catiecake.

Seventh of November

Dear Kittens,

I'm listing it out for you because that's where I am today. Listville.

1. Today was the first day I've been chilly. It was nice, but also sort of alarming because where are my winter clothes?

2. I went to Happy Hallow for the first time today and I sort of loved it. It's run down, borderline creepy and also great for kids! We didn't see any animals today because the kid I went with wasn't into the animals. I will go back another time for the animals.

3. I had sushi for dinner and oh my, it was so delicious. Even more delicious than normal because I was extra special hungry. I love the sushi.

4. I've been experiencing some anxiety lately. Like a low level, but constant sense of nervousness for about a week. There have been breaks in this anxiety. When I'm walking, when I'm working or when I'm doing something fun. I've been thinking about this anxiety and my theory about is that it's procrastination causing it. When I'm being proactive, I do not feel it. When I'm putting off, ignoring or denying something- I feel the anxiety pretty much constantly.

5. Also, I am ready for bed. It's late for me.

6. Tomorrow is a day of laundry and various other fun things like card making and what not.

Love,

Catie 

Fifth of November

Kitten Christmas Tree Ornaments (available at www.catiecake.com- very limited quantities)

Dear Kittens,

It seems like we're having our Indian Summer late this year. The mornings and evenings are chilly and the afternoons are warm. I can't say that I'm a fan, but apparently there is nothing to be done about it. Apparently so-called weather does whatever it wants.

One item of note before I go on- there is a giant pile of leaves at our curb (the gardeners were here this morning) and I am dying to go out there and kick the leaves so that they go all over the place. I will not do that only because it will lead to me raking and sweeping the leaves back into place. I think the best part of fall is all crunching as you walk on sidewalk.

So my plan of awesomeness has to do with recommitting to my basics. I'm pretty sure at some point I mentioned that this plan is much more interesting to me than it would be to you. So, you cannot read the following and then blame me for it's lack of complete fascinatingness to you. You little baby Kittens think that EVERYTHING is about you, don't you? When I started with Life Coach, she had me come up with a Well Being Check list. The title makes it pretty obvious what it's supposed to be, right? She suggested coming up with 10 things to do every single day that made me feel good, strong and healthy. I think 10 is an arbitrary number and really, if you wanted to do this you could come up with 4 or 5 super strong basics. Life Coach suggested that the first three on the list should be eating healthy, getting enough sleep and exercise. I think most of us can agree that those three things are the foundation to feeling your best. I've changed my list a few different times because in the beginning there were items on the list that just didn't end up mattering that much to me. So nowadays here's my list:

1. Go to bed at 9pm (I don't actually go to sleep at this time, but I do get ready for bed and read for a little while before I go to sleep)

2. Eat healthfully (avoiding low fiber, high carbohydrate foods)

3. Exercise (daily walks, weights 3X per week)

4. Morning Routine (mostly is about getting certain things done before I start Internetting)

5. Time w/Andy (dates, game night, etc)

6. Creative time (which happily is also my work)

7. Read for at least 30 minutes

8. Meditate for 15 minutes

9. Sitting (I need time where I do absolutely nothing but sit and look.)

10. Friends (wherein I take care of correspondence, have friend dates, make new friends, read friend blogs)

I never abandoned my list, but I also haven't been minding it like I want to. If you are a person who finds it difficult to do everything she wants to do in a day, I recommend coming up with your own list. It doesn't need to be 10 items, although it probably shouldn't be more than 10 (you want to keep it manageable). The important thing is that it includes things you can do to so that you always feel your best. How you implement this sort of thing is that you keep an actual checklist with you at all time and refer to it often. In addition you choose these things every single day. You do not wait for "motivation" or whatever. You say to your Kittenself, Kittenself, I am choosing to play with string for 10 minutes everyday. And then you do it.

In cooperation with Andy Anchev (my husband), it has been decided that Mondays and Fridays are either game night or date night. I am very pleased with this mutual decision. Tonight is pho and a movie. Yipee!

Love,

Catie

The Zig. The Zag.

I realize that I should probably write descriptions for these photos I post.

This is a fence in Yosemite National Park. I liked the lines.

Dear Kittens,

It should not come as a surprise to you Kittens that I sometimes keep secrets from you. Not for the joy of secret-keeping, but more because you are Kittens and just babies and do not need to know everything about everything. It is out of love that I keep these secrets. You can thank me later.

This is the part where I tell you that I've known about the destination of our anniversary trip for a couple of weeks now. I sort of guessed it immediately, but my guess was confirmed when I was looking through the American Express statement looking for suspicious charges. The airline tickets were listed with their destination. I didn't say anything because, you know, when you plan a surprise for someone, you would like for them to be surprised. Finally, 2 nights ago, Andy told me and I admitted that I already knew. It's not that big of a deal, but I am sorry that the surprise got ruined. I'm looking forward to this trip, but I admit I'm a tiny bit tired of travel. There! I said it! I know for sure it will be good and I'll be so glad we did it (did I already say all this?), but after this trip, I'm pretty much planning on staying home A Lot.

