Time to let me know if you want a holiday postcard! (And yes, of course I’m happy to send cards to other countries!) Send your name and mailing address to hollydays@gmail.com .
I’ll take names and addresses until December 20th.
If you’d like to send me a card as well (never ever required, but always appreciated – I don’t keep track of who does and doesn’t send a card, I promise!), send it to: Robyn Anderson, PO Box 461, Athens, AL 35612 USA.
“Halp!”
©Forgotten Felines
“I need a name!”
Forgotten Felines is having a raffle to name this sweet boy – $5 buys you one chance, and you can buy as many chances as you’d like. Go here to read about him, and enter the raffle to name him!
So, recently I went back on the hormone replacement therapy estrogen patch. I was intending to go back on it at the beginning of the year, after my gynecologist strongly recommended that I do so. But I was having surgery in February (cue 103 of you searching frantically on “surgery” and “surgery February” and “what surgery?”), so my primary care doctor told me I ought to wait until afterward, because blah blah something about blood clotting or not clotting or bleeding or I don’t know. Something about blood. Come on, it was PRACTICALLY a year ago, I’m supposed to remember the specifics?
I waited until after surgery, and then I was about to go back on the estrogen (with a progesterone cream chaser) for real, but then I knew I’d be having surgery in October (cue the “October surgery” and “surgery” and “what surgery?” searches), so I waited some more.
FINALLY, when I got back from Pennsylvania a week and a half (ish) ago, I restarted the patch and the cream and it’s been fine.
Except, of course, for the hormonal swings as my body tries to figure out what the fucking fuck is going the fuck on. I swear to god, I feel like I’m 13 years old again, with the mood swings. One minute I’m all “HIIIIIIIIIII I AM HAPPY!” and the next it’s like “OH MY GOD THIS COMPUTER IS SO SLOW WHY DO I BOTHER TO LIIIIIIIIIVE?” Last night, I woke up a little after midnight with what I’m pretty sure was a HOT FLASH. Okay, maybe a mini hot flash. But why am I having goddamn hot flashes, mini or no, when I never had them BEFORE I restarted the damn estrogen/ progesterone?
The other night I was watching this video (of rescued Beagle puppies who’d always lived in a lab and were being rescued), and I was fighting back the tears so hard that if Fred had come in and asked me anything at all, I would have dissolved into an instant puddle on the floor.
I know it’ll take a few weeks (months) for my body to figure this shit out, but in the meantime AIN’T WE GOT FUN.
When I was in Pennsylvania, someone asked in Nance’s comments (to this post) which Real Housewife we’re each most similar to. First we were horrified at the idea that we might be like ANY of those crazy bitches. Nance finally decided that she’s probably most like either LuAnn (NY) or Kim Zolciak (ATL).
I still don’t know that I am anything like any of those women, but I’ll admit that I’m worried that I’m probably most like Cynthia from Atlanta because she’s wishy-washy and spineless and boring (but beautiful!) and her blowhard husband irritates the shit out of me and I don’t WANNA be like HER, even though she’s super nice and everything. I’d like to think I’m most like Adrien (BH) sans all the Botox and lip injections, because she seems the most level-headed and seems to pretty much stay out of the drama, but she bickers with her husband way more than I bicker with Fred.
I like Bethenny, but I’m not anything like her because while I find her hilarious, she’s way too high-strung. She’s probably my favorite of the Housewives. I like Kim Richards from BH because she’s just so ODD, but she’s neurotic and I find her taste in men HIGHLY questionable.
Anyway. Um. So there ya go. Maybe I’m like Adrien, but I’m afraid I’m like Cynthia (please, god, noooooooooo).
Sunday night dinner: chicken, sauteed chinese cabbage and onions, and Paula Deen’s Cheddar-Yeast rolls.
The chicken was a Crooked Acres chicken, of course, one that’s been sitting in the freezer for almost a year. I rubbed some spices on it, cooked it all day in the crockpot with a little stock, and it was so very good. We have a Ronco rotisserie which we occasionally use to roast chickens, but they’re such a pain to clean, given that the fat from the skin splatters everywhere, that I prefer the crockpot.
