's hokey. I'm pretty much over Peanuts/Rudolph/Grinches/Frosty and all the others too--have been for years. I'm kind of Grinchy about the whole Hollywood thing.

I should probably link so people can figure out where these are actually coming from:

A Week's Worth of Holidailies

12-03
Share your favorite holiday recipe. Where / when did you first try it?

During the 70s we, like everyone else that decade, discovered fondue pots. So from that point on, on New Year's Eve, we had a family fondue. Not cheese, not chocolate, but meat and veggies in peanut oil as we sat around the pot on the kitchen table. Mom made about half a dozen different kinds of sauces for dipping after things were cooked, and we had other stuff to eat while we waited for our food to cook. It was always fun because there was plenty of time for conversation and laughter--and for first aid for fork-stabbed hands. I miss the big crowd around the fondue pot, but we still do it here every year, even with just the three of us.

12-04
What is your favorite holiday tradition?

I really love advent wreaths, but I haven't done one at home in years. By the time I remember to get stuff together, it's usually past the first Sunday, so I don't see the point. Maybe next year I'll get my act together.

12-05
What is the best gift you have ever received?

I guess the Christmas of Pots and Pans was pretty good, mostly because we have pictures of me being stupid with them after opening each one. I'm just grateful for all the gifts, small and large, remembered and forgotten, that were given from the heart from people who really 'get' me. I even enjoy white elephant exchanges when everyone is on the same page.

12-06
What is the best gift you have ever given?

As above, I love to see that I've hit a bull's-eye on a gift. It doesn't really matter so much what the gift actually IS as long as the recipient's eyes light up and they forget to say thank you or anything much else because they're so stunned/excited.

12-07
Time to channel your inner child. Write a letter to Santa.

"Dear Santa, I have tried very hard to be a good girl this year. Please don't bring me anything but a changed attitude and a bag of Sourpatch Kids, but if you could manage a few days of Peace on Earth at some point in 2014, that would be so wonderful. Thank you."
To be honest, I'm much better these days at writing letters from Santa. Just as Sparky! ;-)

12-08
Grinch Week! What holiday tradition do you wish would please just go away?

Christmas cards. Not because I don't like receiving them--I absolutely do!--but because I hate doing them. They are hugely stressful and a giant waste of resources especially those that arrive with no letter or pictures. We aren't sending any this year again for the second year in a row. Maybe the third. It feels wonderful not to have that hanging over our heads!

12-09
Grinch Week! What currently popular meme / trend do you just not get?

Well, the whole "Christmas music 24/7 starting in November" thing annoys me. People have completely forgotten that religious Christmas songs are meant to be sung in the Christmas season, that is, AFTER Jesus' birth. And Christmas season lasts, yes, just 12 days, till January 6. So singing "Silent Night" in November is a million kinds of wrong. [this, of course, doesn't mean I cheat every year, but not 24/7 for a month!]

12-10
Grinch Week! Tell us about that traditional holiday food you just can't stand.

My mom used to make a kazillion kinds of cookies and candies for Christmas--a tradition I did away with years ago, by the way. She rarely made fruitcake, though, because...YUCK. Who the heck eats those things?? Actually, she did like a slice or two, but she was literally the ONLY person in the house, and even she couldn't justify making a fruitcake just for herself.

I'm really hoping to get back on this pony on a daily basis tomorrow. We'll see how that works out!

Holidailies

Welcome to Holidailies! Introduce yourself!

I am Cat. It's not my real name. It a nickname of a nickname, chosen to use online instead of my actual name. Because my real name is extremely unusual--I just Googled it and found only me--I only use it for 'real stuff' online. I'm a librarian, a wife, a mom, a Presbyterian, an Al-Anon member, a reader, and a Sudoku nut. I also like crosswords and jigsaws. I teach Sunday School, volunteer at the high school from which my son graduated, and I love kids.

Blog Challenge

I'm seriously sucking at this blog-every-day thing. Oh well. Here are the last three days' worth:

Friday was supposed to cover [My] Earliest Memory. The one I usually answer with is that I remember sitting on the couch in the living room writing in my mom's address book. Those scribbles, and the address book itself, were still around when I graduated from high school 15 years later. However, I do have some vague memories of the previous suite of living room furniture (prior to the couch on which I was sitting with the address book). I actually remember the earlier stuff mainly because of a nightmare I had back then that involved either monsters hiding behind it or the furniture itself turning into monsters. Isn't it weird that I can remember a nightmare from 45+ years ago?!


Yesterday's topic--Your Favorite Tumblrs--is easy. I don't actually use Tumblr for anything unless someone directs me to one. I don't see the point of them, actually, but then I've never been much of a photo/picture blogger. I do have a lot of favorite blogs. Most are over in the right column. Most of the rest, the memes, are in the sidebar on my memes blog.


And today is about [My] Views on Mainstream Music. Oy. This is a WIIIIIIIIDE-open question, isn't it? I have come to the conclusion that while I admire rap/hip-hop and don't hate it as a genre, I really don't get it. It doesn't, usually, speak to me. Doesn't mean I think rappers are awful people, and I'll sit through the good stuff, and I actually do like some of it...but most of it I can't relate to at all. Mainstream pop I don't mind--it hasn't changed much over the years; now we have autotune and EDM, 10-15 years ago it was boy bands and harmonizing, when I was a kid it was squeaky-clean bouncy bubblegum. I don't mind it, but there's a limit to what I can ingest. I have gone off heavy rock, and feel the same way about it as I do about pop: a little goes a long way. I'd link to my Spotify account so you can see what I listen to, but it's got my real name on it, so I'll just list the first dozen randomized songs on my Starred list (which currently has 314 songs on it):

• Pumped Up Kicks (Foster the People)
• When You're Gone (Avril Lavigne)
• Ballroom Blitz (Sweet)
• Kiss Me Deadly (Lita Ford)
• Meet Me in the Back (Melissa Etheridge)
• Shooby (Nicole Mullen)
• Rockferry (Duffy)
• Good Life (OneRepublic)
• Cry Baby (Janis Joplin)
• Mouth Wedding (Transglobal Underground)
• 99 Luftballons (Nena)
• Authority Song (John Mellencamp)