Now it's okay to play them

I love holiday music. I start sneaking it into the daily repertoire a week or two before Thanksgiving, usually playing it on my computer in my office. Of course, my office is connected to Mr. L's office. He doesn't love holiday music as much as I do, although I will admit that our favorite local soft rock station starts playing it the Friday before Thanksgiving 24/7. That gets REALLY tiresome because you're liable to hear the same song 3 times during the day.  (We have it on in the kitchen just for background noise.)

Last year, one of my readers (and I really wish I could remember who it was), introduced me to Straight No Chaser, an a capella group. They're known for singing some pretty whacky tunes. I first heard their rendition of The Twelve Days of Christmas thanks to this Facebook friend. I liked it so much, I went straight to Amazon and bought one of their Christmas albums. (Christmas Cheer.) My favorites? That's a toughie. I think Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer. Why? Because not only have they a changed a few of the words, but it's a unique arrangement. I like different arrangements of familiar tunes. My Dad used to take me to The Arrangers Workshop at the Eastman Theatre From the time I was about 10 until I was in  my mid-20s. Great music from great guest artists.

Another of my favorites is Popular Christmas for a New Age. I got it at Wegmans (grocery store) for about $5 about 10 years ago. It was re-released last year with a new (icky) cover, but it's the same wonderful instrumental CD that I've been enjoying for the past 10 or more years. It's jazz/new age kind of music and, again, it's the arrangement of familiar tunes in a different way that makes it unique and enjoyable for me.

Another artist I like, whose done quite a few holiday CDs, is David Arkenstone. I like his Visions of Christmas (my favorite on this one is Tchaikovsky's Arabian Dance from the Nutcracker. I could listen to that all day and tire of it), Christmas Lounge, and Celtic Christmas, but the one I like most of all is Enchantment: A Magical Christmas. They're all instrumentals and, again, all great arrangements of familiar holiday tunes.

I also have a few piano only DCs that I play over and over again (ad nauseam, Mr. L would say). My favorite is one I picked up at Target a few years back called Relaxing Christmas Piano. For some reason, it's the first one I play every year.  My favorite cut is God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman, which is done in a rather somber key--but it's so different from any other version of that tune, that I find myself looking forward to it every time I put on the CD. (Yes, I still use CDs, but I also have everything on my computer or in the cloud, too, just so it's always available.)

In all I must have at least 50 holiday CDs and not all of them get played every year.

Why not share the title of YOUR favorite CD so that many of us can give it a try. It might just become one of my/our favorites, too!

Happy National Cake Day

Wouldn't you just LOVE to plunge a fork into that piece of cake???

Happy Thanksgiving!

Still Alive and Kicking

Sometimes you have to do things you don't want to do. Over the summer, I learned to stab my cat.

Actually, he's not at ALL my cat. Chester belongs to Mr. L and he suffers from kidney failure. He was going back and forth to the vet for a while and finally the vet (not OUR vet) said, in no uncertain terms, that if we didn't hospitalize Chester that he would die within a couple of days.

Why were we hesitant to board him?

Nine months before, we boarded Chester for 8 days when we took a trip. He needed to be medicated (for something entirely different) and my brother, who was taking care of the cats, wasn't up to that.  But every time Mr. L called to see how Chester was, he was inching closer to death. He wouldn't eat, he wouldn't drink. They were having to hydrate him every day. Finally, we called my brother and said, "Bring him him." He did, and Chester did a turnaround pretty darn quick. By the time we returned two days later, he was in the pink.

Fast forward nine months and Chester was going downhill. Mind you, he's 18.5 years old. We've never had a boy cat live that long. But he needed fluids every three days. For a while, we were taking him to the vet, but it got to be more and more inconvenient because they had to squeeze him in between appointments. And another thing, Chester does not travel well in the car. It was very upsetting for him to have to travel every three days to a place he despised.

So it was decided that Mr. L would learn to give Chester his fluids. We went to the vet, got our lesson in subcutaneous fluids, were handed a bag of lactated ringers and a bag of 18 gauge needles and sent home to do the deed. I was surprised that many of my readers/Facebook friends had also given their cats (and a couple of dogs) a new lease on life with fluids, and was grateful for their encouragement of "you can do this!"

For the first couple of times, Mr. L did the deed. But then no matter what we did, we were spraying ringers all around the kitchen, and Chester wasn't getting his fluids. That's when I took over. Some days it works well, and he doesn't flinch when I stab him, and some days it doesn't go well. The vet techs (and OUR vet) both assured us that they screw up on a regular basis, but not that we've ever seen.

We've been doing this for almost four months now and Chester is back to being his old self. He kills his Beanie Babies on a regular basis (distributing them around the house), he eats and drinks well, and he's usually on one of our laps at any given time of the day. (But mostly Mr. L's because ... you know, Chester owns Mr. L.)

To what lengths are you willing to go to keep a pet alive?

It's just WAYYYYY too early!

Every year it annoys me more. There I am on a bright, balmy afternoon, bringing in the mail (which, for some reason, still brings me joy even though the days of receiving letters and greeting cards is long past), and there it sits on the bottom of the pile. The first Christmas magazine.

Okay, the usual holiday barrage of catalogs had begun back in September, but I find it really jarring to read about Christmas before the first snow. (Unfortunately, that happened last week. But it rained later and everything melted away before we could get too depressed.)

This, of all years, I'm not nearly ready--or in the mood--for Christmas yet. Wayyyyy too busy.  And you know in early December when I am in the holiday mood, they'll be sending me magazines featuring Valentine's Day and St. Paddy's Day recipes.

Now the catalogs I like. I love the t-shirts and signage. They give me ideas for graphics.  Like this one I made earlier this week. Isn't Sarge just adorable? Couldn't you just pick him up and smother him with love? I'll be using it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

But getting back to those Christmas issues, I'm going to read them all (and so far four have arrived), but not until at LEAST Thanksgiving. Luckily, I have lots of other reading material (just found a cache of magazines from June and July I'd put aside and forgotten). I see it as delayed gratification.

So how do you feel about the early holiday barrage?

Join Kathy and Tori for Christmas on Lotus Bay!

Happy Book Day to me!  Christmas At Swans Nest, a Lotus Bay Mini Mystery is available today!


The holidays are fast approaching, and Kathy Grant is hard at work on the renovations of her soon-to-be bed and breakfast. An unexpected winter storm disrupts her friends’ plans, and it looks like her B&B will have to open a little early. And then there are the cryptic notes that hint of a treasure to be found somewhere in the house. Will Kathy and her friends find a cache of cash?

Kindle US: http://amzn.to/2cGphth
Kindle Worldwide: http://authl.it/B01M19K1B5
iBooks:  http://apple.co/2diJUi9
Kobo:  http://bit.ly/2dc8RMr
Nook: http://bit.ly/2dc8Qbw
Smashwords:  http://bit.ly/2dAGB8N