mollymouser's Journal

I suspect fall is lurking around the corner.
Oct 03 2009 16:29

I think last week's 100 degree temps may be gone ... today was only 85.  Yay! And it is definitely cooling down at night. This time of year, I have the windows open ALL the time. I detest summer ... 4 months of hell. But I love Autumn.... so, yay! And I actually like winter, too. Of course, we see snow without really getting snow. For us, winters are grey and wet for the most part. GOT FOG?

I have an acorn squash on the counter. Now that it's fall, I want to make a point of eating more "traditional" fall veggies.  I seriously am in love with cabbage ... and acorn squash. (Hmmm... why can't avocado be a traditional fall vegetable?)  I plan to buy a decorative pumpkin in a few weeks ... but for eating, it really is so much simpler to just get canned. (Hint: be careful, don't buy pumpkin pie filling by mistake.)  By the way, pumpkin pie spice, artificial sweetener, and a dollop of light whipped cream (when all mixed with some canned pumpkin) ... is simply the bomb.

I wonder if I could create a frozen pumpkin treat using canned pumpkin, unsweetened vanilla almond breeze, some artificial sweetener, and a bunch of ice ... all mixed in the blender (and possibly refrozen?) Hmmm ... I may have to experiment one day when I'm up for cleaning gunk out of the blender.... why is it the tastiest things make the biggest messes?

By the way ... I'm still very active on Facebook and I lurk here all the time ... so if you're looking to connect on FB, let me know.

By the way ... shot this the other day.

IT MUST BE A PRANK
Jul 08 2009 21:00

I'm convinced that the Food Industry is pulling a HUGE prank on all of us.

Rice cakes are really STYROFOAM.

Seriously, they just add salt, smoosh 'em into cakes, cut 'em in a round shape.

It's marketing gone awry.

Don't believe me? Try some styrofoam and a rice cake ... no difference.

ATTACK OF THE 12 FOOT SUNFLOWER!
Jul 04 2009 17:32

Nestled in the southwest corner of our front yard, in the flower beds between the grass and our grapefruit tree, is a ginormous, 12-foot-tall, multi-headed mutant sunflower. I wish I could take credit for this impressive dsplay of flora, but it grew on its own from a black oil sunflower seed tossed aside by hungry birdies or foraging squirrels. When it was just 6 feet tall, we attached it to a metal stake for support, but with its recent heat-inspired growth spurt, we decided to anchor it more firmly to an adjacent tree using some natural twine. My wonderful DH was gracious enough to pose for some photos and to prop up Mr. Sunflower. Pretty cool, huh?

DH, by the way, is 5'9" tall and the sunflower TOWERS over him!

I HATE HOT WEATHER
Jun 29 2009 10:33

It was 106 on Saturday.

It was 108 on Sunday.

It's forecast for 108 today.

It's forecast to be 103 Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday-Friday.

I'M MELTING!!!!

I tried to spend a lot of time in the pool yesterday, slathered in sunscreen. Now I'm really sunburned, despite my efforts.  Any my "time of the month" started today like Niagara Falls. So I'm crampy, cranky, hot and bloated.

Ugh.

Anyway, how's everyone else?

STARTING OVER
Jun 16 2009 11:00

Well, this is a Good News - Bad News sort of post. The Good News? I went to the endocrinologist yesterday and got my lab results .... my diabetes is in the "well controlled" range (A1c 6.8) but my thyroid isn't functioning well ... so she's upped my thyroid meds which should help my metabolism.  I was pretty jazzed to see that I'm keeping my blood sugar levels "in the zone"  The bad news? My weight has really crept back up in the past 6 months and I really need to get back on the healthy eating bandwagon much more than I have been.

So I'm starting with breakfast. My hope/prayer is that if I can commit to eating well at breakfast, that will help me form some positive habits that will, with any luck, last into the afternoon.

Ugh. Starting over sucks.

5,000 CAT TOYS
Jun 10 2009 11:41

KITTY TREASURES -- UNCOVERED & DISCOVERED!!!

When I was a child, I had a fleeting desire to be an archaeologist and go excavating. Today I got my wish.

