"Today is Valentine's Day. Or, as men like to call it, Extortion Day."-JAY LENO

Gemma showing off her battle scars:

Joey's joy at Gemma's homecoming:

And last but not least...

"As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat."

Tuesday night my Jeep hit a wet patch and I skidded out and rear-ended a car in front of me. No one was hurt but the back end of the car will pretty much have to be replaced. There was no damage to the Jeep thanks to the plastic bumpers. The cop basically saved me $116 by giving me an "official warning citation" which shows as a ticket on the report but saves me the money.

But, good news! We caught Gemma last night! We were out "cat hunting" and just when we were giving up Daniel saw her. We sat there for about 10 minutes and called her and she eventually came right out of the trees and ran right to me. We figured she was covered in fleas (not too hard to deduce since she was scratching like crazy) so we gave her a bath which she hated, naturally. She is acting a little bit weird. Her meow used to be really high-pitched and sounded almost like a bird, and now it is lower, and she is meowing a LOT. We think she got in a fight too because she has a battle scar on her nose that is pretty big, about half an inch long. She is also apparently fearless now. She tries to run out the door every time we open it and every time she gets in trouble she just looks at us like, "You can't be yelling at me, I'm a free woman now!"

She's also cuddling on me pretty much every chance she gets and she hasn't looked twice at Daniel. It's weird! He did all the work though. He was really good at seeing all the cat eyes in the dark when I couldn't see them at all, and he saw Gemma right when we were about to go inside. Yay for the Cat Hunter!!

When it rains, it pours.

My week:

Daniel having no luck with job hunting.
Gemma running away last night.
Being sick.
My much looked-forward to weekend being entirely taken up by looking for the cat, with no result so far.

Usually I at least try to be optimistic but I'm just not in the mood today.

New addictions

1. SMOOTHIE KING. Oh man, do I need to break this addiction and quickly. It's so expensive! Sorry, but one 20 oz strawberry-lemon smoothie should not cost almost five bucks. That doesn't stop me from buying them though. :) Also, I tried my first attempt at making my own strawberry-lemon smoothie in my food processor yesterday... success!! Although I'm not sure why Smoothie King's smoothies don't have strawberry seeds in them and mine do. It's a work in progress.


2. Curling my hair. My hair is so thin that it will never hold a curl, but lately I just want it to be curly. I've tried hot rollers, curling irons, and last night I used the tried-and-true sponge rollers. Well, I got the curls all right! Ever seen the lady with the triangle hair from Dilbert? I won't show you any actual pictures of my hair this morning but that's pretty much what I look like right now. Another work in progress. P.S. My hair is going to take about an hour to wash tonight.


Yeah, those are pretty much the things keeping me busy these days.

As for Daniel, he had an interview at a place that does security at old folk's homes, etc, so keep your fingers crossed for him! My hubby, the (possible) rent-a-cop.

(That movie got horrible reviews, but it looks funny to me!)

early Valentine's day

Daniel and I have a habit of always giving Christmas, birthday, etc, presents to each other early. In fact, I can't remember the last time we gave them to each other on the appropriate day. So tonight I got my very early Valentine's day gift.

The box and card

Close-up of the beautiful bow that Daniel tied himself! I was so impressed that I had to take pictures!

TA DA! My very own spoon bracelet. Basically, a bracelet made of the ends of 2 antique spoons. I have been wanting one of these for a long time.

My face after I saw it (not really. I promise my chin isn't that huge!)

So Daniel is happy because he doesn't have to think about Valentine's Day anymore (he described it as "trying to outsmart Cupid") and I have my spoon bracelet. And they all lived happily ever after.

Food for thought

"It's who you are and the way you live that count before God; your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship."
-JOHN 4:23-24

I found this verse on the back of an old Christian band t-shirt I found and I looked up the verse in my Bible. The words are much different but this modernized verse really makes me feel good.

The high for today is 24 degrees!

This morning I skipped all of my classes because if MTSU thinks I am going to walk for any extended period of time in 7 degree, negative 5 degree windchill weather they are sadly mistaken!