Another One is Home!

Just a short blog to share the good news. Mittens was adopted yesterday (Sunday)! I got the call just as I was getting ready to go to the Monday chat at The Studio. THAT was SO worth being late for!

Mittens is now in his new forever home!

David and I were pondering if we should set an annual limit for our sponsoring, but we remembered how long it took Lacey to be adopted and right now we’re having a great run. We kinda don’t want to stop! We’re thinking we’ll be back to Paws in a few weeks to find anther kitty needing some help finding a home.

Yay Mittens’ new family! You have a very sweet boy

Happy Thoughts

From Spring 2008.

It makes me feel warm and happier!

When I awoke and started up the laptop that I fondly call Joey, named after the 2010 MVP when I got it in 2009, my Google homepage told me it was 8 degrees in Toledo. I overslept by about an hour, at could have been worse! At 7 am, I’m sure it was colder and still dark. But hey, at least it’s light outside at 8 am now, that’s a sign that spring is closer than the noisy wind would have me believe. Also a BIG sign of spring coming: The Tigers pitchers and catchers will report to Florida in 5 days and the Reds P&C will be in Arizona 3 days after that! Then, the crocuses will bloom and trees will bud and baseball and color will return to the world again!

--sigh-- I can’t wait!


My XML instructor is so cool! I was struggling on the edge of “can I still drop this class?” with the chapter last week. Well, no, I can’t drop the class. I need it for my certificate. SO I turned in the half and messed up part of the assignment I’d done. Expecting maybe a point out of the 20 for effort? I also told him that I just didn’t get it and was going to do the whole chapter over starting at page one and if I turned it in would he give feedback. I don’t expect credit for it. He wrote back giving me a week extension. Now yes, I have 2 chapters to do this week, but in going over the thorn in my foot chapter again, I’m already getting it a bit more. Sometimes going over it again, starting over, does a lot!


My last Physical Therapy session is Thursday. It actually coincides well with my date with the neurosurgeon for consultation next week. I am stronger, but not enough for the therapy I’ve had. I guess it kinda goes with the doc sending me to see a neurosurgeon after the MRI. The shoulder injury from the Turkey Soup Incident is doing much better though. One victory and one challenge moving me towards a different solution.

For now, and David always chuckles when he hears me say this, I need my coffee!

Prettier Than Pink

Pink has a new song that’s getting air play now, Perfect. I love the song, it makes me think about Tori and Rina and I remember the awkward self-image that I had, that most teens have. I wanted to use part of the lyrics in a scrapbook page of the girls, so I looked up the lyrics to get the proper words to quote it.

I found out what I love and what I want to buy is the radio version. The lyrics I found are the same song with the f-bomb thrown around flagrantly, in the hook of the song. Not only does it not seem to fit the meter of the song, it makes a beautiful song that a mother would dedicate to her daughter, a raunchy song a mother wouldn’t want her daughter, or son, to even listen to. It changes a plea to realize “you’re nothing less than perfect to me,” to a middle finger to everything, “I don’t care,” attitude.

Pink is 31 years old and pregnant with her first child. I would think young enough to remember the need for some compassion at that time in her life and old enough to really be thinking about that child in the future instead of just the “here and now.” Ah well, maybe that’s me another decade+ older than that with very special teenage girls in my life. I’m still going to use the words from the radio version on a scrapbook page and I’m still going to but a copy of the radio version for my iPod.

By the way, I don’t have the iPod yet! I have a few new songs that I’ve bought and put away on my hard drive for it, but the iPod comes when I’ve lost 50 pounds! I had gained a little over the holidays and then plateaued. Officially today that plateau finally broke and I’m losing again. Whew! I look at the numbers and I’m proud of the 40, but I’m itching for the iPod now! While I’m goals updating, I have my consultation with the neurosurgeon scheduled, so that’s moving now. The reclaiming the office and train room is not so moving because of the weather. We have some drafts in our sweet 50’s house and it’s chilly in the rooms we use less often. R2D2, my office space heater, lives in the master bedroom right now and I like him there for sleeping. I really don’t have the free mobility to move it back and forth, so for now, I’m not doing a lot in the upstairs rooms, a little here and there, but the big effort will come later. Now, remember the “this or something better” with all my wishes and goals. If I need surgery and the recovery keeps the man cave/woman cave behind schedule, I’ll consider recovery the “something better” that will allow me to work faster and better in those rooms.

