i have super duper pooper scooper envy . . .

last week i was cat sitting for my neighbor joanie.  her cats are rather well behaved compared to my monster cats but like all felines, they need their litter cleaned.  joanie has this monster super duper pooper scooper of which, i tend to make fun.  it is huge . . . as in one scoop and the box is poop free.  it is an unwieldy thing of grand proportion.  it makes me giggle.

but while doing our box one day, which is really an under-the-bed storage unit, i realized my short comings in ridiculing her industrial strength mechanism . . . particularly when you note that mine is really a re-purposed kitchen utensil . 

mine:

 hers:

 side by side:

see?  the competition was too stiff.  actually the one on the right is really my new super duper pooper scooper.  envy forced me to keep up with the neighbors.  sigh.  don't tell joanie but mine has more horse power and a newer paint job.  ha!

today, i got nada . . .

no words of wisdom.
no photos.
no new recipes.
no quips or fables.

zip. 

tomorrow will be betterer.

fire, fire, burning bright . . .

these are my days.

i started another facebook group.  this one is for the group of girls i graduated high school with.  we were boarders for three or four years depending on when we started.  next year it will be 50 years since we were together in school.  woot!  woot!  since i just started it day before yesterday, with five of us, i am hoping between us we can find the other nine or so.  it's tough when we don't, in some cases, know married names.  some don't appear to be on facebook at all. 

of course we were not local when we started school or we wouldn't have been boarders but now we are really scattered.  one is on hilo.  another in edinburgh. one in western canada.  one is still in jersey and three of us are in florida.  one is in montana but spending the next three months in new zealand.  we wandered far and wide.

each of us has a story.  even in the sixties, it was not the norm to be shuffled off to boarding school.  i can't speak for the rest but as i've mentioned before, my mother died when i was 13, my sister and after finishing high school, was headed to college.  my father wasn't sure he 'could do me justice', so off i went. 

i loved the old tutor dorm sitting on the backside of campus.  the rooms all tucked away on the second floor with transom doors, humped metal beds, window seats and one desk with two cubicles facing each other.  those were the days.

and down in the great hall, was a huge fireplace.  went it was used, it was marvelous.  i don't think i will ever outgrow my penchant for wood burning fireplaces.

snort . . .

the temps are finally in the 40's and the fire is roaring.  color me extremely happy.  giddy actually.  supremely smug. 

got up early to walk with joanie but set the fire for kidlet before i left.  so nice to come home to a toasty fire.  and and alarm guy.  yep, she said, with her bony fingers crossed.  the system is back up and armed.  guess i'll have to shove the blunderbuss balefully, back under the bed. bagnabit.

so i was sitting there, enjoying the warmth in my jeans, sweatshirt and minion slippers, sipping suisse mocha coffee when kidlet yells from her room, 'may i borrow your crops'.  'i'm not sure they're clean', says i 'or, maybe i have them on.'  'stand up' comes the command.  next thing i know, she is handing me a pair of full length jeans and she is stealing my crops.  is there no justice in this world.

i don't believe in new year's resolutions but if the kid is going to be pilfering my haberdashery because we wear the same size, i'm going on a diet and throwing a lock on my closet.  thankfully, there is not much in my drawers that would interest a 27 year old.  whew!

waiting patiently for dinner.  since she who steals pants, is working until 9:00, i tossed a tater in the oven, along with some asparagus for roasting and will finish it off with some left over pork and a glass of something, something.

mighty fine world, brer rabbit.  mighty fine.

addiction . . .

9, 212, 753 free fonts on the net and what am i hooked on?  designer made fonts.  the one that cost money.  there are some just glorious ones out there.  creativemarket.com is chock full of hand made delectable goodies and if that weren't enough, sometimes they come with extras like swirly tails that can be added to the first and last letters of each word, and color styles that made them look like water colors and foils.  don't get me started on foils.  letters written in gold and silver . . . swoon.  and if that isn't enough, they sometimes come with watercolor paper textured backgrounds.  one kit in particular also came with 500 vectors to recolor and play with.  oh, and 11 additional fonts.  my cup overflowth with great happiness.

so now i haunt various sites for freebies and deals.  i feel like the little old lady wearing her ancient floor length mink with worn out slippers who won't buy anything unless she has a coupon in her purse. it's an addiction.  truly.

so if i am missing, tell kidlet i am probably hiding in a closet with my laptop and my stash of fonts discovered while pilfering through the garbage cans of each foundry.

