My days. My nights. My life. Lived well.

It’s been a long time, but de-cluttering my life has taken all of my energy.

I’m in the home stretch of the transformation and by 2010, you will describe me as this girl you know who used to be a packrat. I plan on writing a lot more about it in the future. It’s amazing how creative I feel and how much I want to write now that I am clearing the decks. It’s like this energy around me can circulate better.

But today is a very important day in Kristen history. It was just one year ago today that I woke up from having what I thought had been the worst.gas.ever with what felt like a knot in my lower right abdomen. A little Wikipedia and a call to a friend, and I had figured out I had appendicitis before I even went to the hospital. At least I knew I would be checking in so I took a shower at home and packed a bag to put in the trunk and it was off to the ER we went.

About 9 hours after getting there, I was waking up in recovery, and Rob was in the waiting room with Janie, Don, and Samantha who were in Indianapolis for Sam’s gymnastics meet. Then they took me to my room and I sent Rob home to get some sleep.

It seemed like I would never recover from my abdominal laparoscopic surgery and like I would never be able to lift more than 8 pounds again. I was disappointed that my packrat title-shedding goal wouldn’t be met for 2009, but looking back I don’t know how I ever thought I would make it there in ~3 weeks.

It was 3 years ago on this day that was also one of the most monumental days of Rob’s and my life together. In the morning we had to put Bud down. He had an intestinal blockage and he had been sick for weeks. It was so sad. I remember it was such a beautiful day. We cleaned Rob’s apartment and had the windows open since it was like 55º. Then later we went and adopted Beans and Nico from Petsmart and the vet’s office respectively. Just as we were getting home with our new kitties, Rob got a phone call that his Grandpa Bill had an aneurysm.

So, a lot of things have happened in our life together on December 6. I feel like we have experienced every emotion possible on this day in the past few years. This year, it was pretty uneventful. And for that I am thankful.

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah (if the wishes don’t come til the 3rd day, are they late?) to all of my friends and peoples.

Wanna give? Here’s a free quick way to make an impact…
Here’s a shortened link…
http://is.gd/d0BE

Here’s the real link…
http://blog.firstbook.org/2008/12/19/a-call-to-action-post-a-comment-to-help-share-the-magic-of-bedtime-stories/

First Book is an organization that encourages literacy and reading by providing low-income kids with new books to read and own. Please take one minute using one of the links above this Christmas Eve or Day to leave a comment over at the First Book blog on a post sponsored by Disney to promote the new Adam Sandler Bedtime Stories movie. For every comment until December 25, Disney will donate a new book to First Book. They’ll donate up to 250K books and there are less than 500 comments so far. Honestly, I don’t know why this idea touches me so, but I am for some reason compelled to spread this around and encourage as many people to comment on the post. I guess I just feel like there’s a wasted opportunity there if Disney’s willing to donate up to 250K books and there are way less than that.

So, please forward this around a bit via Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, email, blogs, etc. and let’s try to help them reach that 250,000. It’s something free that requires little time that can really make an impact.

And as a special bonus, I will donate $2.50 to First Book for every comment on this blog entry between now and 11:59 PM EST on December 27 through First Book’s special that allows gifts to be matched by Random House and make double the impact. Normally, a $5 donation gets you 2 books, but until December 31, the organization will get 4 books. If 10 people comment on this post, we’ll be able to give 40 books.

So, promote your business, share pictures of your family, whatever…do it in my comments and I will donate some $$$ for books.

Rob and I enthusiastically wish you a happy holiday season, while Beans and Nico are more reluctant about it.

I’ll write more about my extended absence from my blog after Christmas, but for now I’m going to enjoy the rest of the holiday season with family and friends because I feel like the last 3 months has been crap/blah/whoa and I’m done with 2008. Bring on 2009.

Nothing but love.

We didn’t know this would be the first wedding we’d be attending this year until about a month ago.  We could not be happier that Rob’s grandma found Dean after his Grandpa Bill passed away.  Dean is a warm an wonderful man and they are really happy together. Look how giddy Rob’s grandma looks in the pictures. And of course I got some cute pics of the little girls in the family- 2 month old Elizabeth and 27 month old Emma.

We went for dinner at a buffet afterwards and Emma got down to business with the ice cream. Kathie just loves being grandma and Lizzie stares at her intently. Rob got to feed her and she held his finger with quite a bit of strength. Then Auntie K got to hold Lizzie and burp her. On the way out of the Sirloin Stockade, we found the best crane game prize ever.  Just what every kid wants- Harry Truman! They also had a janky Itchy and Scratchy toy and buried in the corner was another president- Ulysses S Grant. Then we got home and Nico was sleeping on the pueblo. 

So, Rob and I were bringing the trash cans back down to the house from the top of our circle where they pick it up. For some reason I felt compelled to look in the trees and see if I could spot the owl’s nest. Well, much to my surprise, the owl himself was staring back at me.

He’s a barred owl. I know he’s been around here for awhile. I do wish he would catch some more mice though so they stop coming in my house. Although, it’d be nice if the kitties would earn their keep and catch the mouse they keep looking for in the kitchen.Later today… So we must have a new mailman, because the last mail person I remember was a woman. A very ditzy woman who would misdeliver mail ALL the time. Anyway, the mailman rang the doorbell today and he said, “I have your mail here. I wanted to ask you about a couple names that I haven’t seen before. They’re here on these magazines.”I looked down and saw two issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly. It’s a magazine that Rob gets for free somehow and he has a fake name as the delivery name in case they sell the list. I explained to the mailman that Rob sometimes fake names these free magazine subscriptions, but not to worry about it if they’re tech magazines or video games or music stuff. Then I pointed to the Phil McKrackin and said it to him. He started cracking up! I think we both got a good laugh out of that one.

Lastly, here are some pictures of the kitties with the new camera. I still need to get used to it, but it is an awesome camera! As usual, click the little pics to see them bigger!

So first, I want to give a big congrats to Charlene and Chris in Maine who recently got engaged! I am so happy for them! Marriage is a beautiful thing. I’d do it again.

So, it’s almost the end of the semester. I will be totally relieved at the end of this week. I have a big group project we’re presenting on Friday, so once we’re done with that, I will be a happy woman! Seriously, you don’t even know.

I decided to write a blog post mainly because I am sitting here waiting to see if Nico is going to use the litter box anytime soon. See, I have to go downtown this afternoon to get some copies of our marriage license and to pick up some film I had developed (film? I’ll explain after I pick it up). The vet is also downtown. In fact it’s called The Downtown Veterinarian. I took her to the vet last week for some shots and apparently I was supposed to bring a stool sample with, and I didn’t so now I need to get one. The catch is, I need to take it in within about 6 hours of her producing it, and that has just not worked out schedule-wise so far. So I’ve been hoping that she would just poop so I could be on my way and drop it off while I was running all of my other downtown errands, but I don’t think that is going to happen before I need to leave. If anyone would have ever told me 10 years ago that I’d be waiting for a cat to poop so I could collect it, I would have laughed in their face! Who would have guessed these little furballs would become my babies?

Speaking of our cats- look how cute and pretty they are! (Click to see them larger) Nico is still a little grumpasaurus, and she likes to sleep. Beans gets distracted by anything shiny. If he sees a reflection of any kind on the ceiling, he’ll stare at it with his eyes wide open and follow it (see pics 2 and 5 below). They are both just so different and have such distinct personalities. They both love curling up on different levels of the Kitty Pueblo and taking afternoon naps now that the sun shines directly in without the leaves to block it.