January

Gosh I haven't written since we lost the Midge back in November. Miss that little girlie.

Office closed for the Polar Vortex yesterday and today. A weekend in the middle of the week, but too nasty to go outside. I'm glad I didn't have to go out, except I did choose go out yesterday to fill the cat food bowl at the courthouse for the stray cats. Couldn't stand the thought of them finding an empty bowl in this weather, and courthouse was closed yesterday, so the other caretakers were off work.  Poor Finn hasn't been outside for days. I haven't offered him the opportunity for a couple of days, too nasty out there. He has been really good about it too. A couple of times he has gone "Crazy Cat" in the middle of the night, romping through the house yowling and waking me up with a start. It's OK . . . I get stir crazy too. I haven't run through the house like he does . . . yet, but you never know.

I didn't think Finn could fit in this wee house in his cat tree anymore. Wow. 

Christmas was quiet, quiet but good. John was home and we had good eats, as usual. Feels a very long time ago now. The snowy weekends have stopped me from visiting John and his kitties. I took a long weekend in February and am hoping to get over there.

The cold has me cooking comfort foods, veggie beef soup, Scrapple, mom asked for biscuits and gravy.  Mom gets whatever she wants of course!  She never gains a pound either.

Ran into Cousin Gail at Jewel last weekend, had a nice chat. Good to see her. Brings back lovely memories of Aunt Dorothy and her home and the cousins in Marseilles. I often come home that way from John's, and then pass by the cemetery in Seneca. Just like Dad would have done! lol

No news is good news around here. Stay warm!

Kathleen

One of the Best Cats Ever

What a rotten day! Midge wasn't feeling well so I took her to vet Saturday and he kept her. It was a liver problem. Her blood work was off a bit with liver numbers earlier in the summer and she recently became very lethargic, sleeping all the time. We had some things to try, but she didn't make it through last night. One of the best cats ever. She passed away at the vet's office, the same place I picked her up 9 years ago, and it was love at first sight. She and Bernie were good buds, and maybe he is giving her a pat right now. What a good, fun girl she was. She had a good life and was much loved and spoiled. I wish all cats could have that. Sweet dreams sassy whirly girl! I wish we could have had you a lot longer.

Here she is at her sassy best, a little high on catnip in her fave camo chair. She loved being outside.

She was a sassy girl and had a coat like velvet and a french pedicure.

She was super nosy and always in your business.

She ruled the roost.

She liked whipped cream.

She was a good helper in the garden. It was HER garden.

She was special to Mom. And to all of us.

She liked to make me re-plant my onion sets and lots of other things . . . over and over. 

She and Finn were buds sometimes . . .  other times, look out! Just like all siblings.

She did not like to be disturbed during her naps.

She loved her zinnias.

She was very photogenic.

She was tough. 

She loved Mom the best.

She did not like hot weather . . . and she could be a little dramatic. 

She liked to help Bernie read the paper.

Blustery Sunday

Blustery Sunday.

Leaves blowing.

Cat snoring.

Homemade soup.

Thermostat down.

Flannel sheets.

Phone rings

and rings

and rings.

Do not disturb.

Some day I will catch on to my family's ways. Mom was staying in bed a lot, complaining of a sore back. I kept asking her how it was doing, worrying, was she feeling better, blah blah blah. Sometimes I am painfully slow on the uptake. I finally say if your back is hurting for no reason we better make a doctor's appointment, then a sudden dawning . . . wait a minute! I ask Mom if she fell again. Confession time. Yes, it was in the kitchen. The floor was slippery. What the hell man!? I thought we agreed she wouldn't go off on her walker alone! She would wear gait belt! Apparently I was the only one in on the agreement. I ask Joe if he thinks it is a good idea not to tell me these things?! Joe: "Mom didn't want me to tell you." I ask again if he thinks it is a good idea. I'm pretty sure he is clear now that it is NOT a good idea to keep the secrets from Kathleen. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Mom and Joe have always had secrets so why do I expect things to change now? Anyway she is improving, albeit slowly.

Her birthday is coming up soon, she will be 81.

November is a nice month for days off. Two at Thanksgiving, we get election day off too, but I'm moonlighting working at the courthouse, and Veteran's Day. A not so fun part of a new job is going from 5 weeks vacation to 2 weeks. But lots of holidays help a lot.

Nothing too exciting going on around here. Took 3 days off, a Thursday Friday Monday, worked 2
around here on yardwork and housework, fall stuff, then ran to John's and on another blustery
Sunday the power was out for about 4 hours. What do you do in Streator, IL when the power goes
out? There was (rusty) ping pong and reading and how does John not have Scrabble or Cribbage!
And . . .

