catiecake.

Kittens, Keep It Real.

Dear Kittens,

1. December 31 1999 was when I started my first blog on Diaryland. And I have not shut up since. This blog has brought so many wonderful people into my life. Thank you, Wonderful People for reading and reaching out and being my wonderful friends.

2. We are staying home tonight and making ourselves delicious cocktails and a delicious salad. Next year I would like to have a big family sleepover, but this year I am quite content to have just be my and my beloved and our orange cat. And a fire. The first fire of the year, actually.

3. It is so tempting to rate 2008, but the truth is it was a year like any other year. There were good things and there were shit things. I don't love that we lost 2 cats within 11 days, but I do love that we got to Europe and fix up the curb appeal of our house and take so many other great trips this year. Plus, I turned FORTY! I had the best birthday party of my life! It lasted a MONTH!

4. In one week I will be picking up our puppy. PUPPY! PUPPY! PUPPY! And I will admit only to you, Kittens, that I am alla sudden going- WHAT WERE WE THINKING. Of course, mostly I am excited, though. I think having a dog is going to be awesome for us. It's going to shake up our routine in a really good way and I cannot wait to stat puppying it up every second with the puppy and what not.

5. Yay for 2009! I hope it's a year like any other with good things and bad things and were we meet great people and have good time and over all everything is pretty awesome.

Love,
Catie

Ocean Surf

Dear Kittens,

1. I did not send out Christmas cards, which I don't think I've ever done since I've been an adult. It was a bad combo of things- ennui, being sick and being busy. I came up with the perfect solution! I'm making easy New Year cards and now my next year's Christmas cards are already made!

2. I got lots of fun stuff. We decided to copy my friend Craige's family's tradition of everyone exchanging books with each other. Not books from a list, but you go out and shop for a book for each person. After some grumbling and trepidation, we all got into it. That was a really fun part of Christmas because there was no way of teling what you were going to get! I also got a nice little camera from Andy. I love my big camera, but it's not always convenient to lug around, so having the small one will be nice. And I got a giant Kitchen Aid mixer! That was a total shock and I cannot wait to whip up a giant batch of cookies.

3. I did a lot of weeding out of stuff right before Christmas and I realized that I have Enough Stuff. So I decided that for 6 months I am not going to buy any clothes, shoes, jewelry, hats, scarves, gloves, craft supplies, bedding or tiered serving trays. After I made this decision- I felt so good. Catalogs will go directly to the recycle bin, my browser folder with my favorite shopping sites will stay closed, when I want to do a new craft project, I will shop in my office.

4. OUR PUPPY ARRIVES IN THIRTEEN (13) DAYS!!!! And we still haven't chosen a name. On the list are George, Murray, Stewart and Edward. I've never named an animal without meeting it first, so I think we'll know once we see him.

5. Having a house cleaner has been the best thing ever in the world. Our cleaning dude came on Christmas Eve and made the whole house super sparkly while we were gone running last minute Christmas errands. This act of paying someone to do something that felt tortuous to me is so liberating. Do you have any idea how much space not cleaning my house took up in my head? A LOT. And now whatever work that needs to be done feels doable because the big stuff is already taken care of.

6. It's late and I'm really tired. I bought this noise machine from Brookstone a few days ago and at first I wasn't sure I cared for it, but now I think I like it. Right now it's playing the ocean surf sound. This one sort of depresses me because it reminds me I do not live near or visit the beach nearly enough.

Love,

Catie

I must really love you to stay up late and write this.

Dear Kittens,

1. I am probably done baking. If I bake anything else it will be either brownies or ginger cookies. Have I mentioned how since I started taking the decongestant and the antibiotic I am 71% less hungry? And when I get hungry, nothing sounds all that great. It's weird. Anyway, the more recent batch of baking has come out perfect, so that's good. Note to the wise: not all Martha Stewart recipes are good. I know, I was shocked, hurt and dismayed too.

2. Seamus is sleeping in his basket and he's snoring. Sometimes he cozies down really tight and it's hard for him to breathe properly and so he snores. It's the cutest snoring I've ever heard. It's rained the last couple of days, but since Seamus is an All Weather Cat, he still goes outside. He just doesn't linger as long as he does when it's dry and warm. When he comes in wet I greet him with a towel and he immediately starts purring. I dry him off and hold him for a little while and he gets very mushy headed and super sweet. Here is my truth- I do not understand how anyone can NOT like a cat.

3. I've been reading a puppy training book and when I talk to my mom I pass on tidbits I've learned. The other day when I was discussing some point of puppy training, my mom says, "Remember in the old days when you just got a dog?" And I laughed an laughed because it's a good point. Alla sudden we've made this huge deal over pet ownership and it's more than a tiny bit ridiculous. So, I'm readng the book and making mental notes to not go crazy about this stuff and feeling so super excited about the puppy coming home. (22 days)

4. Tomorrow is the tea party. Thank goodness it's cold because I just took all the food out of the house and put it in my car. Except for the cupcakes. Tomorrow is also when the new washer and dryer arrive! Tea party and new laundry machines. YAY.

Love,
Catie

Lemon Zest

Dear Kittens,

1. The baking on Sunday was disastrous! I made three different types of crackers and 2 of them turned out okay, but only one was really good. Then I made English Toffee and it turned out tasty, but horribly sticky. THEN I tried to make these ginger cookies and they are no good.

2. Today I started over. I've made fudge, oatmeal coconut tart cherry bars and the dough for sugar cookies. I haven't rolled the sugar cookies out yet.

