Kitties!

Are y'all amazed that I'm writing again within a month of my last post? I am sitting at my desk watching a cat video and trying to get motivated to work on my dissertation. I have to proofread and format it, and then it will be ready to submit to my chair. I should be super motivated, but I'm not. I've just been too distracted with other things (kittens), and work wore me out this week. All I can say is that I am thankful for weekends!

In my last post, I included a picture of Charleigh, the kitten I was planning to bring home. A few days after I posted that picture, we went to meet the kittens, and April and I both fell in love with all the females. She was flip-flopping between the other two, whose names were Brie and Dumpling. She finally decided that she would just take them both, even though she was hesitant about caring for four cats, so I talked to Dan and he acquiesced and said I could bring two home (he's such a softie, lol). A few days later, Lexie, the lady from work, who lives in a strickly pet-free apartment, got found out, so April offered to take mama cat and kittens until they were weaned. Lexie quickly rehomed the boys even though they were a bit too young to be without mama, and April and I picked up mama and the three females on that Saturday evening. April kept her for about a week and half, and when mama cat stopped paying a lot of attention to the babies because she went into heat again, we took her back to Lexie so she can find her a new home.

Anyway, as we watched the kittens interact, we noticed that Dumpling and Brie were pretty much inseparable, and Eclair liked to be off by herself. I really had my heart set on Eclair, though, so April went back and forth trying to decide whether she wanted to keep Brie or Dumpling. She finally decided on Brie, but I realized that Eclair would probably do better without her sisters than either Dumpling or Brie, so last night April and I decided that I will take those two and she will keep Eclair. Here is a picture of my babies.

Dumpling and Eclair are very similar in that they are both tabbies, but Eclair is a little darker and has more or a tortie look to her while Dumpling is more striped. I haven't completely settled on names yet, but I am thinking Eloise (Ellie) for the tabby and Roxanne (Roxy) for the calico. I was going to name Dumpling Charleigh, but it just isn't sticking because Eclair is Charleigh. I had started calling her Ellie, so I think she is going to have to keep that name, and Brie does not look like a Charleigh (not that I really know what a Charleigh looks like). It is possible that I will bring them home today. I am pretty much ready for them, so I will let April decide when she thinks Charleigh (new name TBD) is ready to let her sisters go.

Today is the three year anniversary of moving into this house. A lot has happened in the last three years; hurricanes, remodels, losing pets, etc., but in spite of some sad months, I am still very happy to be here. Today Dan and Ben are going to the beach to talk. I ask for your prayers for Ben. He has gained a lot of weight and Dan wants to try to make him understand that his life is going to be very difficult if he does not get his diet under control. He has asthma and I worry because he is short of breath pretty frequently. As an asthmatic myself, I understand how carrying extra weight can make things worse, and that is part of the reason that I was determined to get rid of the 30 extra pounds I was carrying around. While they are out, I am going to April's house to help her clean, and I may be bringing kittens home with me. :) In the meantime, I am off to read a couple pages of my dissertation. I am contemplating taking a few days off work next week to try to finish (or nearly finish) the dissertation up.

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

World's Worst Blogger

I am officially the world's worst blogger. Life has just been really busy, and time flies. Since I last wrote, I have basically finished up my dissertation. I just need to format things and proofread for typos and other mistakes. I will probably turn it in to my chair in about a month, and I should be finished completely shortly thereafter as long as my committee doesn't want me to make a bunch of changes. Dan ran all my statistics for me, so I will need him to explain everything to me before I defend, but it shouldn't be too hard because I have a pretty good idea of what is going on. I am pretty excited to see the light at the end of the tunnel :)

In about the middle of January, we started tearing into our floors, and I am happy to say that after a couple months of mess, my house is pretty well back to normal. We have a couple of closets to do, and Dan has to reinstall the quarter round around the baseboards, but those are minor projects. I also need to paint most of the house, but we decided to wait until fall. I want to enjoy the summer and not be fixated on home improvements, and Dan worked so hard that he really deserves a break. Since I am permanently remote, I decided to turn the room that was the bird room before Ben moved out into my office, and it turned out really nice. I painted the walls a neutral beige color and it made the room warm and inviting. I bought a couple of bookshelves and a printer cabinet, which make it feel like an office. Now I just need to hang up a couple of pictures and I will be finished.

After almost three years of living in Alabama, Dan and I finally found our gumption and got back on the WFPB wagon for good. We had so many false starts over the years. The only advantage to the false starts is that I didn't let myself completely go, but I never could make it past a month or so before I caved and we went out for Mexican food and margaritas. My last margarita was on February 19^th, which was my year anniversary back to work. The next day, I started eating healthy and I never looked back. Once I realized that I was in this for life, I decided to sign up for a holistic nutritionist certificate program, and I started last week. I probably should have waited until I am finished with the dissertation, but I have six months to finish it, and because I care about it, I shouldn't have any trouble keeping myself motivated. I have been coaching my supervisor. She finally decided that keto wasn't working for her, which was my opportunity to tell her about WFPB eating. She was desperate enough to try it because of some health issues, and she is completely ecstatic about the results so far. She thought she would add a little meat back into her diet after about three weeks, but she is feeling so good that she has no desire to eat it now. I am so stinking proud of her. I do whatever I can to encourage her, and I think she really appreciates it. It has definitely helped us bond further, too.

