Shhhhhh, silence is golden

Sometimes words become too much and people might say things they regret later on. So, the best policy for now is, shhhhhh, silence.

Birdies at my feeders

We had about an inch of snow early this morning which was quite a surprise and unexpected. I went about my business, went to the store for food, and filled my bird feeders. My feathered friends squawked mightily when I took the feeders into the house to fill, but were soon back happily feeding after I returned to the house. I then sat at my kitchen table, drinking a cup of tea, and watched my birdie friends eating their breakfast.

Some of my early morning visitors included:

Chickadees

Downy Woodpecker

Mourning Doves

Red Headed Woodpecker

Sparrows

Yellow Finches

Juncos

Robins

While I walked back and forth to the house with the feeders, my favorite kitty, Tiger Lily, watched from the sidelines. As soon as I went back into the house, she jumped onto the top of the covered chipper-shredder under the big Hackberry tree (with the bird feeders hanging from several lower branches) and took a flying leap to the nearest branch with a feeder on it. She thought she would catch a little birdie who might innocently come to the feeder to get a snack. But, she soon realized that this was not going to happen. So, it was jump down and back to the house to watch. Sorry, kitty, no birdie today.

The sun is out now and I fear our beautiful first snow of the season will soon melt. The skies are blue and there is a dusting of puffy white clouds scudding across the sky. As I sat drinking my tea and watching the antics of the outdoor wildlife, What A Wonderful World was playing on XM radio. The beauty of it all almost brought tears to my eyes. My thoughts were, no matter how down and out a person can get, all you have to do is look around you to see the wonderful, beautiful world we live in. Everything else disappears into the background noise and clutter of our lives. We in America are truly blessed. My wish is that others around the world would just stop what they're doing and watch the birdies, kitties, and drink a cup of tea. We would then have peace in our wonderful world.

What a wonderful world

I see trees of green, red roses too
I watch 'em bloom for me and for you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue, clouds of white
Bright blessed days, warm sacred nights
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

The colors of a rainbow, so pretty, in the sky
Are there on the faces.of people going by
I see friends shaking hands sayin' how do you do
They're really sayin' I love you.

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colors of a rainbow, so pretty, in the sky
Are there on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands sayin' how do you do
They're really sayin' I love you.

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
You know their gonna learn
a whole lot more than I'll never know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

Lyrics by Louis Armstrong

Blogging with a kitty in my arms

Today is early Monday afternoon, it's still wet outside after a weekend of rain, rain, rain, and I finally got dressed. It was oh, so tempting to remain in my nightgown, but I resisted and took a long, hot shower. While standing under that streaming water, I thought of Redneck Mommy's post and smiled. It would have been so easy to just stand there until the water heater was empty of nice hot water but I decided that I didn't want to end up looking like a prune.

I have spent the morning visiting a lot of you, reading your blogs, and sometimes leaving comments. I've had an opportunity to laugh some, to cry some, to feel good, and to commiserate. You are all such interesting people and I would love to stay and chat some more. But, now that I'm showered and dressed, I think I had better get up from the computer and actually do something constructive. I will leave you with this, however, and hope it gives you a little smile.

The Feline Diet

Most diets fail because we are still thinking and eating like people. For those us who have never had any success dieting. Well now there is the new Miracle Cat Diet! This diet will also work on humans! Except for cats that eat like people -- such as getting lots of table scraps -- most cats are long and lean (or tiny and petite). the Cat Miracle Diet will help you achieve the same lean, svelte figure. Just follow this diet for one week and you'll find that you not only look and feel better, but you will have a whole new outlook on what constitutes food. Good Luck!

DAY ONE

Breakfast: Open can of expensive gourmet cat food. Any flavor as long as it cost more the .75 per can -- and place 1/4 cup on your plate. Eat 1 bite of food; look around room disdainfully. Knock the rest on the floor. Stare at the wall for awhile before stalking off into the other room.

Lunch: Four blades of grass and one lizard tail. Throw it back up on the cleanest carpet in your house.

Dinner: Catch a moth and play with it until it is almost dead. Eat one wing. Leave the rest to die.

Bedtime snack: Steal one green bean from your spouse's or partner's plate. Bat it around the floor until it goes under the refrigerator. Steal one small piece of chicken and eat half of it. Leave the other half on the sofa. Throw out the remaining gourmet cat food from the can you opened this morning.

