Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

Once again, it’s the end of January. My birthday was lovely this year – a mellow dinner and a movie (thanks to Violet babysitting!!!) and involving boots of awesomeness. And now, it’s time for goals. I did reasonably well on last year’s goals given the circumstances (where the circumstances involve rather impressive life events like moving, pregnancy, and having a newborn). And by “reasonably well” I mean I got one done completely and thought about the rest. I actually puttered with ComicPress in the Fall but still need to work on really understanding it.

So for this year, I’ll be stealing some of last year’s goals.

• Use 100 stamps again.
• Cook something out of each of my cookbooks with an eye towards streamlining the collection. (Wouldn’t that have been nice before we moved???)
• Write more. Seriously.
• Create more.
• Take 4 courses via iTunes U or other online outlet.

We’ll see how well I do this year.

Happy New Year!

2011 was a pretty awesome year despite its challenges. There are parts I’ll choose to not remember and there are memories I’ll cherish forever. Oh, hi, Miss Winter Joyce.

I made a few goals for 2011. 2011, for the purposes of my goals, stretches until my birthday at the end of this month but I’m thinking about them now. In general, it’s safe to say that much of the list was derailed either by moving or expanding the family. I did use 100 stamps… more actually! Sending thank you notes and holiday cards certainly helped blow away that goal. But, I didn’t do much cooking or sewing this year. Nor did I get ComicPress up and running though I did fully reinstall WordPress this fall. I wrote a little more, but not significantly. I did sleep a lot at least! Not that I had any choice in the matter – the power of the pregnancy compelled me.

I’m still pondering my goals for 2012. I am resisting recycling last year’s whole cloth, but I am definitely tempted. I’ll at least add more to the list, despite the inevitable lack of time awaiting me in the new year. Winter is worth a few years of not getting much done. I wonder if I can actually get more done now that there are more demands on my time. It could happen, right? (I won’t hold my breath.) I have until my birthday to finish up any goals from last year anyway… and until then to come up with the next set.

I had a fabulous birthday yesterday! I baked sourdough bread and brownies, bought lots of Girl Scout cookies and hosted fondue happiness for some awesome friends. On top of that, there are now so many balloons in the house that I’m rather giddy. I love balloons! The mini-cats are wary of the balloons. I think Abby is designing zeppelins while Tasha is trying to figure out how to climb them. So far, no balloon has come to a premature end at the hands… er… paws and claws of the mini-cats, but that may change soon.

This morning I had heavy cream in my coffee, a perk of hosting fondue and having leftover cream from the chocolate course. We had lots of other leftovers too but I’m getting a better eye for how much food we need the more we do this. Shucks, we’ll just have to do more so I can perfect the portion planning.

Since January was such a whirlwind, I’m starting my new year with my birthday. I have a few plans for this year, though they’re more goals than resolutions. Resolutions are so easy to fail at and have a bad reputation for being unachievable anyway. Goals are much more reasonable and you get a sense of accomplishment even if you don’t make the full goal. At least, that’s how I look at it.

• Use the 100 stamps I bought, preferably for personal correspondence.
• Cook something out of each of my cookbooks with an eye towards streamlining the collection.
• Get ComicPress up and running finally.
• Sew up some of the fabric lurking in the fabric closet.
• Write more.

By the by, if you’d like to help me with my first goal, you should make sure I have your mailing address.

baking, birthday, cats, cooking, goals

Usually I skill the sentimental year-in-review posts. I enjoy reading them from everyone else, but I don’t usually get so reflective myself.

This year, apparently I’m a sentimental fool. The changing of the year is still rather arbitrary in my mind and the biggest impact on my world is that I need to remember to date things “09″ instead of “08″ and change the various calendars hanging around the house. Sure, it’s an excellent excuse to party and hang out with friends too! But I just don’t feel any sort of annual cleansing of mind and spirit at midnight when the year turns. I think I tend to look at things as longer trends and dread the paperwork that comes with each new year. Yes, folks, it’s almost tax time.

Truthfully, I can probably sum up my year with, “Saw too many movies, read too few book and finally got married…”

The good:

• Oh hey! We got married!
• The end of work stress!
• 155 episodes of Monster Cat!
• Finally got around to taking a writing class with great results, including significantly improved pieces to add to my portfolio for my next grad school application.
• Two road trips to Maine, one complete with SNOW!
• Finally bought a new car.
• Stood in the cold with my tripod to photograph the moon.
• Sewed, cooked and baked more! I’m like domesticated or something.
• Raised my first round of hot peppers!