what a wonderful way to go!!!!!

aarrgghh . . .

about a week ago, kidlet waltzed out the front door and the alarm system lost its cool.  since the panel has been looking like and old movie marquee with half of its lights blown, the alarm company sent a guy out on new years eve day.  he fixed the sensor issue and changed out some old batteries for me.  yay.

that night in the wee hours, i could hear and intermittent beep and knew it was the system going wonky again but managed to turn over and go back to sleep.  in the morning, the read-out on the key pad was rolling through all the numbers to each individual sensor and some i didn't even have.  i really didn't think anything about it until i went to arm it last night around 6:00.  it wouldn't arm.

so i called the company and they walked me through powering down the system since it had lost almost all if its power.  the problem is, the pad is in the laundry room but the box with the guts is in the attic behind my bedroom.

call #1:  the girl walks me through taking out the battery and my phone dies.  i am not a fan of that attic space.  it is unfinished and covered in mouse droppings.  ok, we don't have mice, but it feels like we do.  and the floor of the attic is two feet lower than the bedroom floor.  don't ask.  just let me out.

call #2:  i am still using the house phone and quickly realize it is going to cut off again since the system is tied into the phone line.

call #3:  this time from my cell since i am finally catching on and am apparently a slow learner.  the guy wants me to tell him the read-out on the key pad.  i run downstairs.  now he wants me back up in the attic.  i run upstairs. i reconnect the battery and he wants me back downstairs.  huff.  puff. i am barefoot and covered in mouse poop (see note above.)  he wants me back upstairs and tells me to unplug the box from the power cord.  there is no plug to the box.  'yes, there is,' he yells.  no there isn't i cry and then i explain to him every freaking wire coming from the box.  there is no plug to the box.  he says, there is and it must be in the bedroom, in an outlet and will be the size of my fist.  i tell him i have lived here for twenty years.  it ain't so.  he gives up and tells me to disconnect wire number one.  there are only 7,952 wires in the box.  i ask him, 'how do i tell'.  he says, it is labeled number 1. OK, i have on the wrong glasses for standing in a hole two feet below an average height box with a single swinging light bulb.  grrrr.  i get it disconnected.  he wants me back downstairs to see what the keypad says.  nada.  he wants me to run back upstairs and reconnect the wire.  i try to do that and it arcs at me.  i am not happy.  he says, "be happy."  again, i am in a darkly lit mouse poop infested hole in the wall attic trying to connect a wire that obviously hates me.  it works and the system comes back up.  yay.  i go to bed.

at 2:55 i wake up and can't get back to sleep for an hour.  finally, sound asleep, the alarm goes off at five something o'clock in the morning.  i go back downstairs and turn it off and it is channelling though the numbers again.  no call from the alarm company.  hum . . . they always call.

call #4:  me: my alarm system is shot and no one called.  nice lady: because it showed as maintenance and not a break-in.  me: how am i supposed to know the difference.  earliest appointment is july 12, 2035 between 12 and 5.  i pull the little old widow lady routine and she sends off emails to her bosses for an early appointment.  p.s.  my unit is hardwired in, there is no plug says the nice lady with a giggle.  

i crawl back into bed for a bit.  finally i get dressed to walk and it is raining.  i give up!!!

why am i telling you this story?  because is makes this, all the better:

and it will be.  i love the power of positive thinking.  it works.  the temperature has finally dropped, i am sitting in front of a roaring fire sipping iced tea, having had a really nice lunch with my hens.  

life is good, damn it.  enjoy it.

it's raining paper . . .

i spent the afternoon sitting on the floor shredding enough paperwork to fill three industrial sized garbage bags.  ok, so they were tall kitchen bags but it felt like more.  not my favorite thing to do which is why my cup overflowth.  i still am not done but my impetus for the shredding was solved.  the rest can wait another five years.

so what was i hunting so frantically for?  my passport.  i found my expired one but my new one was mia. it took a powder.  at first i thought, no problem.  it's just in the clutter but as the clutter dwindled, so did my hopes of finding my golden ticket to all ports east and west.

where was that little puppy you ask?  well, duh, in it's leather passport folder where it is not supposed to be.  that would be way to logical.

my poor shredder started complaining about 90% of the way through and finally threw a hissy fit, overheated and refused to chomp down any more wood pulp.  after a cocktail and a massage, it revived enough to finish the job.

wishing you and yours a new year full of grace, health, sanity and mischief.