Aside from all that excitement, I have three pieces of recent news. Two are not that exciting, but I am pretty excited about one of them. First, I got my COVID vaccine last week. I got the J&J vaccine just before the paused its administration. I am not too concerned about adverse side effects. Aside from feeling dizzy right after I got it, I had no pain in my arm and no illness. My kids got the Pfizer vaccine yesterday and they both felt a little rough today, but I think they are feeling better now. Second, on Wednesday we drove to Pensacola and watched a hockey game. I went to a couple of hockey games about 25 years ago, and I forgot how much fun they are. I will definitely go see more games next season. Finally, at the beginning of May, I will be adding a new addition to my little family.

At work we have a message board, and a lady posted that she has six kittens that need homes. April has been wanting to add a new female kitten to her home, so I sent her the lady's contact information and she sent an inquiry, but she didn't get a response, so today I reached out to the lady and they started texting back and forth. April sent me some updated pictures that she got, and I fell in love with this little girl. I asked Dan if I could get her and he finally relented, lol. We may get to go meet them on Sunday afternoon. I haven't settled on a name yet, but on my short list is Charlotte (Charleigh for short), Olivia (Livvy), and Theadora (Teddy). I was also considering Delilah, Dinah, Bella, Chloe, Kiki, and Thomasina. Maybe when I see her, I'll just know what her name is. Right now, her name is "Eclair." :D

Well, that is about all I have for now. With my track record, I'll just say that I will see you all again in about six months, lol.

I PASSED

I thought I would come by to let you all know that I passed my dissertation defense and only need to make minor revisions to my proposal. I need to add a few details to my abstract and a couple of documents to my appendices, and then I will resubmit it to my chair by this weekend. The next step is to start working on my IRB application. I imagine that it will not be approved until after the first of the year, but that is fine. I do not plan on doing much between now and then anyway.

I realized that I forgot to mention that we decided to refinance our mortgage, and we closed on the new loan today. When we closed on our first mortgage 2 1/2 years ago, our interest rate was 4.75%, and I was able to get it down to 2.75%. We also went from a 30 year to a 15 year mortgage, and our payment will only be about $150 more a month than what I was paying. Oddly, we did not have to bring any money to closing--in fact, the title company is going to mail us a $500 check on Tuesday. It does not make any sense to me that we had to borrow money to pay ourselves, but I guess that's an extra $500 I can put toward my principle in February.

I think that is all I have to say at the the moment. Tomorrow is Friday, and I get off work at 3:00, so Dan and I will probably grab an early dinner and then watch Christmas movies. Sunday I would like to try to get my office painted and my house cleaned up so it's in order for Christmas Eve. Merry Christmas to all of you!

Defense Day

I am off work today because at 5:00 I am going to be defending my dissertation proposal. I was supposed to do it last Thursday, but I was not ready. I am nervous and will be happy when it is over, but I am pretty sure I will pass. The next step is my instituional review board application and then I will put my survey together and send out the link so I can get my results. After I have about 200 survey replies, I can run my statistics, write up my results, defend my dissertation, and be finished with school forever!!!

Other than that, there is not much going on at the moment. There is a lot in the works for after Christmas, though. I got my new countertops a week ago, and they have really brightened up my kitchen a lot. My old countertops were black granite. Apparently they were very popular in the early 2000s. I hated them because they always looked dirty and I could not find things I set down on them. It's like the item would get sucked into a black hole. My new countertops are white quartz with a gray pattern. After I take my Christmas tree down, we are going to rip out my floors and lay new vinyl planks down in the whole house. We already ripped carpet out of two of the bedrooms. Only my bedroom still has carpet. After we get the floors laid, we plan to paint, but only because I am not 100% sure of about what color will go best with the flooring I have chosen. If I can nail that down before we lay the flooring, then I might paint first, which would actually be better. We bought a sprayer, so that should make quick work of it. After those two big projects, there will just be small projects to do, and after I finish my dissertation, for the first time since 2014 I will not have anything big hanging over my head. It will be nice to have weekends to just go do fun things and not think about how I should be writing rather than playing Animal Crossing or cleaning my house.

Christmas is 10 days away and I feel like I have not really done much to prepare for it. My tree is up and I have decorated the inside and outside of my house a bit, but I have only bought a couple of presents. I bought April an Animal Crossing Switch and Dan wanted Game of Thrones DVDs. Ben will want money, and last year I bought Matt an Amazon gift card that he never redeemed, so I will regift that to him, lol. I also bought my nieces an Amazon gift card last year that their dad did not redeem, so guess who will be getting another regifted gift card. I bought my mom an Amazon gift card when I went to visit in October, so she is taken care of. Those are really the only people I need to buy for. I pretty much buy what I need when I need it, so I do not ever know what to tell people I want. I prefer just to enjoy the company of my small family. I will host Christmas Eve at my house and April is hosting Christmas dinner at her house. She is very proud of her new home and loves when Dan and I come to vist. She and Ben are making it really cute. I am glad that they get along so well.

Well, I really need to go and study. My defense is in eight hours and I want to be very well prepared. I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed Christmas!