The bad:

• Some health crap that remains vague and unresolved.
• Work stress.
• Did not get into UBC’s MFA program, but my portfolio was totally not up to snuff so I can’t say I’m surprised.
• Unemployment paperwork and updating my résumé.
• Political advertising everywhere.

For the New Year I want to:

• Read more.
• Take another class.
• Cook, bake and sew more.
• Continue to write and improve my portfolio and apply to more grad programs.
• Go to the Zoo more.
• Do more photography stuff.
• Nanowrimo.
• Start the garden earlier in the spring!

The good stuff outnumbers the bad stuff so I really can’t complain. 2009 will be fun and productive.

2008, 2009, new year, wishes, year in review

This site has been rated by Blogged.com. I’m right up there in the cats category with I Can Has Cheezburger and Stuff On My Cat. I am suitably amused and flattered. Somehow my personal blog has become “Monster Cat Central”… I know of several places where the links simply say “Monster Cat” rather than “Carla” or “Miscellany.” My cat has eclipsed me. My random musings on road trips, entertainment and politics are simply insignificant codas to his comic features. Somehow, I think I can deal with this.

I’m sure this will be going straight to Mr. Paw’s head.

blogged.com, random, self-referential, cats, monster cat

Yes, I expect tomorrow when we get home there will be some very whiny cats indeed. Tenny will howl like he’s been imprisoned for decades, get some attention then ignore me for the evening. Then he’ll be all in my face when I go to bed… Evil will insist on fresh food, lots of attention and goodness knows what else.

There was a little blip of technical difficulty with this site this morning and probably last night. The offending plug-in has been nuked and de-config’d. Shouldn’t be a problem again. I even fixed it before having coffee… which reminds me, I should have coffee now.

Happy Friday, all!

More comics at: The Chronicles of Monster Cat

blog, cats, comics, monster cat, silly, technical difficulties, tennyson

The good news is:

• I am over my post-Pennsic cold.
• I have been exercising regularly since I could breathe again.
• I’m actually eating like an adult lately.
• Work hasn’t exploded. In fact, there have been just enough crazy moments to keep me entertained this month.
• I have rediscovered the glory of teatime.
• Threadless T-shirts is having their $10 sale. For those unfamiliar, Threadless produces small runs of amusing and random shirts such as Emo Bear, Diabolical Hot dog and, my personal favorite, the Loch Ness Imposter. I find their shirts run a little small, so if you want to be carefree and use your dryer on them, order a size up.

The bad news is

• I have a case of the blahs.
• My car is still in need of a knock sensor (but it’s not like I drive it much).
• Pennsic Laundry still haunts me.
• I really need the upcoming long weekend.

Good out-numbers bad, I’m stopping here.

blah, car, food, laundry, random, sick, teatime, threadless, work

Explosives, light and cameras, oh my!
I’ve posted a set of my fireworks pics from last week. These are all from the Upper Darby display on the 1st. We saw fireworks on the 4th but it was raining so I didn’t pull out the camera. I’m definitely going to take my tripod next year! Fritz has some awesome fireworks shots up as well (they’re up over here too). You can never have too many fabulous fireworks photos to distract you, right? Most of Fritz’s photographs actually look like fireworks and are totally amazing. (And they are exactly what convinced me that I need to take my tripod next year!)

Several of my photos look odd and funky – vaguely like sci-fi sky vistas from a far-away planet. That’s part of the fun though – seeing how the random shots come out and how even the ones that aren’t strictly “good” make your imagination wander much like your imagination gets going during the display itself. There’s something about fireworks that just inspires glee in my heart. I think I mentioned that I had my screen saver using the fireworks photos. Seeing them drifting across the screen when I glance over at the Mac while working is fun.

Visitors for the new guest room!
Jon and Kirsten arrived last week on the 4th proper and we settled them into to the freshly painted guest room! The baby animals are gone and the walls all have fresh sheetrock and are a lovely blue!! (Before/beige and after/blue pictures! Remarkably the rug still kinda works.) This also means the walls are smooth and mostly flat! Very exciting for our rather unique house. The contractors have another week or so until they finish up the master bath and patch the ceiling and paint in the dining room. The celery-hay color got old and I need it to go away! We picked a sagey green for the walls and will be keeping the trim white. It’ll be nice to get an even coat of paint on the walls. I might even put up curtains after this! (Don’t hold your breath!)

Excursions while Jon and Kirsten were here included Independence Mall, the Liberty Bell, Monk’s, the Japan House (the koi have grown) and a vain attempt to see the Tut exhibit at the Franklin Institute. Alas I had not grasped that the tickets had times attached to them and we didn’t have quite enough time to wait for the next available slot. And probably the week of the 4th isn’t the best time to be trying to see the big sights in Philly… But at least it wasn’t as hot as last time they visited us!

