Stress-free Holidays?

I can’t sleep. I’m mentally exhausted, but my brain keeps going and I can’t sleep. I haven’t posted in a while. Partly because I’ve been busy making Christmas presents, partly because I’ve been busy learning to be a drone in society. That’s all school really is, you know? This post started out as a horribly pessimistic post, but then just writing was already making me feel better, so I’m going to talk about something else.

My mother, God bless her, is doing a loose no-spend December plan. It started out that she wasn’t going to buy anything at all. She was going to have all her Christmas shopping done, all her food stocked, everything she needed to enjoy the holiday without being bogged down by commercialism. She wanted these holidays to be fun, not stressful. Sounds good, right? Then she realized stressing out about not being able to buy anything wasn’t fun, so she decided to buy from locally-owned stores or as locally as possible. This means supporting our local restaurants, local hair and nail salons (which we seem to have a ton of and luckily our trusty hair dresser just so happens to be apart of a local place) local stores, which we don’t have a ton of, but that’s why she got her shopping done early. Her gift ideas are also noteworthy, but I can’t say until after Christmas.

We’re not a huge town, so we don’t have too many options. Most people go to a bigger city that is about an hour from here, which hurts the local economy even more. Companies decide to locate in cities based on how companies like them are being supported in that particular city. Because people always go to another city to buy stuff, our mall, (yeah, we actually had a real mall. It didn’t have very much stuff, but still, it’s something) is about to close. It’s kind of official according to my inside source. And that sucks. But anyway. Limited gas and perishable items are all she’s buying. And I gotta say, I’m proud of her. When I first started all this recycle more, waste less, consume less nonsense, she just jumped on board. No questions asked. And the way she raised me got me to the place where I could have the…I guess I would say the mental ability to comprehend such a life that doesn’t revolve around stuff. I’m a pretty lucky gal.

I am following in my mother’s footsteps with her no spend December plan. I did the last of my Christmas shopping on Monday (from a used book store, which should count even though it’s not my home economy), but it was for my angel tree people, which are a couple of senior citizens who are spending their Christmas in nursing home. I thought I could make the exception. Usually, I go way overboard because the thought of these people, who just ask for something so small and simple like socks or a book of crosswords or something, not getting anything breaks my heart. This year I curbed back and I guess I’m happy with that. So far, everyone else’s gifts are made, which I’m extremely happy about. I can’t give you the DIYs just yet because then they would know what it is and that would ruin the surprise. We’re having a small Christmas, not a lot of gifts, not a lot of waste, but we’ll be with family and that’s what matters.

I hope you all are having a stress-free holiday. Feel free to give your ideas for a waste-free holiday!

Cat Tales

Well, I’m on spring break this week, so I’m out of town. I didn’t know I would have access to the internet the whole time and I wasn’t sure if I would have enough time to do research for anything. Although I’m inspired by the vacation and kind of want to right about the different effects that traveling, hotels, so ons have on the environment I don’t have enough time to actually sit down and research it all, so I’ve decided to write about…my cats.

Yep, I’m imagining everyone rolling their eyes. Cats are not the more popular pets, but I can’t help it. I love them, I miss them, and so I’m going to write about them.

Harmony- Melody and Harmony are sisters. They look almost exactly alike and they’re inseparable.  Right now they’re being boarded at their doctor’s office. I know, what a horrible place to have to sleep. It would be like having to sleep at your doctor’s office. Harmony has to take medicine everyday, which she hates, because she has kidney problems and since I don’t trust anybody, but myself or parents to get it to her then we figure that the vet would be the next best option. Melody is there with her so they won’t have to be away each other for so long. I still feel guilty. She’s the only one who has to take the medicine, but she’s the only one who won’t eat it. Anytime I get it on the floor the other cats just come and lick it up, but not Harmony. Harmony is very ungraceful and she’s rotten to the core. When I let her in my room, she has a tendency to walk along my desk and knock everything off.  When she was younger, not so much anymore, she had habit or trying to cover up the water or food bowl with the mats that we always put their bowls on. She would also put toys in the bowl. One time we bought some toys at PetCo around Halloween and one was a pair of eyes and it was covered in feathers. The feathers were all torn off in a couple of seconds, but Harmony took the eyes and put them in the food bowl. It was a pretty weird sight. I thought it was funny, but my mother didn’t really appreciate it.

This is one of her favorite spots in my room. She's laying on a huge stuffed tiger that I got for Christmas one year. My cat's really like that tiger for some reason.

Melody is her sister and she’s definitely got the naughty gene. I’m sure her and Harmony are wreaking havoc at the vet’s office right now. Both sisters have a slight weight problem; Harmony more so because of her kidney problems. Melody at one point was more overweight, but she lost it all so now she has a flab on her stomach that flags back and forth when she runs. It’s pretty funny. When Melody and Harmony were kittens they used to watch tv with me, like literally watch it. Now they just sit on my books or homework or whatever I’m trying to write. One time I had my laptop open and I left the room, but when I came back a whole bunch of the keys had been ripped off. I don’t even know how they did, but it sure was annoying.

Melody in the dryer. Enough said.