Checking items off the list...

really makes me happy!  Aggie wasn't sure what was going on this past Saturday, but after her morning crunch, she stayed out of the way while my friend, Richard, helped me with some long-awaited home improvement projects.

Our walls are a boring, lifeless taupe - painted with not-so-great flat paint.  I can live with it since I've added color to the place with all of my stuff, but the living room wall was calling out for something more.

So now we have a lovely green accent wall.  Richard is taking a phone break between coats, talking with his Army son, Todd, who has just returned safely from Afghanistan - a real answer to many prayers.

While the first coat dried thoroughly, Richard took on another project of adding a second shelf to my laundry closet.  This is the before photo - the shelf I ordered was too long and he took it to Home Depot to be cut to size while he was out to run a couple of personal errands.

Richard mounted the second shelf underneath the existing shelf - it was so snug we ended up not needing the center bracket.  I have been so looking forward to corralling the laundry area mess!

As soon as the second coat of paint was dry, I helped Richard rehang my artwork and I vacuumed behind the furniture - it's only been nearly two years!  Then he moved the furniture right back where it was - doesn't the new color look great?

I spent some time yesterday tidying up the laundry closet and filling the baskets on my new shelf.  What's in them?  Clothes!  When I got rid of the bedroom nightstands with drawers, I lost my everyday, around-the-house clothes drawers - so this was the perfect solution.  Wash, dry, fold, store - and wear!  I'm happy to say the laundry is completely caught up - for once - and I even washed my tennis shoes.  Now all I need to do is rummage around the house for an empty basket for my socks...

Of course, Aggie is completely exhausted from all of the commotion and has been lazing about on the sofa all day yesterday and today.  We should all be so lucky.

Peter still doesn't know what all the fuss is about, having slept through all the excitement under the bed.  All he needs to know is that when Mom is happy, everybody is happy!

I have always suspected...

that crying did actually relieve stress - but it is apparently a verifiable, scientific fact.  And I could use a good cry right about now.  Seriously.  I don't know when I have felt so overwhelmed and so ill-equipped to deal with everything.  I am frantically trying to catch up on all of the work I let slide during tax season, my house is a disaster area and I am emotionally drained listening to people who seem to feel comfortable revealing their deepest, darkest secrets to me.  I tell you - that therapy chair has got to go.  People feel better when they leave here - having dumped all of their troubles on me, but consequently I feel like crap.  I honestly don't know how mental health counselors and psychotherapists do their jobs - or if they burn out after a few years of listening to other people's problems.  Maybe they just cry a lot.  Or change the subject.  I'm not looking to open a psychotherapy practice and unfortunately, I don't know a nice way to tell people that I don't want to hear their tales of woe.  Really - is there a nice way?  I have suggested professional counseling to the person who is currently spending a considerable amount of time in the chair, but that suggestion has not been acted upon as of yet.  I know that the main goal of therapy is to help the client work out his own issues, but I can't sit here and do the nod and repeat-the-client's-thought-in-different-words thing.  Sorry, Dr. Rogers.  I can listen sympathetically up to a point and then I end up doling out good, sound Lucy VanPelt-style advice.  And dang it, if you sit in my therapy chair and ask for my opinion on your situation and advice on how to deal with it, then you dang well ought to take said advice seriously - or at least give it some consideration.  And therein lies the problem; the tale of woe continues and the what-should-I-do question is reworded - hoping for the answer the occupant of the chair wants to hear - but I'm wise to that ploy.  I am not going to listen to the whole megillah only to give someone permission to continue the same destructive behavior.  And so I repeat the same advice: do the right thing, sh-t or get off the pot, as my grandmother would say.  Of course, no one is really going to listen to me - people just want to put in the chair time so they feel better.
As for me, I think I'll just have a good cry.

Upgrade time...

