Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Day 153 - Halloween Cats


Back in October, my husband and son brought home two scraggly little feral kittens they'd found shivering under a bush at a gas station down the road. Cold and soaked and completely wild, that night they'd found their first warm, safe, bed...out of the thirty degree nights. They were about five weeks old. Now, at about seven months old, they've wormed their furry little hearts into our family and, as you can see from their photos, they are anything but wild! They've gone from wildcats to lap cats. We are so grateful that they're here, and we're still thrilled with the names chosen from the Name the Kitten contest: Zip and Zoomies. The names fit them perfectly! (lol when they're awake, that is!)

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Day 152 - I Feel Dirty

I feel dirty. Maybe not for the reasons you may be thinking (People! Get your minds out of the gutter!). Last Sunday family joined us in attending my son's high school's Spring musical. We dropped him off early so he could get ready, and we went out to lunch to pass the time (and yes, we did give Him lunch before we left! Ahem!). Mistake. Big Mistake. Our family wanted to go to a buffet. The greasy home style stuff your face and unbutton your pants til you pop buffet. I didn't want to go....but I thought that surely I could find something to eat? Right?

Now, for those of you who have been following my adventures, you may remember that we've switched to a vegetarian diet. We're not quite 100%, probably closer to 95% at the moment, but we are happily getting there and have been feeling much better for it. We're eating lots of leafies and healthy things....low sodium....healthy fats...lots of plain ole good stuff for ya. Until Sunday. We walked in and I should have thrown some wretched fit and faked the plague to have gotten myself out of there. The restaurant was DIRTY. When you walk in and the place they hand you a drink and the soda area is dirty....don't walk...RUN outta the restaurant! Took forever to find seats...and they were dirty and had to be exchanged with another table. I'm thinking if this is what the front of the place looks like, God help what's in the kitchen!

My hubby and I looked like deer in the car headlights. We meandered around, trying to find things to eat, bumping into each other comparing bare plates and then making another round. He came back to the table with some anemic broccoli, a small piece of meatloaf, and some grilled onions and peppers (though I had wondered if he'd seen that nasty grill!). I came away with shrimp and a piece of fried chicken. I know. Meat. But I literally didn't know what to eat and thought that I could take the skin off and dirty hands couldn't have handled the rest of it and it was the only thing not swimming in extra colored sauce so I could see if it had been cooked all the way through thus killing all the bacteria. I got back to the table, pulled all the breading off the shrimp...and it wasn't cooked. Ew.

Round two....I see my hubby's plate. Grapes. Seriously? Grapes. The best part of the whole day. I went back around the salad bar again and grabbed my own stash. Found some unwilted lettuce (soaked, mind you, but at least it had been rinsed!), some croutons and grated cheddar. Topped it all off with half a piece of nauseatingly sweet carrot cake. On a scale of one to ten this place was a negative 40. The amazing thing is that people were loving it...despite the fact that vats of hand sanitizer were placed around the buffet...and sometimes OVER the food! They were piling mounds of food and sauces on their plates and into their bodies and I felt nauseas...both at the fact of what they were eating and the thought that I used to eat like that too!!! How horrible! And I LIKED it! What was I thinking?

A truly terrifying Halloween type of day! Today's pumpkin carving expresses my feelings perfectly. Even a few days later, I feel like going and getting a jar of Metamucil and downing the whole thing while praying that the fiber combs the nastiness outta me. Oh my. Oh ick. Oh how merciful the barfing Gods would have been if I could have just gotten the little I did eat out of me! I later told my husband that if he ever took us back to that place that I would throw the Queen Mother of Hissy Fits and bodily fling myself into the Butter Bar because God knows that everything will stop if we can't coat it in butter so it will slide more easily through our clogged little veins. I swear by all that is green and leafy that I will never go to a cheap buffet again! ACK!

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Time Flies

Can you believe it's almost April and I still have REAL pumpkins in my house? I carved this little face yesterday...it's how I feel right now about the pace of life. I've lived on super speed my Entire life...with nary a vacation or down time. I really wish that were an exaggeration but it's terribly true. In the last few months I've filled my time with organizing my home and studio, clearing up clutter, and dealing with all of the recent budget cuts affecting my son's school and our local community...sooooo not fun. But now much of that is done, and I'm finding a schedule that is, well, relatively free. Not totally mind you! I spend my evenings running up and down the road for hours to get my son to various rehearsals...coordinating his schedule has literally become a part time job! But my day time hours have become, shall we say, less scheduled.

And, oddly enough, though I've yearned my whole life to look at my calendar and see a week relatively "free" of appt.'s and to-do lists, I feel as busy as ever. My rooms have become uncluttered and yet my mind acts like it's racing in a perpetual Kentucky Derby...zooming in circles. Thirty eight years of pent up ideas are all bouncing around, creating a mosh pit in my mind. Every thing is tumbling out and it all demands attention....all wants to be drawn, sculpted, written, doodled, photographed, experimented with. NOW. Right This Second. Soooo much so that I'm having trouble getting out of my own footsteps! I don't know which end is up! I know, it's a good problem to have...one that I've wanted...but it is all so bewildering that I can, for a few brief moments, decide what I Want to do rather than just what I Have to do.

Though sometimes wants and have to's do mix. I do want, and have to, get back to my daily Halloween creation. With so much freedom I feel a little discipline is called for! And those posts will begin again daily on March 30th. Pattern ideas are stealthily creeping up on me and I may put a few out for watermelon carving to celebrate the arrival of warm weather. However, those will wait a few weeks longer as I finish up the last of the pumpkin patch sitting on my dining room floor. Lots of good things to come in the fleeting days ahead...I hope you'll join me on my new adventures.....