Of Storms, Struggles and Clipping Hamster Toenails...

One week after the last storm day, the snow is falling fast and furious outside the window of my office. All of our family activities and one meeting I was supposed to attend tonight were canceled because of the storm that started around supper time and should last until tomorrow morning. We decided to get into our jammies early and play a game as a family since all of a sudden we had no where we had to be... but the other three people in the house are doing their storm dances in the hopes that school will be canceled tomorrow morning! I may actually be the only one going out of the house to work!

Tuesday is the day that I lead 2 Weight Watcher meetings, so in the morning, I will see how bad the storm was and determine if the morning session needs to be canceled. Since I can walk up there, I only cancel things if the roads are dangerous... so we shall see. I am sure that by the supper time meeting, everything will be plowed out.

I am waiting patiently for Apple Canada to send me a new install disk after the one I purchased from the store on Friday turned out to be a dud. My eMac will play all kinds of DVDs and has had no problems with other install disks, but this one just spins in place for about 3 minutes trying to read and then the computer spits it out. Once I can update to System 10.4, then I can start working with jAlbum to get the illustration side of my website revamped. I have kept myself busy in the meantime with mundane stuff like tabulating receipts for the accountant who needs to do my corporate taxes and tidying my office. I can actually see carpet and desk surface for the first time in many months. Another huge garbage bag of paper and older leaflets that I’ve now destroyed went out the door for the trash man to collect in the morning. Ah the joys of de-cluttering!!

My sister and I had a great chat today. Its funny how the distance between us geographically has no effect on how close we feel emotionally... other than I don’t get hugs from her as often as I’d like. We’ve both fallen in love with people who took us to places away from where we grew up and neither of us would change that for the world. She is a wonderful sounding board about stuff and a great friend as well as my sister. Today was just one of those days when I really appreciated having her in my life. Every time that Erin and Bethany get into a yelling match or go through a stage of being absolutely nasty to each other, I remind them that when they are older, that 4 years won’t be such a big deal and that they will be the only ones who can commiserate with each other about what a pain their Mother is!!!

This transitional time, early in the New Year, as I am still mapping out the next few months, setting goals, trying to get some new things started etc. is both exciting and frustrating. I meet on Thursday with another local author to see about helping him get a children’s book published. Unlike the last project, this author may choose to send things off to a publisher first, but I may still end up helping him publish it on his own if he can afford to invest in self-publishing. LIke many cross stitch designers who self-publish, you have to be able to look at what it will cost you to print the product and sell it yourself, even if the theory is that you keep more of the profits that way. You could also end up with lots of boxes of printed stuff that is paid for and isn’t selling! He’s still thinking about which route to go, but since the story involves a dinosaur, I am game to do some sketches.... dragons and dinos are not that far apart!!

It’s funny how we’ve been conditioned to want results or answers or solutions immediately. The storm tonight reminds me that we do not have control over everything in our lives. Spending 10 minutes trying to grip a tiny, wiggling ball of feisty fluff to clip Smudgy’s back toenails was also a good analogy for how difficult it can seem sometimes to get something accomplished. We had all 3 girls working to keep him calm. Bethany baited him with a large flake of American Special K cereal (MUCH better than the Canadian version!) while Erin held the squirming bundle in her hands and I reached out to try and immobilize a back paw to clip even a single toenail or two with the baby nail clippers. Smudgy doesn’t bite... but he does wiggle!! I think I managed to clip at least 4 nails... so that’s it for tonight.

If you’ve never watched the CAT HERDERS EDS Trilogy on YouTube... give yourself a laugh and go search for that title. It’s Monday... and you can never have too many laughs on a Monday!