The Cat on Steller Way

Her name is Luna, I hear. 

Katherine has been wanting her own kitty cat since before she could talk. 

They had Jack when she was born, the biggest, sweetest, most patient cat ever, but he died when she was just 2 years old.



She called him (and all cats) Tlee-Tlee for a long time and has been totally obsessed with all things cat since then.  I can't count how many stuffed cats she has, and if it were up to her, she would wear only clothing with cat themes.. 

It was a hard decision to bring a cat into a busy home, but I think they made a good decision.  Emily says Kate has said, "Awwww" for 24 hours straight, and Luna has not scratched or hissed one time (like one cat we know).

This kitty is quickly finding out what love is.

Cousins and Cats

Sherry and David got back from their Christmas visit to see Ryan and Najla and Emma and Trevor, and I lifted these cute pictures from her blog, Tails from Tennessee, which gives the details about the trip and more pictures.



Emma turned 7 in November and is growing up so fast.  Graysen and Katherine really, really wish they could play with her.  I met her once as a little baby but not since and have never met Trevor.

They worked hard on a gingerbread train





Trevor was excited about his new rod and reel.



Emma got a new sewing kit, and I'd like to see some of her creations.  So sweet and beautiful.



These traveling boys can always be found on the dash or cuddled up together on the bunkbeds - or in laps.

Bentley.



Bentley and Finnegan.



Nicky after his shampoo and blow dry.



Debby and Tom spent several days in Georgia with Brent, Courtney, and Sophia.

This baby is nearly 2, which is so strange.  It seems like only a few months ago that she was impatiently awaited, and she hasn't been a baby long enough!

This is my favorite one of all the ones I saw.  Those dimples!  That little smile for Mama.

Debby is probably passing down all her cooking secrets.

I had seen a few crying Santa pictures during the holidays and figured she had just resigned herself to sitting there, but Debby said she was on her way down to run away!  Just the way I feel about Old Sick Nick.

The Binderts decided to add to their family and brought home this sweet girl this afternoon.

No name yet, but the girls are super excited at having their very own kitty.  She's relaxing and seems happy enough.

We did this while Emily and Ryan were deciding on whether to bring home the kitty.

Tomorrow is back to school and back to work for some.  It's time to tackle this new year.  I feel like cleaning, but if Mah-jongg calls, I'll be going there in the afternoon.  

January 4

Took not one picture today but checked one nagging thing off my to-do list.  I had ordered some stock-up things from Target to get some $10 gift cards, but they had to be picked up instead of shipped.  Elise drove me today and is such a good driver.  I'm pretty much confident I can tackle the interstate now, even with the new construction, as long as it's not early morning work traffic or after dark.

We took our time and walked around and tried to figure out if we needed anything, and we pretty much didn't, but that didn't keep us from buying things!  We almost made it through without buying one kid-related item, but I did pick up some Annie's mac and cheese and fruit snacks for the girls.

She even cornered a big guy to walk to the car with us to unload all that cat litter and detergent from the cart to the car.  Now it's sitting there in the car waiting for us to corner Ryan and have him bring it upstairs.

Nice sleepy night again.  I'm trying to read.  Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple, a Seattle native.  It's funny and quirky, and I've recommended it to Emily if she ever has time to read a book.  I feel like it's one of those I'll finish in two days.  And then I'll be without a good book.

I had nice emails from Barbara and Sherry today, and it was nice to hear how they spent their holidays, one on a cruise and the other visting famly in Jacksonville.  No pictures of grandchildren yet, but this is the best picture ever of Nicholas after his latest grooming.  What a regal guy!  I'm glad he's my friend and hope he remembers me if I see him again.

Layla and Bowie seem to have bonded a little in the past few days.  They walk around the house together and watch each other eat, but B can't stay out from under the bed for long.  He's still a little ways from trusting people, but we think he'll come around if we just leave him alone.

Emily sent me a video of a sweet kitty from Petsmart today.  I'm not sure why they were in there unless it was killing some time while Graysen was at a birthday party.  They would really like a cat but aren't sure about where to put litter box and food right now, besides having new furniture!   A dog or cat will happen pretty soon, I think, but it will have to be the right time.

