Archive for December, 2009
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
End of the Year Post
This is the fifth year I’ve used this series of questions for my end-of-the-year post, and I still have no idea where I originally found it.
1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before? Took my consecutive exercise day total to 747 days to date.
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, [...]
5 Comments » - Posted in Misc by Rana
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
End of the Year Crazies
Okay, I am officially going crazy. Everyone is on hold as we send 2009 to the stinking pages of history where it belongs and I can’t get anything done. I can’t even ask freaking questions to get the information I need to make plans because everyone else is enjoying being “off,” and I need to [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Misc by Rana
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
Cats, Phone, Tattoos, Chocolate
Yesterday was one of our more . . . challenging . . . days of the holiday season in terms of R.’s mood. I thought I had diffused the situation when I took her with me to run errands and then out for a Sonic burger. Actually all I managed to do was set the [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Misc by Rana
Monday, December 28th, 2009
Careful Not to Wake the Sleeping Beast
Yesterday afternoon I performed a much overdue desk excavation, sorting out the baby announcements from the Christmas cards, shredding the donation solicitations and account offers, and just in general restoring some sense of order. That has actually been the basic theme of things since I walked out of that completely, blissfully, empty storage unit Saturday [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Misc by Rana
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
An Attempt At Assessment
We don’t have a tradition of peaceful Christmases here at Casa Eclectic, so I’m a little puzzled about how to evaluate this one. The physical disruption of shutting down the storage unit and reorganizing the garage and attic diffused the annual bickering born of R.’s displeasure at things “not being like they used to be.” [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Misc by Rana
Thursday, December 24th, 2009
Cats of Christmas Past
Click thumb for larger image.
This is from a couple of years ago, but it goes a long way toward explaining how Andy has altered our holiday traditions. Right after this was taken, he tried to shave Santa’s beard. The next year he was treated to a Christmas Eve x-ray on suspicion of ornament ingestion. So, [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in The Cats by Rana
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009
Fire in the Hearth, Fire in the Belly
One of the things that has come to live in my room after a long exile in the storage unit is a set of electric fireplace logs, very similar to this one: GHP Group Pleasant Hearth 20. They are what’s left of an elaborate illusion from the bedroom of my old condo.
There, I built a [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Misc by Rana
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
Summing It All Up
While the primary motivation for the massive reorganization Saturday was financial (as in $186-a-month storage unit goes bye-bye), I also never want a book like this written about me: Ghosty Men: The Strange but True Story of the Collyer Brothers and My Uncle Arthur, New York’s Greatest Hoarders. Nor do I want to be like [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in Misc by Rana
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
Witness A Miracle
We went from this . . .
. . . to this.
And from this . . .
. . . to this.
Don’t even think about holding your applause. Sally, Missy J., Rachel, and I helped, but the geniuses here were Nathan and Dr. Susan. And there is absolutely no way I can even begin to [...]
9 Comments » - Posted in Photo Entries by Rana
Friday, December 18th, 2009
Assessing Changes Through Sticky Notes and Charts
Yesterday I was flipping through my working notebook looking for something and realized how dramatically my thinking process has changed over the last few months. I use a Circa notebook from Levenger’s because I have this Monk-esque thing about fringy, torn-out pages. The Circa system lets you move pages neatly, creating a much more organic [...]