This is my old faithful Canon digital camera.  It has 8 mega pixels and takes pretty good photographs.  It's also the last birthday gift my soon-to-be ex-husband gave me and I realized that I thought about him nearly every time I used it.  Silly, I know, but there you have it.  And since he's apparently decided that it's time for an upgrade, I thought an upgrade was in order, too.

Meet my new friend: Canon PowerShot SX130.  He has 12 mega pixels and a 12x zoom lens.  I resisted the temptation to go with the popular Canon Rebel because I don't really have the need for a DSLR camera.  The point and shoot with automatic settings is just perfect for me and my little blogs.  And for photos of Aggie, Peter and our cozy nest.  The best part was a really reasonable price since the newer model is about to be released - more mega pixels, I guess.  You really can tell a difference in the image quality; the top photo was taken with the new camera and the bottom photo with the old one (obviously!).  I haven't had a lot of time to do much experimenting, but soon.  If Aggie and Pete would only sit still!

It really has been a while...

since I posted!  This new Blogger set-up is a little unfamiliar, but I am sure I will figure it out.  Tax season and that horrific allergy episode I had didn't kill me, so I guess I've come out stronger on the other side.  I have also discovered the brew-over-ice cups for my Keurig - wonderful!  Fresh tea in every glass - I am in heaven.  I am also thrilled with the ability to have just one cup of coffee - flavored or otherwise - and not throw away the other seven or eight cups.  Lord, I am thankful every day for caffeine...

It's time to turn off my left brain...

for a little while and do something creative, I think.  Every January, after having looked eagerly forward to it for a month or so, tax season begins and I put the left side of my brain to work full time.  For the six months prior to the beginning of the mad rush, I've enjoyed a contented balance between concrete and abstract thinking.  I do my work, but I also write, create cards, read, sew and take on little nesting projects.  You know, like rearranging stuff and cleaning the bathroom.  I have been moving pretty slowly the last couple of weeks - mainly from the horrific allergy and laryngitis episode which couldn't have come at a worse time - and I realized today that part of my lethargy is due to not taking a little time to indulge my creative side.  Maybe indulge is the wrong word; nurture is more like it.  So this morning, stacking the client tax files ever higher in the middle of my desk, I took an hour or so to putz around the house and do some freshening up.  I dusted the kitchen counter and rearranged the potted plants and some canisters.  I sorted through a couple of boxes of gift wrap supplies and consolidated them into one flat yellow box on my art desk that's easier to get to.  I put a load of laundry in the washer and put a care package together for a friend.  I worked on a word processing project for a friend having some difficulty with Microsoft Word and some pesky 3x5 index cards for a recipe book he's putting together.  All in all, not terribly creative things, but the mundane sort of tasks that require just a little creativity.  The kinds of things that soothe my soul - and that is just what I needed.  Now I can get back to work...

Small victory lap...

Can you tell that I just had to get out of the house today?  Even if it was just to go to the bank and take away the trash.  Almost another month of tax season to go and I am about stir-crazy!  While I was out, Ray and I did a small victory lap around the neighborhood - we are celebrating that he is finally paid for!  Woo hoo!  I thanked him for all of his good service over the past two years and promised to fill him with gas the next time we're out and treat him to a car wash.  Sometimes the small victories in life are the sweetest!

Truth in advertising...

Chicken McBites iz way better than Chicken McNuggitz.

Jes sayin'...

Time lapse tulips...

I enjoyed them for about two weeks!

Now is the time...

for all individuals of a feline nature to join together against our common enemies, both foreign and domestic.  While my person sleeps, I study the ways of the Humans.  I have mastered self-portraiture with a digital camera and I am poised for blog domination.  Comrades - tune in to this frequency where I will relay further instructions from our Leader.  Until then, I remain, sincerely yours...