Weather = too hot
This week is as hot as the last time Jon and Kirsten came to visit. It’s 100° F out there and the heat is staying through Wednesday. The National Weather service has had a heat advisory in effect since yesterday. In short, it’s bloody hot.

I’m missing the WebCT reunion tonight, which is kind of a bummer but I really couldn’t justify a trip to Boston with how work is going this month. Next week I’ll be in Connecticut for meetings and stuff – if only they hadn’t been rescheduled! (Originally they were scheduled for this week so I would have been up in the area for the reunion…)

June Stats!
Oh hey, I’ve been meaning to post these too…

June Stats:

• Flickr: 8 new photos, 184 unique visitors.
• Miscellaney of a Cheshire Cat: 13 new posts, 7707 hits.

4th of july, fireworks, fourth of july, heat, home improvement, house, liberty bell, philadelphia, photography, sight seeing, statistics, visitors, weather, webct

“Kerfuffle” is my word of the day. I think it’s a fabulous word – fun to say and write – plus it accurately describes many of the firedrills I deal with at work without increasing the alarm, stress or chaos of the situation. Sometimes, using “kerfuffle” is even understatement. Expressive without overt sarcasm!

kerfuffle: (Scottish descent) a disorderly outburst, tumult or fuss. In other words, a small dose of chaos. synonyms: stir, to-do, distruption, disturbance, flutter.

It’s not a very formal word, but it’s a British import and underused as well which somehow makes “kerfuffle” slightly more acceptable to the people I keep using it with. It seems to put the chaos in appropriate perspective. What fascinates me about the questions and issues I’m fielding this week is that so many are just a matter of pointing out the trees to folks who are only seeing the forest. Even I am looking to provide more complicated answers to some of the questions and only to have someone say, “That’s what I needed to know!” while I was still talking through the background information I had. I feel useful at least!

Oh, since it’s actually June now…

May Stats:

• Flickr: 33 new photos, 355 unique visitors.
• Miscellaney of a Cheshire Cat: 14 new posts, 4929 hits.

Am I the only one having a hard time grasping that it’s June and essentially summer and such? On one hand, it’s hard to believe it’s June but on the other it feels like it’s been summer for ages. It’s been cooler the last day or so, but it’s been in the 80s here since early May and April was pretty warm too. The National Weather Service has already issued a heat advisory for tomorrow. Ugh.

heat, kerfuffle, language, statistics, weather, words, work

There are an obnoxious number of cherry trees lining the street along the graveyard. The street is lined with trees that have been attacked with pink at the moment. The grass is littered with pink petals. Walking under the trees today resulted in petals stuck in my hair. I’m torn between being excited by their springtime grandeur and sickened by the concentration of pink. (It’s a lot of pink… at least a half mile. Though there are 2 trees blooming in white to break it up a little.) The trees are very exuberant this time of year.

Computer drama of the week…

Unsurprisingly, I dislike calling IT Help Desks. I would prefer to solve issues myself. Oh, and I have a little too much insight into the mind of an IT support person. The Help Desk at the company I’m currently working for is actually quite good, responsive and clueful, honestly… but that doesn’t make calling them with a randomly freezing laptop any happier. Yesterday morning, my laptop started to freeze up. I gave it a timeout over lunch (off, unplugged, battery out). Sadly, it didn’t magically fix the problem. I did successfully get the presentation I’m currently working on for Friday off the drive before it crashed for the 12th time. I called the Help Desk. The nice support guy thought it might be my hard drive and escalated me (with a very high priority) to an appropriate tech.

The tech timed his call perfectly – calling right after my afternoon meeting. (Doing a meeting blind when you’re supposed to be introducing the ins and outs of a new presentation? Not fun.) He agreed with the hard drive diagnosis (I was still desperately hoping for a video driver issue) and asked how soon I could get it to him. I overnighted it to him and he received it today. Apparently my laptop is toast. Poor little laptop. He thinks he can save my data though, so all is not lost (literally and figuratively). I think I’ll have a new-to-me laptop in my hands by the end of the week. In the meantime I get to limp along with temporary access to my e-mail via a web client that times out every 30 seconds. Irritating, but at least I can still work!

April Stats:

• Flickr: 40 new photos, 300 hits.
• Miscellaney of a Cheshire Cat: 12 new posts, 5458 hits.

cherry blossoms, laptop, pink, spring, statistics, tech support, work