The time has come to keep a promise.  I told Graysen that when she was 7, I would get her a sewing machine and teach her to use it.  It seemed so far in the future, but she'll be 7 in about a month.  Suddenly, I'm a little nervous about it.  I'm doing some research on the best machines to learn on - not a toy but not a complicated one either.  I'm first going to read all I can about how to teach someone - how to keep fingers well away from the needle and how to concentrate on what she's doing.  I know her, and she's going to want to "make something" immediately.  I've let her watch me thread my machine and watch me sew but never to control things or touch the machine.  Hopefully, this will give me the incentive to clean out the clutter in the sewing room and make room for an extra chair.  I have a few books ready for pickup at the library on beginning sewing, and I'll buy her one if it seems helpful.

I'm looking forward to the coming week, really the first REAL week of 2020.  The girls will be in school, and I have a couple of mah-jongg games scheduled and maybe even cards at the Y if I decide to do it.  There's more than a 97% chance of rain every day but one, so I know how to dress already - but luckily still none of those pesky snowflake icons in sight.

January 3

The day didn't start out like I had anticipated, but it turned out better than I could have planned.

I went to bed early last night and was awakened at 8:43 by truck noises and voices.  This place is usually really quiet, especally at night, and it was a little alarming.  I peeked out the window and there were a couple of Two Men and a Truck vehicles idling right under my windows.  Four Men and Two Trucks and sounded like more than four.  They did a lot of yelling back and forth to get situated, but once they did, I didn't hear much out of them, and they were gone this morning.  We're getting a new landing neighbor, Jamie, whom I've met once, and it may have been her things.  Nice friendly girl to take the place of the mystery man who has finally moved out.  I'll miss wondering what went on over there.

We were to entertain two sisters at the Steller house this morning - Harper was in Graysen's kindergarten class, and Ellis was in preschool with Katherine.  We had a few playdates this summer but haven't seen them since school started, other than briefly at school.  Their nanny, Jadyn, suggested we go to Kidz Bounce up the road apiece and let them get their fidgets out.  I was really looking forward to catching up on Emily's laundry and having the girls play by themselves and not tackling that scary new interstate entry.

But I decided that was the best plan, and no one volunteered to drive me, so I did it.  It takes about 5 minutes up the interstate and about 15 the "back way" but I was a little worried about all the rain and mud slides and trees down because it's a winding road with lots of trucks on it.  I would have been fine, but I decided to just try to conquer some of my driving anxiety.

The new ramp is metered during some busy hours, but at 10:00, it was easy as could be.

I'm the turquoise lane, and I wasn't sure what to do about the cars in the green lane, but there weren't any, so it worked out fine.



As soon as we turned right, Graysen said, "Mimi's going on the interstate.  We're going fast!"  Just what I needed to hear!  If 71 is fast, then we went fast.  I didn't want to get run over.  There are just so many cars and trucks all the time, all going faster than I want to go.  Luckily, I just had to go up one exit, and I even came home by the interstate with no trouble at all.  I'm not sure what all this anxiety is about.  Maybe being responsible for children.  Maybe age.  Some of it is the volume of traffic and our exit having a lot of wrecks.

Anyway, I delivered safe and sound.

I had my coffee, and Jadyn and I had a great time.  She's probably young enough to be my grandaughter, but we met last year at school pickup and just enjoy talking.  She has a 9-month-old that her husband brought by later, and we enjoyed just laughing at the girls and catching up.

No great pictures, as usual, just 3 hours of constant running and jumping.

 Katherine enjoyed spending some time with little Sawyer.  Such a happy baby.

Sweet sisters, Harper and Ellis, and Jadyn's brother Andrew who was the hit of the morning, chasing after the girls and hitting them with balls.  He's stationed in Charleston, SC, and we had a little bit in common to talk about.

We were the first ones there, but eventually BOYS came, and they were constantly chasing after and bothering the girls.  Once Graysen came over to me and said, "No matter what we do to them, it never hurts them."

We went to the library, came home, ate lunch, and dove into our new books.

The girls loves those little milk cartons.  The label says Horizon Organic Low-Fat Milk, and today Katherine asked if she could have one of those little fat milks.  It took me a minute.

I'd love to stay up later, because it's the WEEKEND, but I just can't.  I'll probably be fully awake by midnight if I go to sleep now, but so be it.  I feel like I'm the one who bounced for 3 hours.