We ate our first head of chinese cabbage – I’ve had one head bolt, and a second was starting to, so I pulled it up. I’ve read that when they bolt they get bitter, and I’ve never actually (to my knowledge) had chinese cabbage before, so I didn’t know what to expect. It didn’t taste like cabbage to me; it tasted more like collard greens. It was definitely good, and I think next Spring I’ll actually plant a row of it in the big garden.
About the rolls, the only smoked cheddar I could find at the store cost almost $8 for a small block, and I knew I had sharp cheddar in the freezer at home, so I used that instead. The rolls were good, but I’m not sure I’ll make them again – not because they were hard to make (they weren’t), but they lacked… something. Fred said maybe just more salt, but I don’t know. I did like the clover look (I love it when rolls pull apart easily like that), but I wasn’t super crazy about the flavor.
Do you have a favorite roll recipe? Do share!
Side note: I cut the roll recipe in half (there are two of us and we don’t each that much bread; 18 rolls would sit on the counter ’til they got all moldy), and still ended up with a dozen (which means we’ll probably end up with moldy rolls on the counter. Unless I freeze them. But I think I didn’t like them enough to save them for another time).
The many faces of Chuckles (AKA Charlie Peppers).
Do you remember back when we had a turned-on-its-side trash can in the back yard under the trees? Sure you do, Sugarbutt loved to hang out in it all the time.
Well, the trash can developed a hole in the end from being tossed around when it was windy, and so we tossed it and for a while there was nothing under the trees for the cats to hang out in. Then we got a small dog house and put it on the patio, and this past weekend I had Fred move it so that it was under the trees where the trash can used to sit.
It was, to say the least, a hit.
Sugarbutt on top, with Corbie sitting on the stump behind him, trying to figure out what’s going on.
Corbie in the house!
Alice on top, while Jake and Elwood supervise (I shot this out the window while sitting at my desk, thus the cloudiness. Someone oughta clean that window.)
Jake’s wondering how Alice got up there.
These last few days it’s been raining almost constantly, and last night at snack time I went out to call the cats in, and the little house was like a clown car, cats pouring out of it. Sugarbutt, Tommy, Elwood AND Jake had all stuffed themselves in the house somehow. I need to put a towel or bed in there so that they don’t have to shiver on the bare wooden floor, the poor dears.
Previously
2010: *That’s a lie. I love to be a stickler for details. I THRIVE in the stickler-detailed environment. My tagline should be “Detail-sticklering since 1968.”
2009: No entry.
2008: No entry.
2007: Why can’t I just buy bubble clothing that only touches me at the neck and knees? WHY?
2006: On my way to somewhere important, I’m sure.
2005: Perhaps I’ll make it my New Year’s Resolution to not fill my house with crap in 2006.
2004: Ever had one of those days when you just can’t remember the name of anything?
2003: No entry.
2002: I keep wanting to use the phrase “Sweet crappin’ Jesus!”, and just haven’t determined the right moment to do so. Maybe in the middle of sex?
2001: Her name is Brady James.
2000: If I knew whodunnit, I’d beat that $300 right out of his ass, the little bastard.
1999: They all tend to sound alike, you see, and hearing basically the same sound over and over ain’t the thrill at 31 that it is at 11.
I has a question…how do you select your quotes for previous entries? Randomly? The one line that makes you guffaw? Because on some days, taken together as a paragraph, they’re hilarious, almost as if you planned it that way.
I can’t believe you abuse those cats by MAKING them GO OUTSIDE IN THE RAIN. ASPCA, anyone?
That kitty that needs a name- every time I see him, I think the same thing… his facial markings look like the opposite of Tubby! It’s like a photograph negative! So I think they should name him Ybbut (pronounced either “EE-boot” OR “Ya, but…”).
