I am so happy with the way my digital scrapbook pages are coming out! It’s so much fun too. I just printed out some half-sized proofs, and they are going to look awesome printed at full-size (8″x8″ on nice paper. I’m so excited! Finally, a project I have been wanting to do that’s going the way I want it to and not giving me too many headaches.

Speaking of headaches, this nasty weather has my brain aching big time. Let’s not even talk about how badly my bones are aching. We need a space heater in the den. I will begin whining about this in ernest this weekend. You want to know why Lin never feels as cold in the house as I do? Aside from the fact that I have no body fat at all and am usually somewhat anemic? I am the one who is always sitting right by a window. First off, the windows are a wee bit drafty. Secondly, even if they weren’t a wee bit drafty, you can feel the cold air radiating off of them whenever you are within a foot or two of a window. I need to figure out a way to stop that, other than replacing the windows. I guess it would look completely stupid if I covered the windows with black felt, wouldn’t it? Yeah, well … I’m thinking about it. Of course, then it would be even darker in here than it already is, and it’s REALLY dark in this house all the time. Maybe a space heater or two is a better idea.

The leftover chili from last night is heating up on the stove. It’s going to taste so good. Chili is always better the second day, and it’s the best thing ever to eat when it’s freezing outside … which it is (or will be in another hour or so).

After dinner, I’m digging out some more of my cold weather clothes. I don’t own much, seeing as I live in Texas and it would spend most of its time in storage, but I know I have a few pairs of long johns and some tights somewhere. Don’t think I won’t wear long johns in my own home. I will. If I am cold, I am cold. The only answer to that is to turn the furnace up (expensive) or layer on more clothing (cheap). The furnace is turned up as high as I care to put it, so I guess more clothes it is. I HATE COLD WEATHER!

The chili should be bubbling any minute now, and I think I’ll go hover over the stove where it’s really warm right now. In fact, I think I’ll bake some cookies, just to have an excuse to heat up the kitchen a little more. Brrrr … double brrrr.

I updated my last post with the redo of that scrapbook page I lost when my program crashed. If you read my site at LJ or through RSS, you might have missed the update. Or, you might not really care. I’m telling you anyway.

UPDATE: Rebuilt the page I lost when PSE crashed. It turned out a little different the second time around, but I like the new version better. You can find it behind the cut!

Finished another scrapbook page. Actually, I was one paste away from finishing two, but PS Elements crashed on me … and I hadn’t saved it at all, of course. Oh the joys of running programs under Rosetta. Could Adobe please get with the program and release a Universal Binary version of Elements! Oh well. I can build it again later. At least I got one more done today!

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Temperature on my front porch: 35 degrees Fahrenheit
Windchill: 25 degrees Fahrenheit
Wind Speed: 9 mph with 25 mph gusts
Humidity: 70%

Winter just bit Texas in the ass.

There might have been ice this morning. I don’t know. I got up and made coffee, and then the cats and I proceeded directly back to the bed to create a nice warm pile of human, comforter and fur. I can hear some of you up north saying “It’s colder here! Get over it!” Yes, but was it 80 degrees yesterday afternoon? Was it 75 degrees at midnight last night? There is nothing worse than a 35-40 degree drop in temperature over the course of a few hours. That sort of thing is impossible to adapt to, and it’s the only thing about Texas weather I actually hate. Hot as hell one day. Freezing cold a few hours later. ARGH! My gods, it’s freaking cold! I hate winter, and we have definitely entered our one month of real winter.

Oh well, at least I’ll get to wear my leather jacket for a while. I almost never get to wear my biker jacket. It’s just too heavy. I remember when I got it, I thought that after a decade or so, I’d have a nice broken in, worn-looking jacket. The damn thing still looks almost as new as the day I opened the box and put it on for the first time.

I’m going to make me some nice hot spiced tea, layer on some more clothing, crank the furnace to high, and try to resist the urge to crawl back into bed with my two furry personal heaters. Brrrr …

In case you can’t tell, and I have a hard time even though I made the thing, it’s a very tiny crocheted cat. The real cats and I had a lot of fun making it, or rather I should say I had a lot of fun making it and the cats had a lot of fun running off with all the little pieces and playing with my ball of yarn.