So, we're going to Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington. I'm looking forward and I hope the weather cooperates. We've decided to come up with indoor and outdoor activities so we're sure to have a good time no matter what the weather is doing. 

There are ideas for blogs I've come across in the last 2 days that I love. One is an encyclopedia of your home. Based on a book that I love called Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Elizabeth of A Browner Brown is doing it. It's one of those ideas that you (and by "you" I mean "I") wish you had first. That won't stop me from copying her, though.

The second idea is from Zena. She's taking at least a month's worth of daily photographs of the things that bring her closer to her spirituality. The Sacred Life Project. That might be a tiny bit too hippie for me, but I love the idea of taking a small moment each day to recognize the beauty around you and to find inspiration in something simple.

I find such inspiration from these two ideas that it sort of kills me a little bit. Mostly because I am trying to be smarter about making commitments, I'm not sure which idea I actually have time for right now or if they both should wait until a later date.

I realized yesterday that I've been sort of stalled out in progress lately. I'm still having sessions with Life Coach and they continue to be very good and helpful and generally speaking I feel very happy most of the time. Also generally speaking, I feel like I could be Doing More. I think I need to start pushing myself to go a little bit deeper in this whole personal growth thing. Mostly I think I need to turn up the exercise a notch and the productivity on my creative endeavors. One really good thing that life coaching has taught me is how to follow through. Before life coaching, I was very good about coming up with plans, but not so great at implementing them, but nowadays I feel pretty secure in my ability to make things happen for myself.

Also, I think this is another reason why I am less than Totally Excited for our trip. I feel like there are things to be done at home and being gone so much is preventing me from gaining momentum and that's frustrating. Because, it's not just the actual travel. I don't know if most people are like this, but I find travel wholly exhausting. The whole process of figuring out what to pack, how to pack it, going to their airport, stressing about security and then the actual flying and settling in and then coming home and the being tired and endless laundry and loving the cats and trying to get my schedule back on track and GAH! It takes up a tremendous amount of space in my head. I cannot say that I love travel. In fact, I do not love travel. Seeing new places is a lot of fun and the almost always seems worth it (Sorry, Florida, except for the Everglades, I hated your guts.) but the process is something that wears me down.

And now my day must begin with sort of a running start because we're leaving tomorrow evening and so you know, that's not that far away.

Love!

Catie!

And now you get to see a small sampling of my favorite photos of our kitty cats.

Dear Kittens,

Man, getting up when it's dark SUCKS BIG HAIRY ASS. I feel very sorry for you people who have to do it every day because of your job. Even if you love your job, it is not good to wake up in the darks. I'm struggling today, Kittens. I do not want to walk. It's a beautifully crisp morning and what I would really love to do is to sleep in until about 8 am and then have my (imaginary) spa boy, Clive Owens, come over and bathe me and massage me and fetch Starbucks for me and then make me a very healthy breakfast and put me down for a nap. Yes. I would like to go back to my newborn baby schedule. Except without the crying.

Yesterday's Life Coach meeting went very well. She had me do this exercise that I resisted for a long time. She wanted me to write out my life story. I didn't want to do it. It kept coming up and finally I just did it and e mailed her and then she told me all these things about life that made me sound so totally awesome! When it's your life you just see these things as details, but when someone else reads it, they're like Awesome #1, Awesome #2, etc. It's one thing for your friends to be all, hey- we like you. But when someone knows the facts of your life and says, here is exactly where you are awesome it's a very nice feeling. Kittens, you are just babies and so maybe you don't understand this, but sometimes when you are approaching a birthday that begins with a whole new number it's gets a little difficult to see your greatness. Mostly you see the areas in which aren't so great and you lament how you life coulda/shoulda/woulda been so much better if you had just followed that plan your 10 year old self had laid out for you.

I am making and official declaration. Wednesday is Treat Day! Today is the day you do something really nice for yourself. It can be anything that makes you feel good and happy and you know, treated. For me it's going to mean a trip to Starbucks to get some delicious iced tea and a trip to the art supply store where I will spend no more than $40 on supplies that I don't exactly "need", but will all the same make me feel energized and excited about creating something new.

Today I'm getting my hair done. I'm schedule for highlights, but I feel like I'm doing them more for my hair girl than for me. Here's my problem, I see people with highlights and exactly 8/10 of them look so dated and awful that it makes me not want to participate. My instructions to my girl today will be to make them TINY and SUBTLE and practically invisible and then I think it will be my last time highlighting for a while. Also, I would probably like to change my haircut, but my super sonically straight hair is really a pain in neck because it's is super sonically straight, which is code for very straight and no body whatsoever. You know that hair you had when you were 4? I still have that hair.

Today is talk like a pirate day and I am not participating. Mostly because I think it zooms right past silly and dives head first into stupid. And also, I don't really want to encourage the idea of pirates being cute and charming. You know, like Coca Cola has done with one of the most viscious, brutal mammals on the planet? The Polar Bear. There, I party pooped on your pirate party and also on your polar bear obsession. You can thank me  later.

Love,

Catie