A super easy puzzle.

Watching this solar powered doohickey go round and round.

Chillax and try to beam yourself up. Sweet Hera. I was deeply disturbed to see a TV show titled
 "My Big Fat Pet Makeover"! She is just big boned. 

Do a super hard puzzle! A real beauty.

Play with the kitties. 

According to the power outage update recording 750 people in Streator were out of power (just the whiners prolly are included in that number.). Some of us just tough it out. Anyway I think all 750+ people were at Casey's buying beer and junk food. Maybe they weren't all gambling, not sure. John didn't want anything . . .

That's all folks. Happy Halloween. 

Kathleen 

September

I don't know where the summer went! Spent some time pulling out my garden stuff and some weeds along the fence line last night and am paying for it today. Ouch. I gotta get in shape . . . a different one! Missing my garden tomatoes already. And my zinnias.  Never did get any peppers.

Mom had a visit to the cardiologist today for a pacemaker check. Joe took her, and all is well. Apparently she had some sort of "incident" in April. Since I was not present at the appointment no one thought to ask what sort of incident.  What the hell?! I'm not going to start taking off work for routine appointments until it becomes necessary, hopefully a long ways off! We are so lucky Joe is able to take her to appointments and stay with her during the day. I would go bonkers being home so much but Joe seems content. Mom is able to stay by herself for short periods so he is able to get out and about. Mom was supposed to get some sort of box to plug into the phone line to monitor the pacemaker, but we never got it. The doctor's office is going to "check it out". They say she should have gotten it when she left the hospital. I'm pretty sure I would have noticed something like that. I'm going to call once a week for a while to follow up. Then it will be twice a week . . . well you get the picture. She has another appointment with the cardiologist in 6 months, just routine. The visiting nurse and the bath aide both finished up last week too.

Started today out at the dentist, getting a new crown. All done with the endodontist and my new insurance is good, thank God! Speaking of insurance it seems crazy it is coming up on 3 years since I lost my job and my insurance. I had routine tests at that time, before I lost it, anything the doc thought I should have, and arghhhhhhh I was to repeat some of those tests in 3 years! Wow did that go by quick! Darn it.

Had mom and Joe over to John's for a meal a couple of weeks ago. Mom did well, but she was awfully tired when she got home. I'd like her to get out more but she has other thoughts. Her appetite is good and she is in a fine mood. She has always been a homebody, and seems quite content.

I had a couple of fun outings over to John's for the Quarter Auction at his work, and to help out with the annual rummage sale. We are both so lucky to have fun, good humored co-workers. Lots of laughs when I go over to his place to help out.

I pulled into the parking lot one morning and my younger co-worker (I am the senior in our office lol arghhh how did that happen?!), was looking in her rear view mirror, putting on her make-up and fluffing up her hair, and I had to laugh. I look in the mirror before I leave the car not to put on make-up, but just wanting to make sure that I remembered to comb my hair! LOLOL

Nothing exciting to report, but no news is great news around these parts!

Kathleen

August

I'm not sure where the summer went! July went by in the blink of an eye.

Mallaney Reunion yesterday. A nice turnout, but we certainly missed some of the cousins and Uncle Geo. Mom and Uncle Lee were the oldsters yesterday. We had a great meal and a fine time was had by all. Mom's hearty appetite surprised me and was good to see. I gotta say, Mom was sleeping pretty heavily last night, the day wore her out! Good for her to get out into the fresh air and sunshine.

John has invited us over for the annual fish fry, so maybe another outing for mother next weekend.

I had my crown lengthened, regretfully it has nothing to do with being royal. No pain except for my pocketbook. Several more visits to the endodontist and then to my regular dentist. Good times people . . . good times! I must add that drills that don't make the drilling sound are awesome!

It was 40 years ago on the night of the reunion that I made my first ever slide, into home, and my spike got caught on an upturned corner of home plate and I shattered my ankle. I was in shock, but Mom told me (somewhat disapprovingly) that I screamed every curse word known to man very loudly. Oops. My first hospitalization (6 days!) and surgery and a screw in that ankle and I've limped ever since! LOL I was sweet 16 (but I knew all the swear words)  and had that big cast halfway up my thigh and I couldn't drive and it was soooo hot. ARGHHH  Then John found this cute kitten and brought it home, and it had fleas and well  . . . I don't want to think about that anymore! And whatever happened to that kitten . . .?  And then I walked into school on the first day with my crutches and hit the shiny waxed floor and my crutches did the splits and wow what a way to start the school year.  And I never slid again. Crazy I played competitively for 30 more years and never slid again, but somehow I managed! Oh the memories. Yeah, I was out by a mile. I know you were wondering.