3. So the repair guy came for the washer and he guessed it would cost us about $600 to fix. Off to Sears we went to look at new washer and dryers. We wanted a front loading washing machine that had lots of washing options, a large load capacity, would only use a droplet of water per load and was made from sustainable materials. (joke) We looked at every single front loading machine and we finally decided on a Samsung set. Andy went over to Fry's and got it all taken care of without me! I'm so thrilled about that. I hate going to Fry's. The new stuff will be delivered on Wednesday. Yippee!

4. I've finally decided to accept the fact that right now is not a time I'm going to bed early. It's too bad, but there's just a lot to do and um. There has also been napping during the day and so you know- whatever.

5. This week is the Christmas Tea party for my mom's classroom. It's the first tea party of the school year. My mom's students are often with her for 2 years, so this is an introduction to tea parties for the new kids. The best part is when boys think it's going to be stupid and girly and without exception- they end up LOVING it. We use real china with the kids and I bring all my fancy tiered trays and  they get milk and sugar cubes(we go though a tremendous amount of sugar) at each table. And table cloths! It really is just so much fun.

I'm brining vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting and each cupcake will have a stemmed Maraschino cherry on top. I'm also bringing 2 tea sandwiches (haven't decided which yet) and ginger ale as our mock champagne cocktail. We don't call it that, of course. Can you imagine your kid coming home and telling you they were served a cocktail at school?

Now I brush my teeth and do the sleeping time.

Love,
Catie

Love,

Catie

Eating oranges in bed

Dear Kittens,

1. I have a sinus infection that has migrated into my ears. WOE. The decongestant my doctor recommended hasn't done a whole lot and I suppose it's unreasonable to expect the antibiotic to kick sinus infection ass after the first dose. I am up entirely too early (I blame the decongestant) and now I've got the whole stupid day ahead of me to lament about how mserable I feel. YIPEE!

2. The cleaner came and cleaned. My deep seated gender bias revealed itself with the cleaner was a dude and I was totally surprised. And even worried that he would not do a good job. He proved me wrong by doing an excellent job. The whole experience was such a great one, we've decided to have him come back every other week.

Andy and I are both terrible housekeepers. I am great at cleaning. When I clean a thing- it is Clean, but keeping up with stuff is just not my strong suit. Usually the place falls into total disarray and then we do a massive cleaning all at once and it's just not a good thing. So hiring someone to keep our house clean is an amazing solution to a problem that has plagued this marriage from the getgo.

I know people have judgment over such a thing and the only thing I can think it means is that those judgers look down on people in service positions. I do not. I am extremely grateful that there are people who are willing to do a thing like clean my house. I pay US Cash Dollars to them and they provide me with a service and it's all very wonderful for all people involved.

3. I got my hair cut and colored yesterday. I am extremely pleased to have my dark chocolatey haircolor back. The last stylist made my hair a dark auburn, which was okay, but not what I wanted. I was worried about the haircut, but now that I've styled it myself I like it. It's a bit shorter than I originally wanted, but it's a nice break from the long stringy mess I was sporting before.

4. I need to go to the mall today and I hate myself for procrastinating about this errand. The mall nearest me is totally jam packed on a regular weekend, during Christmas it's really awful. I just need some skin care products. They should have a "I know what I'm doing" parking lot available for us who are going to walk directly to one store, make our purchases and then run out and leave. I deserve that sort of courtesy, don't I?

5. Our washing machine broke last week and now we're waiting for the repairman to get here. I'm hoping it's a quick fix because I am out of jeans. And as it turns out all my pants that are not jeans are cropped. Which is fine, except it's cold outside and I have errands to run and I don't think I can pull off cropped pants with knee socks. Here's a secret- I sort of like going to laundromat because all your laundry gets done all at once. Here's another secret- I would love to buy a new washing machine. I sort of hate this one and so it would not hurt my feelings to have get a new one. It would probably hurt my bank account's feelings, though.

6. My mom is coming over tomorrow to do some baking and this year we are making CRACKERS. I know! I sort of can't wait because who doesn't love the idea of homemade crackers? Also we'll be doing spiced nuts, English toffee and some ginger cookies. Pretty much all I'm interested in these days is spicy ginger cookies.

Love,
Catie

Finally

Dear Kittens,

1. Sometimes I forget I have a blog. Actually, I never forget, but sometimes I pretend to forget. Anyway, here I am updating. JUST FOR YOU. Because I love you and I know you need your reading practice.

2. We miss our kitties a lot, but we've setlled into a nice routine with the leftover cat, Seamus. He is such a good cat in so many ways and I will be honest and tell you that the decresed amount of cat hair everywhere is really nice. I mean, Really nice. Of course, I still get weepy about Petey from time to time. He was just the sweetest, most loving cat and there are plenty of times that I cannot believe we lost him.

3. Also, we're getting a puppy! PUPPY! PUPPY! PUPPY! That's what it looks like in my head. The puppy comes home on January 8th. He's a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier. We did a lot of breed research and thinking about all the various options and then we lost our minds and decided to go with a purebred puppy. Oh, I know that some people have judgment over such a thing and I'm okay with that. Judge away.

4. In other super exciting and potential for judgment news- I've hired a housecleaner. I decided to go with a small, locally owned company and I am so excited about the prospect of never ever having to mop our terrible kitchen/dining room floor again.

5. I might have something else to say, but who knows what it is. I try to give you more reading practice.

Love,

Catie