Finally, I am back to blogging. The last several weeks have felt like I was barely keeping my head above water. There has been no lack of work at either of my jobs, and at the end of each day I felt exhausted, and frustrated that I didn’t accomplish more.
Getting out of town for two weeks was supposed to allow me to get caught up on my writing, but things didn’t work out the way I had envisioned them. I was in Oklahoma for 2 weeks taking training for my full time job. That was supposed to leave my evenings free to write, and put the finishing touches on my new website.
The first week started out well. I took the first evening (which was a Tuesday) to go by the health food store to get a few things to make my stay more like home. I bought mostly coffee and dark chocolate, but I made mental notes of other things that I wanted to get. I turned on my computer to check my email, but I was having problems getting connected, then pages didn’t want to load up. I just could not seem to stay connected; I eventually talked with the hotel’s tech support. They ended up resetting the router, which worked for a while.
Wednesday was productive, but I was still having major issues with my internet (another call to tech support). Thursday, however, was a different story. After class, I turned on my computer only to find that it would not boot up. The words on the blue screen told me that my computer needed to be recovered, and that I needed a system disk; which, of course, I did not have.
Friday, I drove home after class to spend time with my family. My daughter-in-law and husband were coming for the weekend; we were going to celebrate her birthday. We had a great time! Her wish for a cake was cheesecake, so after a wonderful lunch of Cajun food, we indulged further with cheesecake. The grocery store had a variety pack of 4 different flavors; it was tough to decide which to try.
The time with them went by too fast, but I appreciate them making the 5 hour drive to see us. By the time I left on Sunday afternoon, my computer had been completely restored. Essentially, the hard drive needed a fresh install of Windows 10. I was lucky that I was given the option to save my files; it would have been a great loss, otherwise.
Another week in Oklahoma consisted of me doing a little more shopping, and finally getting to do a little writing. I have to be in the right mood to write well, and I was struggling to get into that space. I was definitely missing home, so needless to say, I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked.
Now I am trying to get caught up on everything. Work at home, at work, and with my health coaching business piled up. Plus, I want to spend time with my husband, and my pets. The baby kitties missed me terribly, as did our dogs. Everybody wanted my attention.
You may know that when dad is left home alone with the kids, rules get bent—a lot! My husband’s alibi for the cats being on the furniture (and the bed once) was that he was just too busy to keep them in line. Bart is our little rule breaker, and he was taking full advantage of the situation. We were having problems keeping them off the couch anyway, but now they believed that they were privileged.
Bart and I had several go arounds about the rules and consequences. Since the kittens are accustomed to being outside while we are at work, and then spending a few hours inside with us in the evening, this is where I drew the line.
When Bart did not respond to, first being removed from the furniture, then getting swatted with a magazine while being removed from the furniture, the next consequence was being put outside while his brothers snoozed inside on their cat tower. It took just once for him to get the message. He was very needy after that, following me around and wanting to be held.
I realized that one of the problems was that the cat tower that I bought for them the day I brought them home was no longer big enough. These kitties are now 6 months old and are getting big. So off to Petsmart to buy them one that would hold them all.
I am proud to say that the money I spent on that cat tower was money well spent. Bart is still checking the rules to see if they still apply, but not very often. We are all much happier now.
Romans 15:13 I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
