Curlers

Alison has very fine hair, more like her dad (and me) than her mother. And it gets a bit unruly and flyaway. So Jen usually puts it in a cute Kewpie doll ponytail at the top of her head. Yesterday she used foam rollers instead.



Alison sat in her Princess chair (which she loves) and held the bag of curlers while Jen rolled her hair.

Here she is all done. Jen didn't like it but the rest of us thought it was super cute. Also you can't really tell in the picture but Alison and I are both wearing pink.

Sunglasses

Yeah I'm getting a little video happy, but as I told Kent in this video, they are better than still photos!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are in Detroit with family, and I'm sure I will have pictures and videos of our granddaughter and the kitties here. Until I get those, here's a video from Monday for you. Guess brotherly love is not so loving after all.

Wally redeaux

I thought this would be about Chloe but I was wrong.

Cats and boxes yet again

Wally is such a weirdo.



More Wally plus a bit of Eddie.

Are they parrots?

Or cats? You decide.

Wally would do this

Kent found this link yesterday and sent it to me with the comment that he could completely see Wally doing this. I agree. What do you think?

A bored kitty is never a good thing

Yesterday Wally got into mischief while the other two kitties napped. First he attacked the Kleenex on Kent's nightstand--I heard the sound of paper tearing and found this:



Then he attacked my poor knitting project again. No pictures because I caught him before permanent damage was done. After tearing around the apartment for another 30 minutes or so, I think he got hot because then he settled down for a nap in our bedroom window. Even with a pillow in the window, it's not the warmest spot in the house because it's not sealed all that well. He doesn't seem to mind.

How Eddie gets in my lap

We worked hard to get this super short clip--Kent has tried at least four times to capture this with the camera but for a big kitty, Eddie moves fast. Usually by the time Kent has the camera turned on, Eddie has already gotten settled.

You see, Eddie has developed very specific requirements for how he prefers to be in my lap, and I think he did so because of how huge he is. He will grudgingly sit in my lap if I sit normally but what he really wants is for me to sit cross-legged in my chair. He'll eye my lap, rub his cheeks against my chair and my desk, come back to the right side of the chair (always the right side, never the left) and then do the jump, drop and roll move you see here. What the video doesn't show is how he pushes really hard with his paws against my tummy, which can sometimes be pretty uncomfortable against all the scar tissue I have from all those surgeries.

Bird watching

Our kitties love to hang out in one of the living room windows or else at the back door which is by my computer desk. They have a great view of the patio and that means they can also see the birds, squirrels and other cats who drop by for visits. Kent took this video this morning and it's pretty typical of how they get completely engrossed in watching whatever's dropped by. Today's visitor was a tiny bird on the upper level of the patio.

Neglected, overlooked or forgotten recipes

I'm sure I'm not the only one to do this. I'll find a recipe and go nuts over it for a few weeks, maybe a few months and then it will just fall out of rotation. Then I forget about it. Well I went through my recipe box the other day (quick aside, do people even use recipe boxes any more?) looking for something to make since I was bored by the usual suspects. I got a nice little trip down memory lane and rediscovered a couple of favorites.

For example, I have a recipe from my mother that's a chicken, rice and swiss cheese casserole. It's really fast to make since I tend to steam a big batch of rice every week or so and also tend to keep baked chicken on hand. All that's left then is shred the cheese, saute an onion and mushrooms, add a few herbs and a dash of sherry and bake it.

Another yummy favorite also from my mother, and one that works even for people who aren't curry fans is a curry-glazed chicken dish that uses a mild curry powder with honey and Dijon mustard. It's so tasty and quick to make.

I also found yet another recipe from her that's sort of a vegetable quiche, but made with Bisquick. Did you know Bisquick now has a low fat version? I altered that recipe quite a bit by substituting diced cooked chicken for the broccoli and also adding in sauted mushrooms and onions. It's like a chicken pot pie and it turned out really well.

Finally for those of you with Joy of Cooking on your bookshelves, I made the Almond Thumbprint Cookies (in my version, it's on page 836) and did a nutritional analysis of it on Calorie Count. The recipe makes 36 cookies and each cookie is just 59 calories. Now that's a guilt-free treat in my book.

Made me laugh

And it might make you laugh, too.

Enjoy!

Decisions, decisions

I’m coming up on almost a full year of unemployment, which is discouraging as well as boring beyond belief. For those of you who haven’t been in this situation, be very grateful. I know I didn’t appreciate how demoralizing it can be to apply for jobs for which I’m fully suited only to have my applications apparently fall into a black hole of oblivion. I’d almost rather have a negative response than no response at all.

To be honest, I haven’t seen lots of job openings. Generally when companies have to cut their budgets, training and development groups are the first to go so not only are new jobs not created, even the existing jobs tend to get cut. I’ve gone weeks with no suitable jobs coming up in my searches.

So I am looking into getting another graduate degree. When I earned my MS, I had originally planned to get an MA in counseling but learned about the degree I did get, which is in industrial/organizational psychology. I thought it would be a good degree to have because I could build on my 10 years of corporate experience, and also satisfy my strong desire to help people deal with stresses, just in a work environment.

The few projects I’ve been able to do in my field have been very satisfying, but alas the work has petered out—which is why I am rethinking the decision to not pursue counseling as a profession. I know the money won’t be great but as Kent has told me, job satisfaction counts for a lot.

In my heart of hearts, I’d prefer to get the PscychD which is a PhD in counseling (not clinical psych). I found one program but holy cow, I don’t know if I can swing the cost of three years of full time school (16 credit hours a semester) at $900 a credit hour. That’s about $30,000 a YEAR or almost $100,000 for that PhD. So I am also looking at the MAs in counseling.

If you are the praying kind, I’d take your prayers as I try to make a wise decision about how to best prepare for what I probably should have done three years ago. If you aren’t the praying kind but have advice for me, feel free to share your advice.

Eddie the cuddle bunny

He's very affectionate with me, and seeks out my lap about as soon as my butt hits the chair. Kent finally saw the new jump-drop-purr movement last night; Eddie does this special move only when I'm sitting cross-legged in my chair. He'll leap over the arm of the chair (no easy feat with a gut like his) and as soon as his paws touch my lap, he sort of curls to the right and lands on his side in as small of a ball as he can manage. He usually puts a paw over his face and goes into a deep, deep sleep. This picture is from the other day when he was being ultra snuggly:



And the brown ottoman is still prime napping real estate. Kent snapped this picture the other night: