Catch The Cat

I have a morning routine (no surprise there) each day.

I use the bathroom first, then give it to Bryan. While he’s in the shower I make the bed, get dressed, clean the litter box, and brush my teeth. Then I go to the kitchen and prepare our lunches & put away last night’s dishes.

         

By that time, Bryan is typically done and we’re ready to go to work, so I call the kittens back in to their room, open up the blinds so they can watch the birds, and give them a snack for being such good kids.

HOWEVER

Lately, Viktor has been running from me when I try to herd them back into the room! He doesn’t want to go back to bed – he wants to stay up and play. Mother doesn’t like to have them out unsupervised, though, so he really does need to go back in to the bedroom.

Silly boy: we were 10 minutes late this morning because I had to play Catch the Cat.

Little Stinker…

Family: Lauren

Lauren was a special girl, right from the start: sweet, kind, loving and very smart. She has a subtle, wicked sense of humor, too! Sometimes you have to think about it before you realize she just made a joke.

I remember holding her in my arms while sitting in church during the Sunday sermon. We’d be giggling and cracking jokes with each other until her mother “yelled” at us in sign language from up in the choir loft. My signing isn’t that good, but I can at least get us both in trouble!

Another memory of mine is when we all went down to Los Angeles for our friend Lisa’s wedding. Lauren was 4 years old at the time; her sister was 6. Their mother was in the wedding so spent a lot of time prior to the event with the wedding party, planning and practicing – which meant I spent most of my time babysitting the girls. One day in particular I was not feeling very good and was quite snippy with the girls. Later that evening, the entire wedding party and all their families were out in the parking lot arguing over where to go for dinner. I had enough so walked away from the crowd and sat down at a secluded park bench.

Lauren walked over, sat down next to me, and quietly asked, “Are you in time out?”

“I need it, don’t I?” I sighed.

She just put her little arm around me and sat there in silence with me.

My all time favorite memory of her as a little girl, however, is having her walk beside me holding my hand. She would look up at me and say, “Aunt Ruthie, are you so happy?”

And I would look down at her and say, “Yes, Lauren. I am so happy.”

Family: Katy

I got to spend a lot of time with Katy and her sister Lauren while they were growing up. Every year I would spend Christmas Eve at their house so their parents could go to Midnight Mass. Christmas morning Noel would send the girls in to wake me up so they could open their gifts. I would always pretend to be asleep and thought it was so funny because the girls would just stand there as if they were afraid to touch me. And yet they were so eager to open their gifts they could barely contain themselves. Eventually I would take pity on them and get up to join the family.

Katy was always very direct and not afraid to speak her mind. Conversations with her were always interesting: she had no qualms about letting you know she disagreed with you. She was open to new ideas, but sometimes had to think things through on her own first. She’d get that look on her face that let you know the wheels were turning inside. She’s an adult now but she still gets that look sometimes!

I remember one day she came to visit me; she was perhaps 5 years old at the time. The first thing she said to me was, “You’re my mother’s sister!” Apparently she was just figuring out the whole family structure.

“Yes, I am.” I replied, taking her coat to hang up in the closet.

She got even more excited, saying “And you’re the LITTLE sister!”

“Yes, I am!” I laughed because I’m about 3 inches taller than Noel.

“AND YOU CAN TALK!!” she was really amazed at this because her sister, at age 3, was still NOT talking. She had no idea that little sisters could.

“Oh, honey!” I cried, “Lauren will talk someday, really she will. We just have to give her some time to figure things out.”

Family: Robin

Robin was just the sweetest little boy EVER! He still is a sweetheart, but now he’s a Navy Seal – and quite honestly that’s a little bit intimidating.

He was very much in to his food as a little one, which for a baby means breast milk. My sister is not the most well-endowed woman in our family and Robin would stare longingly (embarrassingly) at other women’s breasts as they walked by because they were so much bigger than his mothers.

I used to read stories to him, specifically “The Mitten” by Jan Brett. 

His favorite part of that story was where the Bear gives a big SNEEZE, and he would sit there in my lap with his eye getting wider and wider, quivering with excitement, the closer I got to it - until I would finally say “Ah… Ah… Ah-CHOO!!!” and he would jump out of my lap and just laugh and laugh.

Happenstance!

I just happened to be poking around the Events section of Facebook when I came across an event at our local comic book store. I’m not really in to comic books – just never could get in to them – but what caught my eye was the name of a local author: Sean Schubert. He’s apparently going to be there this Saturday signing his Alaskan Undead Apocalypse series (all 5 books!). I’m actually pretty excited about that!!

My partner and I stumbled onto this series a few years ago, and had such fun reading them. We really aren’t “in” to Zombies and such, but this series is set right here in Anchorage. You can actually follow the characters around on a map as they travel from Providence Hospital to the Fred Meyers on the corner, all across town and into the neighboring cities as well.

I’m planning to buy all 5 books and have Sean sign them all. I have them on my Kindle right now, but they’re so much fun I need to have them on my bookshelf too!

Call it my PFD purchase for the year.

I'm Half The Person I Used To Be

Back in May of 2017 I found myself at the store looking at the racks of jeans for sale. The ones I had one were way too tight and I realized I would have to get the next size up. But the ones I had on were already a size 16 and I really did not want to buy a size 18. I just didn’t. So, right then and there, I vowed to lose weight and get back down to the size 8 that I used to be.

Based by my past experiences, I knew that the most reliable way for me to attain my goal was to join Weight Watchers – so the very next day I drove to the University Mall and signed myself up. I didn’t tell anybody, not even my partner, because I just wanted to get comfortable with the idea first.

Eventually I did confess to my partner that I had joined. He was surprised, but supportive. So supportive, in fact, that he joined with me! “It’s not going to work for me, “ he said “but that’s not why I’m doing it. I’m doing it to support your efforts, that’s all.”

Jump forward two years, and you’ll find us both with a combined weight loss of very close to 100 pounds! It DOES work, and it did for him just as much as it did for me! We both go to the weekly workshops and each have our phones loaded with the WW Ap.

It has completely changed the way we eat: both of us are a lot more aware of portion sizes and sneaky snacks. We eat way more vegetables than ever before, and have almost worn out our Spiralizer. Our freezer is full of salmon & chicken breasts, and we even allow ourselves the occasional treat now and then (maybe a donut for me and a steak for him).

I still have a ways to go before I reach my official goal, but I’m very happy with the results so far, and can easily see myself sticking to this program for the rest of my life.