Change for today:  I’m going to karaoke without my own disks!!  Yikes!  I am visiting my sisters in Michigan and usually remember to bring my karaoke disks with me because we almost always find time to go out to karaoke.  I forgot them this time.  I have been jonesing for karaoke and am going tonight.  A couple of my old high school classmates will be there so it will be like a mini-class reunion.

I’m still up so it’s still January 2 to me LOL

I’m in Michigan visiting my family.  I just finished helping my sister Deb get back into World of Warcraft.  I hope she keeps interested in it.

Tomorrow night we’re going to go out and do some karaoke.  I forgot to bring my disks with me.  I hope they have a good selection of music to choose from!

Changes

There are a few things I want to change this year.

• How much I weigh
• How much exercise I get

I’m setting one weight goal.  To weigh less at the end of the month than I weighed at the beginning of the month.  I did that in 2007 and from my highest weight in January to my lowest weight in December I had lost 22 pounds.

Exercise should be fun.  Mac has a Wii and he got me a Wii Fit for Christmas.  I did the Wii Fit fitness test and had a Wii Fit age of 29 (something must be wrong with it lol)  I got him Dance Dance Revolution 2 for Christmas.  Both are a lot of fun and a lot of exercise.  I’m going try to do one session on each at least once a week, though my goal will be to strive for 3 times a week.

As part of my wish to blog more this year, I’ve joined NaBloPoMo.  January’s theme is going to be “Change” and the object is to blog on a daily basis.

I will take between now and Jan 1 to think about my first Change post.

Last Saturday, Mac was out snow-blowing the driveway and noticed a couple of gray kittens romping around in the snow.  One of the times he came in to warm up, he saw them run through our back yard, climb the fence and jump on the neighbor’s fence.  He thought they had been abandoned.  I told him I thought they looked to healthy to have been abandoned.  That some insensitive ignorant clod owned them and had no idea how cold it was outside (the high was about 17 degrees fahrenheit).  I know some people think animals can withstand cold temperatures, but these were kittens, and I think it was too cold out for them.

We watched them on and off all afternoon until they finally ran out of our sight.

Sunday afternoon Mac was outside again and saw one of the kittens curled up and shivering under the neighbor’s bushes.  He got a box and got the kitten in it.  He brought the kitten in.  It was very cold.  There wasn’t a warm spot anywhere on his little body.  We thought maybe the sibling had succumbed to the elements and that this one was just hours away from death from hypothermia.  We took turns holding him and letting our own body heat warm him up.  He was friendly enough.  Didn’t scratch either of us or try to get away.  Very docile.

Ping, the cat we’ve had for 12 years, didn’t like it at all.  She growled deep in her throat and hissed a couple times before running and hiding under out bed.  She has come around a little since then, and now can be in the same room as the kitten, but every once in a while she still growls at the kitten.

The first night we put him in Mac’s bathroom.  He ended up having diarrhea all over the bathroom.  Mac was able to actually bathe him in the bathroom sink.  He just sat there for it.  We wrapped him in a fleece blanket and held him – let the fleece along with our body heat warm him up and dry him off.

Mac took him to the vet Tuesday – that’s when we found out for sure he was male.  Turns out he has several parasites – more than would typically be found on a domestic kitten.  For that reason, the vet thinks he was feral.

He’s doing well now.  He got his shots and is on some other meds to get rid of the parasites and in about 5-7 days we can let him out of his pet cage so he can have the run of the house.  I think by that time, Ping may be used to him being here (at least, I hope so!)

Here is a video Mac took of the kitten, who we decided to name Nico (for St. Nicholas, since it’s so close to Christmas.  Had it been a female, we would have named her Noelle)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0a-KxtngAA

I have always said I love this country.  Not just when things go my way (had I had my way, we’d have a libertarian white house).

I
love it so much that I will support our new president-elect even though
I didn’t vote for him.  I will not be moving to another country, like
so many did after the last election.  I don’t have the attitude “If I
don’t get my way, I’m going to take my stuff and leave.”

Those
who left the country 4 and 8 years ago should never be allowed back
in.  (I don’t think we’ll really be missing anything culturally by
letting Madonna stay over in England.)

I’m just afraid we’re
going to become the USSA.  If that starts to happen, I’ll stop living
so well and start investing money in funds that are protected from the
government.  If I decide to be a philanthropist, it will be MY decision and I will decide where my money will go.

Also, can we celebrate that Barak Obama won the
election and not reduce it to just being a “black man” who won the
election?  Barak may be half-African-American, but he won the election
on his own merit, not because he was black (though I would expect he
got nearly all the black vote.) I didn’t vote for Barak, but it wasn’t
because he was black.  It was because I don’t like our welfare system,
or government handouts. 