Have you ever just needed to turn your brain off...

for a few minutes?  Well, it's not that I think that knitters are a mindless bunch - on the contrary, I think knitters are very creative.  Although I am not a knitter by any means, I do, however, very much enjoy the mindless calm of knitting.  I haven't done any knitting in years - but the other day I bought a couple of skeins of yarn and decided to just do some simple knitting throughout the day, especially when I am in need of a short break.  I've never made anything complicated, as you can see by the simple whatever-it-is I'm working on, but I was amazed how quickly the rhythm of the needles and yarn came back to me.  As you might imagine, I don't expect to make anything particularly grand - but it's very soothing to just stop thinking for a few minutes and knit a couple of rows.  Especially when I've just spent an hour or so trying to explain the correlation between the amount of income earned and the amount of income tax due on that income - to people who have absolutely no clue what I am trying to tell them.

And it beats poking one of them in the eye with a knitting needle...

Fresh, hot...

homemade cinnamon rolls...

Not bad for a Sunday project.  I'm just saying...

The paper avalanche...

has begun!  My gang of disorganized, self-employed male clients has begun to drop off their annual bags of crap.  I have fervently hoped, in vain it would appear, that their organizational skills would improve over time, especially when I return their bags of crap all neatly organized into labeled envelopes and file folders.  But alas, that has not happened.  And, if it did, what would they need me for?  So I plan to spend my weekend, sorting through said bags and trying to make sense of their scribbled notes, wadded up receipts and piles of invoices.  At least they're arriving earlier this year...

Caramel nips...

are just about my favorite kind of hard candy, I think.  I don't buy them very often - but I decided to make them the tax season client treat this year.  I used to tie thank-you tags onto Hershey bars with raffia, but I found out that a lot of my clients are diabetic and it got sort of expensive anyway.  Then I switched to chewy granola bars, which were a hit, but pretty messy if kids elected to eat them while still at the office.  Last year I did LifeSavers, and I still have those in the jar, but this cute little basket was begging to stay out on the desk, so I filled it with Caramel Nips and they have been well-received so far.  I am planning to make some cupcakes in time for Valentine's Day - but when they're gone, they're gone.

Unless I get the urge to bake around St. Patrick's Day...

I know I've said this before, but...

where in the world does dust come from and why can't we get rid of it permanently?  I know I can't be the only person on the planet who is tired of dusting.  I always put one of those super-efficient (allegedly) filters on my air conditioner, I have a space-age vacuum with a HEPA filter - but the house continues to be dusty every single day.  I realize that I'd have less dust if I had wood floors instead of carpet, but still...  Aggie doesn't shed and Peter doesn't shed much for a cat, so I know they're not the cause of all the dust on the flat surfaces.  I am pretty sure if I could figure out where it comes from and how to stop it, I could make a bazillion bucks.  I wonder if I could get a federal grant to study dust, its origin, its composition and its effect on the average American household...

Sometimes you find the coolest stuff...

in the most unlikely places.  While Anthropologie is all the rage, I just can't see paying their prices for things.  I mean, $128 for a shirt?  Are they nuts?  I'm sorry, regular people just don't pay that much for one item of clothing.  An entire outfit, maybe.  But then it would have to be something I was planning to wear to, oh, I don't know, the Inaugural Ball or something.  Or when George Clooney asks me to be his date for the Oscars.  I might even spend more than that for George.  But I digress...  I clicked the Kitchen button - you can really tell where my heart lies, can't you?  And there, along with those adorable ceramic egg crates I am using to organize my jewelry, I found these completely charming ceramic farmer's market baskets.  Well, I could not resist, because in addition to their abject sweetness, they were very reasonably priced.  The white one came to live with me first - and it's perfect for a pretty bunch of fake cherries.  I love it!

And well, the blue one was so pretty and his shade went so perfectly with the basket liners on my desk - I gave in asked him to come and live here too.  I didn't want him to be lonely on his trip, so his little coral friend came along for the ride.  Mr. Blue is staying on the desk to hold treats for my clients, but I haven't found a spot for Miss Coral yet.  Any suggestions?