January 2

Back to normal life after so many weeks.  It wasn't too bad though.  I didn't have to go get the girls until around lunch time.  I walked over there, and we had a good time walking back even though it was around 40 and drizzling.  They found several new rocks to fill my pockets and ran up and down Queen Kitty Hill a few times.

 We brought the science experiment kit back to do some experiments, and they were a little underwhelmed at the first one.  It was mixing 5 mL of water with 10 mL of oil and shaking it all together.  Once it settled and rested, the water sank to the bottom, but I got blank stares when I mentioned it.  "Oh, okay.  Great.  When can we make the volcano?"

Vowing to save the volcano until we've at least done some simple experiments with baking soda and vinegar, I decided to let them play with the components with plain water with food coloring in it.  Amazingly, that satisfied them for well over 30 minutes - just squeezing the water out of one container and putting it into another.  Whatever ...

The rest of the afternoon I fought off sleep and pulled out the clay.  They do love that, and we made some basic shapes, and they were happy.  A snack, going in and checking on the new kitty, talking with Aunt CeCe, and reading a book or two passed the afternoon quite nicely.  Now I'm still fighting sleep but don't have to fight very hard.

Tomorrow I'm hoping for a playdate for the girls with two other sisters for the morning while I go over and work on sorting and folding some laundry.  I always do better in the mornings.

Bowie, the beautiful shy kitty, is now coming out of the closet some.  He's not a bit afraid of Layla.  It's just humans he doesn't trust.  I found him in the sewing room with her, and they stayed in there a couple of hours just sleeping and hanging out.  I got out the laser for them, and they played separately but near each other.  It makes me to happy to see Bowie jump and play a little bit.  I was worried about him.  He may still be a mental case, but physically he's eating a lot and seemingly interested in what goes on around him.

I can't find anything else interesting that happened today.  I have food and a warm place to sleep, and I can't think of a thing I need right now.  Maybe a little energy!

First Day of 2020

It's so far kind of boring, the very best!

Because of procrastination in 2019, I was at the grocery store early.  Not bright and early because it wasn't that kind of day.

It's encouraging to walk in the door and see so many empty shopping carts greeting you at the door.

There were very few people, and everyone was cheerful, so I enjoyed loitering a little bit and noticing things I don't usually take time for.  I found some good soup and salads in the deli for Elise and me to start off the new year.  Ryan seems to have been cooking the traditional New Year's Feast.

I see black-eyed peas, red beans and rice, cornbread, and turnip greens.  They spent a good bit of time Friday trying to find turnip greens and finally found some. 

Emily sent me a picture of her forced paperwhite narcissus this morning with a Happy New Year.

This is all I had to offer.  Layla thinks it's her own big toy.

It's still trying though and looking for some light.

It will be hard to get back into a full day of babysitting tomorrow, but then the weekend is in two days.  The girls go back to school on the 6th of January, and I can have my days back.

I don't have any great resolutions to make other than the usual self-improvement things everyone does.

I'm doing well with Bright Line Eating and won't make any changes there.  No sugar, no flour, 3 meals a day, and weigh everything.  I will try to be more consistent and not tweak it so much.  I think it's nice that I haven't eaten any fast food since last February.  I think I'll make it a whole year.  I have had maybe 3 Diet Cokes and a couple of McDonald's salads when I took the girls, but I'm not counting anything like a salad that isn't even good in the first place.  I have 12 pounds to lose by April, and I think I can do that.

It's hard to walk in the winter for me, but I'll try to get out more.  I walk a little every school day just picking up Graysen, but I should tack more onto it.  

My main goal this year is to go ahead and get another car.  It's so hard to get out and look around, but I need to.  No one is going to bring me 20 cars to test drive and let me pick.  I have to go do the dirty work.

I've been off Facebook and enjoying it.  If I get a notice for a birthday, I'll go back and send HB wishes usually, but I'll not go scrolling along and wasting my day.  I know I'll miss some stuff, but I seem to be happier without it.  I like checking in with my private groups and the community pages to see what's happening locally, but that's pretty much enough for me.  

#2 goal is to finish those two quilts for the girls and get out my serger and re-learn how to work that.

Other than that, I'm going to be easy on myself and enjoy life, and that might mean a mid-afternoon nap in preparation for the feast tonight.