DAY TWO

Breakfast: Picking up the remaining chicken bite from the sofa. Knock it onto the carpet and bat it under the television set. Chew on the corner of the newspaper as your spouse/partner tries to read it.

Lunch: Break into the fresh French bread that you bought as your part of the dinner party on Saturday. Lick the top of it all over. Take one bite out of the middle of the loaf.

Afternoon snack: Catch a large beetle and bring it into the house. Play toss and catch with it until it is mushy and half dead. Allow it to escape under the bed.

Dinner: Open a fresh can of dark-colored gourmet cat food -- tuna or beef works well. Eat it voraciously. Walk from your kitchen to the edge of the living room rug. Promptly throw up on the rug. Step into it as you leave. Track footprints across the entire room.

DAY THREE

Breakfast: Drink part of the milk from your spouse's or partner's cereal bowl when no one is looking. Splatter part of it on the closest polished aluminum appliance you can find.

Lunch: Catch a small bird and bring it into the house. Play with on top of your down filled comforter. Make sure the bird is seriously injured but not dead before you abandon it for someone else to have to deal with.

Dinner: Beg and cry until you are given some ice cream or milk in a bowl of your own. Take three licks/laps and then turn the bowl over on the floor.

FINAL DAY

Breakfast: Eat 6 bugs, any type, being sure to leave a collection of legs, wings, antennae on the bathroom floor. Drink lots of water. Throw the bugs and all of the water up on your spouse's or partner's pillow.

Lunch: Remove the chicken skin from last night's chicken-to-go leftovers your spouse or partner placed in the trash can. Drag the skin across the floor several times. Chew it in a corner and then abandon.

Dinner: Open another can of expensive gourmet cat food. Select a flavor that is especially runny, like Chicken and Giblets in Gravy. Lick off all the gravy and leave the actual meat to dry and get hard.

The Official "Genius" Test

These cuties want to take the test!

1. Is there a 4th of July in England? Yes or no?
2. How many birthdays does the average man have?
3. Some months have 31 days. How many have 28?
4. In baseball, how many outs are there in an inning?
5. Can a man in California marry his widow's sister?
6. Take the number 30, divide it by 1/2, and then add 10. What do you get?
7. There are three apples and you take two away. How many apples are you left with?
8. A doctor gives you three pills and tells you to take one every half an hour. How long will the pills last?
9. A farmer has 17 sheep. All but nine of them die. How many sheep are left?
10. How many animals of each sex did Moses bring with him on the Ark?
11. A butcher in the market is 5'10" tall. What does he weigh?
12. How many two-cent stamps are there in a dozen?
13. What was the U.S. President's name in 1960?

Are you ready for the answers? Well, here they are:

1. Yes. It comes right after the 3rd.
2. One. You can only be born once.
3. Twelve. All of them have at least 28 days.
4. Six. Don't forget there is a top and bottom to every inning.
5. No. He must be dead if it is his widow.
6. Seventy. Thirty divided by 1/2 is 60.
7. Two. You take two apples, therefore, YOU have two apples.
8. One hour. If you take the first pill at 1:00, the second at 1:30, and the third at 2:00, the pills have run out and only one hour has passed.
9. Nine. Like I said, all BUT nine die.
10. None. I didn't know that Moses had an Ark.
11. Meat. That is self-explanatory.
12. Twelve. How many eggs are in a dozen? Twelve. It's a dozen.
13. George W. Bush. As far as I know, he hasn't changed his name.

So, how did you do? If you got

13 correct . . . you are a certified GENIUS, and you are good.
10-12 correct . . . you are ABOVE AVERAGE, but don't let it go to your head.
7-9 correct . . . you are AVERAGE, but who wants to be average?
4-6 correct . . . you are SLOW, pay attention to the questions!
1-3 correct . . . you are an IDIOT, what else can be said?
0 correct . . . CONGRATULATIONS, you are a certified MORON!

I'm not telling how I did.

I'm done now.

I got me my fix

Those Pretty Purple Pills

After only two doses of these, I feel almost human again. The Creature From The Black Lagoon has retreated to wherever it belongs and I have returned sans scales and fangs. Ah, the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals. Now it makes me wonder -- what COULD I have been thinking of to stop taking my HRT after reading some silly report on the CNN website?

As a result of my most recent mental aberration (brain fart, or as they call it here in the South, Early Onset of Old Timers Disease), I think I almost lost my mind.

