All posts by Sarah G

Shower Power

Lately, Champ’s schedule has also included a romp in the wet tub after we take our showers in the morning. We don’t often catch her in action, but you can find a little trail of wet paw prints across the bathroom floor almost daily, and if you try to pet her when she walks by you in the hall in the mornings, you usually end up with a wet hand! Who knows why rolling around in a wet tub is so appealing.

If you’re interested, I’ve been crocheting away this weekend, and you can see some of my latest projects over on Flickr – specifically those last two in the bottom row.

Catshine

Check out this lazy bum, lounging in the warm afternoon sunshine that comes in through the living room window.

It always amazes me how impeccably well timed the cats internal clocks are. Champ has a knack for finding her way from her afternoon sleeping spot in the bedroom into the living room at almost the same time every evening. She also starts meowing and begging for her food at almost exactly 7:45 each night…we feed them at 8:00. In the early afternoon, both cats find their way from wherever they have settled in the morning (often in front of the bedroom windows – Champ in the left side window and Barley in the right side window) and into the living room to lounge together in this sunny spot that shows up just after noon. I’m pretty sure you can set a clock by them and be no more than 10 minutes off from one day to the next.

Snow Day

We got a whole lot of snow today! I don’t know how much, I haven’t really paid close attention to the reports and it didn’t really stop snowing until well into the evening. I was stir crazy, though, and so around nine o’clock I rugged up and went outside. I shoveled our stairs and sidewalk (our landlord has someone that comes and does this, but who knows when they were coming and I had energy to burn anyway), which worked up quite a sweat. And then I rewarded myself with a stroll to Coffee Break Cafe for a tasty hot chocolate!

If ever you want the scoop on what’s going on in the midst of a snow storm, head to the local coffee shop. I got the update (second hand) from the firemen that had been in earlier, and the policeman that came in while I was there. Luckily, he had just walked out the door when the power lines that cross the street fell, so he pulled out of the parking lot and blocked the road until someone could come clear those away. Also luckily, the guy whose car the power lines landed on had just five minutes before finished digging out his car – good thing he wasn’t still standing there!

Props to the MBTA, who was out in force keeping the T stop and the parking lot in great shape! I didn’t ride the T at all during the storm, but the reports I heard were that the service was running great and with few delays due to the weather. Pete said a zillion times in the morning that he was going to head into the office to get some work done because there was a lot to do, but he wimped out after walking only half way to the T stop (which equals a short block, for those of you not familiar with our neighborhood). Lazy bum! He sat inside and played video games all day. Meanwhile, I hopped in the Zipcar I had booked and headed to see a friend. I know. Crazy to be driving in a blizzard. On that note, was it officially a blizzard, or is everyone just calling it that? I don’t even know, but it honestly wasn’t horrible when I was out, which was the tail end of what was meant to be the worst of it. Anyway, I headed to see a friend and help out with shoveling, because sometimes people need a friend around, and I wasn’t going to let a snow storm stop me from being that friend. Plus, shoveling = alternative workout, and I missed the gym Tuesday (because of plans after work) and Wednesday (because I didn’t go to work)!

Props also to the plow crews that were out – the roads were in pretty great shape considering the amount of snow we got and how quickly it was coming down in the morning! I guess that’s what happens when you have thousands of plows on standby, waiting for the first flake to fall. 95 was in pretty good shape when I first headed out around noon, and it was in fantastic shape when I was heading home just after eight o’clock! I was pleasantly surprised, because I had geared myself up for a very slow, very stressful ride and while it was slower than usual, it was not nearly as stressful as I had anticipated. So thank you to all the plow drivers that were out in force for what I’m sure was a veeeeeery long day.

Oh…and here’s a glimpse of how Champ spent her snow day.