Now it’s sleepy time. After a few errands in beginning of the day and the rest of the day will belong to XML class. Maybe Sunday I’ll get a scrapbooking break before the Super Bowl!

Hallmark Wisdom

NOT a sponsored post. It’s just me being mushy 10 days before Valentine’s Day.

Heart from Your Own Special Way by Digitalegacies Designs

I just love the new Hallmark commercial for Valentine’s Day. Maybe you’ve seen it? I don’t love YOU, but I love US. I feel that way about David. Oh, I do love him, but what I love most is the “us” we’ve become.

One of the songs I wrote when I was in my teens is a love song called “Forever.” It’s a simple song and the words are perhaps a little trite. I was a teenager. I can say with confidence now, that at 17 I really didn’t know what love was. I wrote the song for the man I thought I’d someday meet. That guy in the song, really isn’t David. As always with my wishes, “this or something better.” I got something better!

The line from Forever that is in juxtaposition to that Hallmark commercial is, “when one and one are one, the world we own.” One and one aren’t one, they never should be. When that unity candle is lit, the two candles that light it shouldn’t go out. One and one should make three. The joining of your heart with another doesn’t snuff you out. Two people don’t give up their own beings for love, that love is an entity of its own. Love makes life richer, it makes MORE, not less.

Maybe that’s the best thing about finding that right man later rather than earlier in my life. I knew who I was and was comfortable with that. I had a full and happy life before I met David and I haven’t given up anything that made me satisfied and happy to be with him. I have more. So does he. I always ask him, when it comes to the things he enjoys without me, “what am I worth to you if I take away from what made you happy before?” I want the emotional investment he made to be value added to his life, like the investment I have in him is for me.

So this year, I have to find a Hallmark card for David for Valentine’s Day. I’m sure there will be one that says the right thing, because the commercial speaks so poignantly to me. I get a little choked up every time I see it. I do totally love the us we’ve become and it gets bigger and better every day!

Evie – Your iPhone Personal Assistant

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Evie. All opinions are 100% mine.

I find the world of iPhones fascinating.  On one hand, there is just too much out there for me to wrap my brain around putting on my phone.  How do you organize all those apps?  And, I don’t want my phone anywhere near me when I’m driving, too much distraction for me.  But on the other hand, my brother can play Skee-Ball on his phone!  Okay, my love for Skee Ball notwithstanding, I don’t have and can’t have an iPhone anyway.  Well, with a recent announcement from Verizon, that’s not true either. 

Time for a rethink?

I can tell you the first app I’d have to have is Evie!  If you don’t know what Evie is, you need to read on!

Uploaded with Skitch!

Evie is an app that is voice activated and essentially is your personal iPhone assistant.  No distractions in the car.  I tell Evie “Call David,” and I can let my hubby know I’m on the way home from dinner with the girls without pulling off the freeway to find a parking lot because I forgot to call when I was leaving.  Evie will find the number in my address book by matching the name or I can just say the number and Evie will dial.

As if that isn’t enough to make me feel connected but safe on the road, Evie will access your iPhone’s music too.  No more fumbling through tapes or CDs in the car or hitting the next button or trying to search on your iPhone for a song.  Tell Evie something like, “Play Rianna,” or “Play Alan Jacobson audio book.”  You can even tell Evie to read your Facebook news feed!

Evie also does directions and location finding.  Ask for a gas station or a restaurant and pick from the selections and get directions or call, no hands!  I’d just say “Find Cracker Barrel,” Or Find the nearest coffee shop.”

If you have an iPhone, Evie is a must-have-app!  If you don’t have an iPhone yet, join me in rethinking that, and start your app collection with Evie!