We've been busy little bees today, moving tables and chairs and cat condos and silk plants and lamps and our 6-ft tall giraffe statue so that we can get our carpets cleaned tomorrow morning. We've had the carpeting in the front half of the house for 2 years, and this is the first time we've had it professionally cleaned. In just 2 short years, it seems that our industrious cats have managed to hide about 5,000 cat toys under (or behind) furniture in every room in our house. And, in addition to cat toys, we've discovered a treasure trove of plastic bottle caps, bread twist-ties, pens and pen caps, strings, shoelaces, one dehydrated baby carrot, a half dozen earrings (so THAT's where they went!), several bracelets, toothpaste caps, dental floss picks, Q-tips, rocks (where did they get rocks?), dice, Trivial Pursuit pie wedges, two keys, one bra, two socks (not a matched set), several quarters, one old phone bill, a pair of sunglasses, and a mitten. The only reason we didn't find a bowling ball was because it wouldn't fit under the furniture!

I think my cats are kleptomaniacs.

PAINTED CEILINGS AND NAKED CATS
Jun 09 2009 19:27

We were sitting around the house this afternoon, trying to decide between a nap, and swimming in the pool. As we lay on our bed and pondered our options, we noticed the ceiling in our bedroom. On Saturday, we had the broken ceiling fan replaced with a newer one. The old fan was a flush-mounted (which sounds vaguely bathroom-related, but really isn't), and the new fan was drop-mounted. Anyway, because the old fan took up more space, the new fan left a semicircle of different-colored ceiling. So, we decided that we should probably use this quiet afternoon as an opportunity to do some touch-up painting on our master bedroom ceiling.

By "we", of course, I mean Ron. I don't do ladders, and no sane person would let me near a paint brush or paint for that matter. And though he got a bit paint spattered in the process, I really do think that he did a wonderful job on painting the ceiling.

As we admired Ron's handiwork, we turned our attention to yet another project.

It's summer, we agreed. It's hot, we commented. Gracie needs to be shaved! (Gracie is our 9-year-old black-and-white Maine Coon mix ... a very nice, but not terribly cooperative 22 pound long haired cat.) We had recently purchased -- but not yet used -- these really nifty purple clippers from PetSmart, and they were in the box, just crying out to be put to use.

In retrospect, shaving an incredibly fluffy long-haired BLACK cat in a room with a freshly-painted WHITE ceiliing was probably not our best choice. We seemed to have been so excited about the prospect of freeing Gracie from the summertime bondage of 5 pounds of black fur that we forgot the cardinal rule of pet shaving: FUR FLOATS.

And it floats UP.

This, of course, collided head-on with the cardinal rule of ceiling painting: WET PAINT IS STICKY.

(sigh)

Does anyone know how to get black fur off wet paint?

RANDOM TUESDAY PONDERINGS
May 19 2009 19:51

Random comments and thoughts on a Tuesday evening ....

1. I wish giant, scary bugs would stop bugging me. The latest flying creature was 4 inches long and my neighbor's husband graciously spent 15 minutes last night battling it in the garage as I shrieked. Then today there was a big scary black beetle in my swimming pool. (He is now an "ex-beetle.")

2. I ordered 2 pair of shorts online today, one pair in lime green and one pair in pink. I have lime green tennies and lime green Crocs, as well as pink tennies and pink Crocs. I shall match in my summertime bohemian-casual look, lol!

3. We've signed up for a 3-week summer foreign exchange student thing. If we pass all the tests and whatnot, we will be getting a 16-year-old boy named Pierre from France.... he'll be here July 13-August 1. The plan is to take two 3-day trips with him, one to San Francisco and one to Monterey/Carmel. (Both places cooler than Fresno in July, ick ick ick!)

4. I gave my cats catnip and now they are all zonked out, and hungover-sprawled all over the family room, lol.

5. My wonderful DH called today from Iraq and reported that last night, as he was taxi-ing his plane after landing and heading back to the hangar, he stopped on the runway to let a bunny family hop across. YAY! He's pretty observant and pretty sweet. We like bunnies.

6. I have no plans for Memorial Day Weekend.... and that rather bums me out. And I really don't want to have to call friends and say, "my husband is deployed and I'm alone for yet another holiday ... play with me! play with me! play with me!"

7. I love cats. I hate scooping cat boxes. 'Nuff said.

8. Can someone here please make my across-the-street neighbor STOP wandering around and doing chores in his (open) garage IN HIS UNDERWEAR!!?!? And, no, he is not wearing festive boxers.... he's wearing white briefs. And he wears them every morning to get his newspaper, and on Saturdays to check his curb-side mail box.