OH WAIT! That’s exactly how she spends every day. Lucky not-so-little thing. I’m sure that when I took this, Barley was in Pete’s lap doing his best to be as annoyingly in the way of the XBox controller as possible. :)

2 Comments

by Sarah G on January 13, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in Champ, Quincy

Posted by Sarah G on January 13, 2011

https://mymonotonouslife.com/2011/01/13/snow-day-2/

Are you ready…

Pete is! It’s all about the Packers in our house.

10 on Wednesday!

1. Meet my very cute new eight ounce travel mug! Do you know how hard it is to find an eight ounce travel mug that isn’t designed for a child? Too hard. I realize that I’m American and supposed to want everything to be BIGGER…but I don’t. These days I’m drinking a Starbucks short, and that means that I spent hours scouring the interweb to find an eight ounce travel mug that I would love. Lucky me, my awesome sister plucked this one off my wish list and gave to me as part of my belated birthday gift! Yay sister!

2. My awesome sister also gave me these cute measuring cups for my birthday. They’re so cute that haven’t put them away in the measuring cup and soup drawer, despite not having counter space for them to live on.

3. At work we save a lot of files with dates in the file name…we go through a lot of versions and update the data frequently, so it’s just easier to save the latest version with the most recent date and ensure that folks are looking at what is really the latest version. This week I have saved no fewer than 15 files with the date listed as 2010_01_xx instead of 2011. I also save all my photos with the date they were taken in the file name, and as I was editing today’s photo I realized that I had done the same thing with the photo I posted yesterday. I wonder how much longer it will take my brain to catch up to the new year.

4. Last night Pete and I did laundry after work. This is not normal for us, we usually do laundry on a Saturday or Sunday morning…but someone would not have had clean underwear to wear to work today if laundry didn’t get done, so off to the laundromat we went. It was awesome last night to put on clean, still warm from the dryer pajamas and climb into the bed made with clean, still warm sheets (and duvet cover)!

5. When I come across something in Google Reader that I don’t have time to read or watch, I star it to save for later. This happens pretty often with videos that people post or link, because if I read the post at work I usually can’t watch the video just then. I’ve been making an effort to go back through all my starred posts and catch up on these videos. Which brought me to this awesome music video for Americana by Hollerado. I’ve never heard of them before, but I like the song and think the video is totally fun. Also – shot in one take!

6. Pete is going down to New York this weekend to see an old friend (we miss you Mike! Move back to the East Coast already!), and I’m staying home alone so I can do some things I had hoped to get to over my vacation and didn’t. Because I’m not often home without Pete, when things like this happen I get excited and start thinking about all the things I will do while he is gone. The movies I’ll watch! And the food I’ll cook/eat! And the adventures I’ll go on! And then, without fail, I realize that he’s only going to be gone for a day and a half, and I realize that I won’t get half of it done.

7. This weekend I will, at the very least, watch The Girl Who Played With Fire and get meat pies from K&O for lunch. Oh, and I will pack away the few Christmas decorations I got out this year.

8. For the record, I got much further with today’s sudoku puzzle than I did with yesterday’s. I haven’t given up yet. I saved it thinking that perhaps tomorrow I’ll look at it, something will click, and I will finish it. I will not let Will Shortz defeat me!

9. We are supposed to get snow here on Friday and Saturday, and I’m excited for it. When you don’t own a car and don’t have to drive, snow storms are awesome! I was a little bit bummed to have missed the blizzard after Christmas (we barely got a dusting in Virginia), so hopefully there are still a few mid-sized winter storms to come. I will happily snuggle up with a kitty, a blanket, a mug of tea, and a good book Friday night and watch it snow!

10. Now that I’ve said that out loud, I’m sure we’ll get almost no snow at all, and there will be nothing for me to watch Friday night. Unless, of course, I borrow a page from my niece and nephew…tomorrow night don’t be surprised if I’m wearing my pajamas backwards and flushing ice cubes down the toilet.

2 Comments

by Sarah G on January 6, 2011 • Permalink

Posted in 10 on Tuesday, food, work

Posted by Sarah G on January 6, 2011

https://mymonotonouslife.com/2011/01/06/10-on-wednesday-2/