KattyWilly

The cats keep playing with my nuts.

At Christmas time we always have this wooden bowl filled with assorted nuts in the shell, walnuts, almonds, pecans, hazelnuts, and Brazil nuts.  Every morning, as I do that one last picking up of stuff off the floor before I head out for work, I notice what looks like a cat turd or hair ball on the floor.  I assume it’s a cat turd or hair ball because I’m usually already late leaving and I will have to clean it up and be even more late.  But lately it’s been one of my nuts.  Usually its a Brazil nut, or sometimes two.  Maybe both cats take one out to play with.  I’m always happy that it’s not a turd and just a nut 🙂

Talking About Simple Stuff hmm…  This sounds familiar 🙂  I know I’ve talked about this before but can’t seem to find it right now to put up a link.

I think that an easy way for me to feel confident about my vote being counted correctly now that they are using a touch screen system without a paper audit trail is to use an absentee ballot.  No touch screen involved, just plain old paper.

I read this item on the Widownet boards and was filled with excitement and awe for the author.   I also like the description in her signature that says “Involuntarily Unspoused”.

I think that many Widow/ers have such a confused sense of self.  I know I do.  I lived the first half of my life as a child,  young adult and then an adult, and the second half of my life was spent as part of a couple.  A coupling of two people that spend all their available time together and experience life as a shared experience.  Now we who have lost our spouses have to try and figure out how to experience life as a single person.  It takes a long time to adjust to this.  I’ve talked in the past about how hard it is to come home each night and have no one to yell out “honey, I’m home” to.  No one to recap the days events with.  You the readers of my weblog are the closest I have to that, and I guess that is one of the things I use this page for.  The place I can say “hey, there readers, I’m home and guess what happened today.”

Part of the process for learning to be a singular identity seems to inspire us to go back to the time when we were last a single person.  I think that is part of the reason I spend as much time with the camera as I sometimes do.  Before I met Cindy, photography was the way I expressed myself and the thing I did for sheer en “joy” ment.  I could sense the joy in the author’s experience of doing something that she loved before she lost her love.

It is hard to lose your love.  When you lose the one you loved more than anything else in this world you have a feeling of having lost all love.  I can see how going back to something that has been gone for so long, but is possible to bring back, can return that sense of love.

Tonight we ate a pomegranite.  The girls really like them, me too.  We had a busy day, I tried to get the house cleaned up a little.   I spent most of the day in the garage.  I have bags and bags and boxes of the toys and “stuff” that Chelsey doesn’t have room for or is too attached to get rid of just yet.  We raked a few leaves, 4 bags I think it was.  Plus we finally put some lights outside on the house. 

I made some fresh white chili with Chicken and beans for dinner.  It was pretty good with a little crusty french bread on the side.  Chelsey made her favorite Cream of Potato soup.  After dinner we went over to the Fritzee Freeze to get some ice cream for dessert.  Chelsey and I listened to the Ice Cream truck drive through the neighborhoods all around us but he never made it to our street.  So we decided to go get our own ice cream.  After the ice cream we drove through some of the local neighborhoods that put on some of the bigger holiday light displays, and did a little shopping before we came back home.

Click the pictures for bigger images.

I keep trying to describe to people the strange needs that I have now.  One of the terms that I can never seem to remember is skin hunger“.  My friends on Widownet use it and there is a recent thread that makes mention of it.  I would give Cindy a big long hug every morning after my shower as she was on her way to her shower.  Some mornings I didn’t want that hug to ever end.

Halley wants to know if girls are as messy as boys.  I would say definately YES!  I was trying to come up with a description for what it appears like to me.  The closest thing I could come up with is some sort of alien being that poops toys and “stuff” every time it stops moving for a minute or more.  It doesn’t seem to matter how much stuff is already on the floor it just keeps pooping out more.  If the floor does get completely covered the thing will search out fresh floor space in other rooms.  I have noticed that proximity to the television seems to increase the quantity of pooped toys.  I think it has something to do with the radiation coming from the screen, or an adverse reaction to the animated images on the screen.

Today I received a cheese care package from the coldestplace on the planet, Duluth MN.  Thanks friend, I’m in cheese heaven.  Oh, and there was a little horseradish goodness too.  I can’t wait to try it all.

Tonight it was designated chaperone duty for me again.  I went to the world famous Neptune Lounge and Cyclery with Lindsey and a couple of her friends to see Doozer.  The band was really good and it allows me to get out of the house for the evening. 

When I see photographs like these it makes me want to stop taking pictures.  These are just so amazing.