life — Page 310

Question Of The Day: What Do You Do When You Can’t Sleep?

November 15, 2012 at 7:03 am by Claudia

I’ve been awake since about 4 am.

I finally gave up on more sleep and arose at 6 am.

Don has been having some serious problems sleeping lately. He gets restless and when he moves around in bed, I wake up. And sometimes I simply wake up on my own. Then my head starts going and I can’t get back to sleep. At times, my head is filled with worries. But sometimes it’s filled with nonsense. Either way, it keeps me from sleeping.

I don’t do well without sleep. But the truth is, even when I get up after a sleepless night and think that there is no way I can get through the day, I usually get through it just fine. I have stingy eyes and I’m this close to being irritable, but I get through it.

Don’t you envy the way dogs and cats sleep? Scout will get up, go outside to do her business, come back in, drink some water, and promptly fall right back to sleep. For hours.

Of course, our animal friends live in the present. They don’t worry about the future, they don’t regret the past. They live in the NOW, a place that few of us humans can exist in for more than a minute or two.

So here’s my question for the day. What do you do when you can’t sleep? Do you get up and read? Do you do a crossword puzzle? (I’ve been known to do that.) Do you just stay in bed and toss and turn? Do you watch television?

Please share.

Happy Thursday.

Sunset, Scarf & Scout (and Cold!)

November 9, 2012 at 9:15 am by Claudia

Oh boy. It’s friggin’ cold here this morning. I am currently wearing a wool cap, a shawl is draped around my shoulders and a quilt is draped around my lap. Yikes. Don threatened to take a picture of me in this get-up for my readers, but I squelched that idea. Our furnace/oil guy, Gino, gave us two space heaters to use and they are helping enormously but I’ve realized what a difference it makes when you have no heat coming up from the basement. Somehow the temperature in here seems much colder than yesterday morning when we still had some residual heat rising from the basement. The new boiler will be put in later today. It cannot come soon enough. It went down to 27° last night.

But even though this is a pain in the tush, it is nothing compared to what those who lost power during Sandy are going through. I just saw an update from one of my former students who lives in NJ with his wife and children. They are on their 11th day without power. 11 days. So I will shut my mouth now and cease complaining.

This was the view out my kitchen door last night. I was so intrigued by the cloud that is low on the horizon. Doesn’t it look like an angel’s wing? It was so beautiful. Far more beautiful than my camera could capture. I love sunsets. Winter sunsets seem to be even more extravagant in their beauty. Perhaps Mother Nature knows she needs to step up the color?

My favorite subject. Scout was in a playful mood here as we wrestled a bit on the living room rug. Oh that girl has such lively eyes. She will be 14 in January. How can that be? The other night, as it was snowing, I let her outside. I came back a few minutes later to see her frolicking in the snow: running around, pouncing, smiling. Thank goodness she still has a lot of puppy in her! I am totally besotted by her and always have been.

I’m missing Riley a lot lately. It’s been almost 3 months since we said goodbye to our boy. Remember the stories about Scout and Riley barking together? Scout would bark, then Riley would bark, then Scout would bark? Don and I would howl along with them. When I was playing with Scout the day this photo was taken, I started to howl. I hadn’t done that since Riley left us. She stopped her barking, gave me a surprised look and came over and licked me on the lips. When I did it again, she did the same thing. She knew. She misses her brother. So do I.

There’s a new scarf in the Etsy shop:

This one is in the softest wool and acrylic – really, it is so soft that even I (sensitive to wool) can wear it. Update: Sold Out. I’m starting another one later today.

I’ll be back later today – at 8:00 EST – for A Favorite Thing.

Happy Friday.

Featured and the Furnace

November 8, 2012 at 8:52 am by Claudia

Good morning! The good news is that we got very little snow. Just a smidgen. The bad news is that our furnace has stopped working. Oh joy. It’s very old and I’m very nervous that we may have reached the point where it has to be replaced.

Sometimes I miss the days when we could call our landlord. We’re waiting for Gino, our trusty oil and furnace guy, to check it out. I’m sitting here with a coat on over my flannel pajamas not-so-merrily typing away on my laptop.

I don’t know if you’ve discovered Jennifer Carroll’s blog, Celebrating Everyday Life, but it’s simply gorgeous. She is an amazingly creative woman. She owns an event planning company, she is a designer, a stylist, publishes a beautiful e-zine and designs beautiful printable paper products. Brenda and I discovered her blog a few months back and oohed and aahed over her wonderful sense of style.

I am honored to be featured today in Jennifer’s weekly series entitled {Blogs I love}. She wrote a lovely post about Mockingbird Hill Cottage. I would love it if you would stop by and read it. Thank you, Jennifer, for your generous feature and your kind words.

Okay. Gino is here and let’s see what he discovers. Cross your fingers for us. Update: The boiler is shot. Have to get a new one.

Happy Thursday.

Question Of The Day: What Do You Do When You Can’t Sleep?

Sunset, Scarf & Scout (and Cold!)

Featured and the Furnace

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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