A girlfriend once made this for me at a time when I was off work following surgery. I keep it to remind me how sometimes losing your mind is a good thing and that you can always get it back if you try hard enough and have the kind support of many (blogger) friends.


You never know how important your mind is to your wellbeing until you enter that netherworld of mental aberration after not taking your HRT for about a month.

As proof of my recent derangement, I offer to you, my gentle readers, a list of Strange English Language Definitions for your enjoyment.

Arbitrator: A cook that leaves Arby's to work at McDonald's
Avoidable: What a bullfighter tries to do
Baloney: Where some hemlines fall
Bernadette: The act of torching a mortgage
Burglarize: What a crook sees with
Control: A short, ugly inmate
Counterfeiters: Workers who put together kitchen cabinets
Eclipse: What an English barber does for a living
Eyedropper: A clumsy ophthalmologist
Heroes: What a guy in a boat does
Left Bank: What the robber did when his bag was full of loot
Misty: How golfers create divots
Paradox: Two physicians
Parasites: What you see from the top of the Eiffel Tower
Pharmacist: A helper on the farm
Polarize: What penguins see with
Primate: Removing your spouse from in front of the TV
Relief: What trees do in the spring
Rubberneck: What you do to relax your wife
Seamstress: Describes 250 pounds in a size six
Selfish: What the owner of a seafood store does
Subdued: Like, a guy, like, works on one of those, like, submarines, man
Sudafed: Bringing litigation against a government official

Thank you, all my dear blog friends, for your kind words of support. Some of you have indicated that you've been there, done that. Others are not looking forward to the inevitable. I guess it's all part of being that wondrous creature -- a woman. We get to menstruate, we get to have PMS, we get to have the babies, we get to have the aggravation of raising the kids, we get to clean up all the bodily fluid messes, we get to have the empty nest syndrome when the kids leave home, we get to have chin hairs, grey hair, and sagging butts/breasts/bellies, and we get to have menopause when we're just starting to feel good about ourselves. Some days you just have to lose your mind to keep it all into perspective.

What's wrong with me?

My symptoms:

1. Hot flashes
2. Irritability
3. Foul mouth, negative thoughts, and bad temper
4. Depression
5. Fatigue
6. Inability to sleep throughout the night
7. Night sweats
8. Always wanting to EAT MORE
9. Inability to concentrate more than two seconds
10. A preponderance of chin hairs that would take a lawn mower to eliminate
11. Constant thirst after eating everything in the house containing salt,
and the most serious symptom,
12. Inability to blog

I have been suffering from these symptoms for about a month and everybody is starting to ask "what's wrong with me". Well, I've finally figured it out. Ever since I read this, I have been feeling poorly. I thought it was just depression and stress from the holidays, but now I DON'T THINK SO.

It's because I decided to stop taking my Premarin (after being on HRT since 1989). Maybe I should have consulted my personal physician before stopping this lifesaving medicine but I really thought CNN knew what they were talking about. They didn't know that I would turn into this.


What's a woman to do? I thought after all these years I could get off the junkie trail with no problem. After all, I was able to stop smoking over five years ago. I was able to stop drinking caffeinated cokes and teas with no problem. I was able to stop eating fatty, fried foods without losing sleep over it. Those HRT pills were what was keeping me a nice, sane person. In fact, until 1989, I was a regular b**ch. Just ask my kids and husband! Then I got my first patch, the world heard a sigh of relief, and I got mellow.

Now I'm back to my old self and I don't like it.

I thought by having seven cats, and being able to pet them at will, my symptoms would be relieved. Not so. In fact, they're making them worse. I wake up at night and find at least four of them in bed with me. Have you ever slept with a blast furnace that sits on your chest, purrs in your face, licks you, and demands that you get up and play with them at 2:00 a.m.?

I keep thinking that I can be strong and I can survive this latest assault on my sanity because I AM WOMAN. But, I've alienated everybody within a three-block area, especially husband. Is it really worth the risk of breast cancer to again be the neighborhood b**ch?

If I don't get better pretty soon, I'm going to give in and start taking those pretty purple pills again. All these symptoms will disappear and I will become mellow again. Most importantly, I will be able to blog without writing about menopausal symptoms.

P.S. What's the sweetest phone call you could ever receive? The phone rings, you pick up the receiver and hear, "Grandma, will you come visit me?" from your 2-3/4 y/o granddaughter. Makes a hormone-free, stressed-out woman want to cry.