/start rant
I worked my ass off
for what I have and see no reason anyone else can’t do the same.  When
I was in my early 20s I worked as a bartender, earning enough money to
pay my rent and keep gas in my car, but not enough to eat.  I depended
on dates to restaurants, where I would order soup and toast sometimes
just so I could get crackers and jelly packets to take home so I would
have food at home.  I worked at another job where I walked to work
because I didn’t have the money for a car (fortunately it was only a
mile away) and only had enough money left order to order 2
cheeseburgers every other day from the local delivery place (and I had
to do it that way because they had minimim order amounts.)   Of course,
with all the walking and eating so little, I was really in the best
shape of my life (and had I only not smoked, I would have also said at
the healthiest of my life.)

I
learned that there are 23 different ways you can make a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich.  I got so sick of PB&J that I wouldn’t eat it
for 20 years after that. (Now it’s one of my favorite sandwiches – go
figure.)

I didn’t bother trying to get anything from the
government.  (Single white woman no kids – no chance.)  And because I
was under 24, I couldn’t even get a low-income grant for school because
my parents made too much money.

I did it on my own.  Every choice I made, good or bad, led me to where I am.  Being lazy did not.

/end of rant

Anyone who knows anything about my political beliefs knows I’m a libertarian, but if I had to choose between left wing liberalism and right wing conservatism, I lean more toward the right.  So today’s fun dialog:

Coworker: So, are you going to the big rally for Barak in Grant Park?
Me: I wouldn’t go if I got a personal invitation from Barak himself and he sent a limo to pick me up.
Coworker: Oh.  I guess you won’t be voting for Barak.

Such astute people I work with.

I taught myself to play the guitar about 25 years ago.  I read music, so I learned from a music book.  I got pretty good at it, and even learned to pick out a few tunes by ear (like House of the Rising Sun).  But when I left my first husband, I sold my guitar for $50 to my sister so I would have gas money to drive from Florida to Michigan.  I’ve always wished I had kept up with it. 

I told Mac that a few times.  So for my birthday LAST YEAR he got me a guitar.  I don’t know much about guitars, but Mac’s brother played in a blues band in Toledo during the 70s and 80s and still plays when he can.  I asked him about the quality of my guitar and he said the brand (Washburn) was a decent brand – low end professional.  I got several books and started trying to play again, but knew that unless I had lessons or something, I would end up letting it collect dust.

I did.

So this fall I signed up for a guitar class at the local community college (no college credit).  Turns out the class is all about strumming chords.  So we are learning chords and different strum patterns and not reading a note of music.  This is very strange to me, to play a D chord and not think about the notes that I have to make sure I’m playing to get the chord (D, F#, A) but instead, just make sure my fingers are in the right position.  Now I can see how some guitar players, even famous ones, can play without reading a note of music.

So at our last lesson, we learned a pretty cool “blues strum” so now I can play the blues – simple 12-bar blues using three chords.  But with that knowledge, I can play almost any blues tune.  Of course, I can only do it in the key of E.  But I actually had FUN practicing last night!  Woot! 

I also bought a new mixer, and an attachment for my guitar (it’s acoustic) so that I can plug into my mixer and record.  When I get good enough, maybe I’ll record something and link it here.

Having read Susu’s entry about her husband’s birthday, I’ve done a little reflecting myself.

When I was younger, I though being needed by someone was the way to go.  So I always ended up with men that needed me, for some reason.  They needed a boost to their self-esteem.  They needed someone who could help them in some way.  Or were just plain needy.  I think I was a “fixer”. 

For example: My first husband.

When we got together, I was the needy one.  I was struggling to pay my rent and he offered me a room in his mobile home for $25 a week.  That was about half of what I was paying for rent, so I thought it was a great deal. Then I found out how needy he was. After moving in with him, I learned he was terrible at paying his bills.  To him the due date was the shut off notice date.  He had filed bankruptsy after his first marriage ended.  His first wife was an alcoholic and his daughter, who lived with her, was so obviously neglected that I think I tried to overcompensate when she came to visit us. 

He never had a sense of family, and because I had a big one, I brought that with me.  He was amazed that we could get together with my parents and spend an evening playing pinochle, or that I had brothers and sisters that I would go to places like Busch Gardens with.  He had no real family.  He had one sister, 16 years younger than him.

When he asked me to marry him, I told him only if he would let me take over the paying of his bills, and that they all needed to be caught up before we got married.  He agreed, and then became dependent on me to keep us out of debt.  (Many many fights over money – mostly about how he had the right to spend as much as he wanted because he made the most – I had a part-time cocktail waitress salary.)

Eventually, that marriage ended because although I “needed” him financially, and he “needed” me emotionally, I didn’t WANT to be married to him, and I’m not sure what he wanted.

Current husband:
I don’t need him (that is – I could live on my own without him just fine, and live well.)  He doesn’t need me (same thing).  We stay together because we not only love each other, but we LIKE each other and WANT to be in each other’s company.  He is the love of my life.  We don’t even have to interact.  I like being in the same room with him.  He is probably the only person in the world I would risk my life for.

It’s so much better to be wanted than needed.

What would be the first thing you would do if you were trapped in a mall?

Buy shoes and a purse then look for the nearest Starbucks.  Duh.

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