A good tomato and zucchini season, but the bell pepper plants were a waste of money! They did not grow an inch. They did produce some wee peppers, but the plants were so short the wee peppers were on the ground. Bazillions of banana peppers though, on only 2 plants, so that helps.

Isn't it weird, how if you roll out of bed and want to get your grocery shopping out of the way, you do a quick wash, brush your teeth, slick your hair down with  a wet washrag, throw on the clothes you took off before bed, and off you go the store, and you see at least 6 people you know and you talk to them all and you are gone for an hour and a half.  Last week I took a shower and put on clean clothes and was in and out of Jewel and home in 15 minutes. Please tell me I'm not the only middle aged woman who does the wet washrag smush hair down thing . . . ?  On the weekends only of course! lol

Super busy at work with school starting. Days are flying by, and I like it. I know more than I did last year. At least about teaching licenses and stuff. As for the rest of life I am not sure.

Peace.

Kathleen A.

June Days

Thank you John for stopping at the cemetery in Seneca on the way home from your visit yesterday. John parks at the top and walks all the way down, no ditch hopping like Bernie! LOL  Kay parks across the street and climbs the stairs and scoots over. I put the flowers at the cemetery here in Morris for mom's side. No hills, no steps, just nice flat ground. In memory of Bernie I took a ride out there yesterday to see how they look. Bernie would heartily approve.

Mom is doing OK. She has a follow-up with the infectious disease doc this week. I'll be curious to see if she has another (or the same) UTI. She seems a bit weak to me and not overly peppy. She tells me she is just old and tired. LOL We will find out Tuesday.  She is in a good mood and there is nothing wrong with her appetite. She picks Sunday a.m. to start worrying about what days/times her appointments are, rifling through papers and purses and pockets looking for appointment cards and sighing. I suggested that we just phone the docs' offices in the a.m. and get her calendar in order without undue stress. Like John says, everyone needs some way to pass the time. It would just be nice if people could pass their time without annoying Kathleen. Which, sad to say, is easier said than done.

Anyway . . . John was home for a visit yesterday. We had a nice meal from Honest Abe's here in town, sandwiches--- burgers and fries and a garlicky pork poorboy for Kay. Picture Merichka's, but made with pork and a slice of provolone. Wow it is good. Chicken strip basket for Joe. Joe ALWAYS gets chicken wherever we go. Good eats.

As usual my garden looks great . . . from a distance. Don't get toooo close. LOL  Tomato plants are huge. Pepper plants are minuscule, not even high enough to hold the teeny tiny peppers off the ground. Very amusing. After changing my hummingbird feeder 5 times (ants!) last year before seeing a hummer, I delayed putting it out until yesterday. Zinnias are blooming so I hope the hummers come soon. Cheap entertainment. And no worries for the little birds now that Midge and Finn are 9. And sort of fat.

That's all I got. Happy Sunday!

Kay ☺

56

Happy Birthday to me!

I took today off work, Friday too. I love a long weekend.

Good old R-Place for birthday treats!

I had another day off last week, when I traveled over to John's to do some cat-sitting whilst John was off to his vegetarian, silent meditation retreat. I would be in trouble at a silent retreat. Just saying . . . out loud. Girls were glad to see me as they were out of food! They weren't desperate though, so they couldn't have been out for too long. Spent a couple of nights with them til their person got home. I made them some cozy sleeping spots too. I had some trouble with John's thermostat, so they may have been cold. I was fine, just fine.

Mom took another spill last week, but she did not break anything! Whew. I thought she was a bit overconfident with her walker of late, she was up and about and all over for no good reason. She was just coming from bedroom to living room, and boom. I mean we are here to wait on her! So she takes a spill while pushing her walker and carrying a diet pepsi. Good lord! And she only has one good arm anyway. Gives new meaning to diet pop isn't good for you. She is bruised and sore, but coming along. She called off her visiting physical therapist right after it happened (secretly), but I answered phone next time she called, so physical therapy could commence. I wish I had a picture of the glare mom shot me, amused the hell out of me lol.

Mom enjoyed a pleasant visit with Cousin Pat last week, thank you cousin!

Garden is a mess, but doing well. Can't wait to harvest some veg.

Back to work tomorrow. Summer is busiest time at my new job, days just fly by, which is awesome. Still enjoying my pleasant office and co-workers. Life is good.

Take care all. Do NOT fall.

Kay 🎂