I laughed hard at your description of the mood swings. I don’t get like that every month, but apparently this is one of them. Sunday: “I burned the grilled cheese? Man, this life crap is just TOO HARD!” Yesterday got slowly better until I was actually in a good mood. Then while making dinner, I saw a commercial for the movie version of “War Horse” and I literally burst into tears. “The hor-hor-hor-horse! He (sob) loves his-his-(sob)-his horse so muuuuuuuuch (sob)!” Luckily there were no witnesses.
AW, that Charlie Peppers is just the sweetest!!!!
Hate to tell you, but this sounds like Menopausal symptoms.(or peri-menopause)
Maybe hormones should be adjusted.
Forgot to say YOU HAVE A CAT HOUSE IN YOUR BACK YARD?????
Really it is so cute, and abviously just the answer!!
I’ll go with the peri-menopause too. From the time I hit 40 till my periods stopped at age 48 (early I know, but true)…I was an emotional wreck. I had no surgery of course, but my mood swings were horrible. Soon as I had my last period, the hot flashes started with a vengeance…and though I was prescribed hormones, and took them a month or so, I was too afraid of the side effects. At any rate, I’ll turn 60 Saturday, and glad to say from 55 on, my mood is mostly calm and only a rare hot flash now and then.
Try and capture them on film piling out of their ‘clown car’! That image in my head has kept me smilin’ all morning! And those pics of Chuckles would look amazing in one of those collage frames-he’s givin Corbie a run for his money in the looks department!
Okay, I just watched the Beagle rescue video and BAWLED MY EYES OUT. Like, hiccoughing, snotty bawling. I miss my Gypsy dog (my Beagle who crossed the Rainbow Bridge earlier this year)! I’m going to talk to my husband about a Beagle rescue! So, thanks for posting even though I’m a freakin’ MESS now.
I was just going to say that Robyn has a heart of stone if she didn’t bawl her eyes out watching that, jeez.
PMS is in full swing, and yet…
*strapping on helmet*
*buckling flak jacket*
*tightening laces on boots*
*making that badass rifle-cocking sound*
*steely-eyed look around, locking gazes with fellow commentors one by one*
*setting jaw*
I’m goin’ in.
Charlie Peppers has the most amazing eye color!
Just wondering how you are liking or disliking the Kindle Fire? My hubby got me one for Christmas and I’m liking it enough to keep it. How are you doing with yours?
Joy, I’ll save this for Friday’s post!
I can safetly say that I love my Kindle Fire
Been thinking about this all day.
“her blowhard husband irritates the shit out of me”
How do you handle people like this in real life (which includes the internet, but not reality TV)? If I were to make a list of “Favorite People Ever,” about half of them would have a spouse who’d go on the “Fuck Off And Die Now” list. It doesn’t seem like it’d be very productive to ever say, “I adore you, but please don’t ever mention your husband in my presence because just the thought of him sours my day,” but (with two people in particular, one f2f friend and one internet friend) I’m finding myself spending less time with them, because they either talk incessantly about the spouse or invite him along to whatever we’re doing.
I’ve tried looking for and focusing on the good qualities in the obnoxious spouse and reminding myself that I’m no prize either, but increasingly I think the only option is to limit the time I spend with the Wonderful People, and that makes me sad. Which I suppose is the only reason for this comment; I don’t expect anyone to have any actual tips other than the obvious (limit time together, change the subject, get over your dumb self) but sharing always helps.
Y’know, that’s a good question and I don’t have any good suggestions. Fred and I really almost never do anything with other couples due to his reluctance to do anything social, so most of my interactions with real-world (married/ coupled) friends is with just one of them. I even have a couple of friends whose husbands I’ve never met, though they mention them from time to time.
The two instances where I’ve had friends with spouses who I absolutely hated, both couples lived nowhere near me so I only saw them once a year or so. And at this point, both couples are divorced, so I don’t have to deal with the irritating spouses at all YAY FOR ME.
I recommend developing the skill where you tune out the talk about the obnoxious spouse, think about something else entirely, and still nod and “uh huh” like you’re really listening. Valuable life skill, that.