My headache is getting worse, and it can only be caused by the cold front on its way here. There’s this pressure in my head, and it’s making my ears feel like they are going to explode. Yuck.

Just found out I’ll be going to see The Nutcracker at Bass Concert Hall on the 7th of December. I can’t wait! We haven’t been to the ballet in years, and we are going to get a backstage tour as well. Ought to be a great night out, and don’t worry, you’ll get to hear all about it … since me being a blogger is the reason we are getting to go, and I am expected to babble about it. Hmmm … wonder what I should wear? I wonder if anyone else I know is going? OH MY GOD! I’m going to be in a room full of Austin bloggers! Eeeek!

December 7th isn’t that far off. I better start panicking now.

I suppose I should haul my aching head and the rest of me into the kitchen to make dinner. I am totally uninspired, and I really need to go grocery shopping. I think I’ll make chili. Even when I don’t feel like cooking, I can’t screw chili up too much.

I have just finished playing the cats into a state of fatigue and all is quiet in the house. Nothing works better for cat control than wearing the little suckers out.

Nothing much going on around here. I just finished reading my usual news, and there’s nothing much to report except for this:

“How’s your boy?” Bush asked, referring to Webb’s son, a Marine serving in Iraq.

“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.

“That’s not what I asked you,” Bush said. “How’s your boy?”

“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.

Look, Mr. Tin Pot President, you asked the man a question, and he gave you an answer. Sorry it wasn’t the one you were looking for. How rude … “that’s not what I asked you.” Gah!

Closer to home, my cell phone is behaving oddly again. This morning, my alarm, set for 6 am, didn’t go off. It finally went off at 1 pm. I reset the alarm for 1:30 pm, to see if it would work correctly. It went off at 2 pm. This is unacceptable. Maybe it’s time to buy a real alarm clock. I told Lin about it, and he said his phone (the same model as mine) had been screwing up with the alarm too. This is a little weird. Two phones that have led dramatically different lives and are totally different ages behaving oddly in the same way at the same time. I’ve now set it for 2:30 pm. We’ll see if it manages to go off at the correct time or not. If not, we may have to go get an alarm clock tonight.

I’m sure I should be doing something, like the dishes or mopping the floors, but I’d rather crochet. I got some cute patterns for little animals, and I am itching to make some. Naturally, this means I will be going to the other room to crochet rather than fussing with the house. The housework isn’t going anywhere.

See, this is why I’m not babbling as much as usual. I got nothing much to talk about. I could tell you all about how my mom broke her printer, but that would be almost as boring as anything else I might say, so I’ll spare you.

Today I needed to become educated on felines in heat. I’ve never had a female cat. Not on purpose. It just always worked out that my cats were male. So needless to say, my only education of felines in heat has come from reading about it. Thanks to YouTube, I have now seen a variety of cats of differing ages in heat, and I am prepared to state that Myu is behaving in a hormonal way.

She isn’t doing the butt-in-the-air, rear-leg-dance … yet … but she is chirping, meowing all the time, rolling around and rubbing on things, and licking her nether regions at every opportunity. Whatever she is “saying” is attracting the attention of Ronin. I am watching them like a hawk. At the first sign of butt-in-the-air from Myu, they will have to learn to live with separation. We do not need a batch of inbred kittens.

I wouldn’t think a four month old kitten would come into heat, but she is most definitely acting in a heat-like manner. What do I know about female kittens anyway, having never owned one. The vet better be ready to operate on one or both of them ASAP, or yeah … I’ll be going elsewhere next week, and I’ll tell her as much. Let’s hope whatever it is doesn’t progress any further during the coming days. If it does, the vet gets a phone call about something needing to be done.

I am hoping she’s just behaving oddly because she finally was able to jump into the open kitchen window today and look outside and the weather is changing, which I know can make cats act oddly. I’m going to allow myself to believe this delusion until I can’t anymore, because really … don’t need any kittens, and I can’t possibly watch them 24/7.

I know I’ve been a little heavy on photos and light on words the last few days, but this one I snapped of Ronin this morning is too hilarious not to share immediately. Not like I have much to say anyway. It’s another grey day here, and there’s a big cold front blowing in later. Once I get the housework done, I think I’ll do some sketching and take more photos of my silly cats.