Instagram Lately

I figured I'd share some fall related shots from life lately. 

This year I decided to go minimalist with the fall decor, opting for pumpkin decorations that would get us through till Thanksgiving (except my flower pumpkin in freaking molding from all this wet warm weather) and not Halloween specified decorations.

I normally love decorating, but I hate accumulating  all this stuff that I'll use for a month out of the year. And it's stupid expensive. It'll be interesting to see if my philosophy holds up for Christmas. I love Christmas decor but I would like to try to go the simple and sweet route this year.

The bottom picture is my current favorite. Numi, Ben's cat, may be the biggest cat jerk I've ever met but he's darn photogenic and as of today he's been missing for four days. We let him out Monday morning as per usual and he just hasn't been back. I'm starting to get worried because it's rained so much the past 3 days and Ben and I both have had to work all day. Today is nice and I have food set out for him so hopefully he'll be asleep on the couch in the breezeway when I get home.

He may be a jerk cat, but I'd rather know he was safe at home being a jerk than lost or hurt somewhere...

Also, I tried my hand at making popcorn cookies which turned out way better than I thought, I'll probably alter it a bit and get some white chocolate involved and maybe even post the recipe here!

Ben and I have gotten into the habit of hanging out together before church in the afternoon on Sundays. I really enjoy getting out of the house together. It's so easy to just fall into routines especially with our work schedules and never actually do anything together. We never do anything too crazy, run some errands then go have coffee downtown but it's special just to spend that time together and away from everything.

Hope your weekend goes well!

Some early morning images.

Good morning, from a very groggy me.

I've been awake since 5am and up and about since right before six. It seems that having a drink after seven in the evening is throwing off my sleep schedule again. This happened right after Ben and I got married- if I had a glass of wine or any alcohol the night before next day I would be up at dawn with my brain ON.

Oh well, I don't need to drink anyway. The most annoying thing about these times is my brain starts to worry. Mostly, about the normal things you'd worry about at 5am-money, your future, your animals. My brain does this so loudly that if I don't get up and do something I'll work myself into a panic. It's crazy really and doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Good news is, on days like today I tend to be super active and productive, so that makes me happy. I uploaded the pictures that I took with my still-broken camera. Its a Canon S95 so it doesn't have a view finder. I can still kind of make out an image on the screen so I vaguely know what the photograph looks like but focus and lighting are hit and miss.

See what I mean? Though I do think this makes for a neat picture especially since the subject is pretty mundane.

 And what kind of loosely cat-themed blog would I be if I didn't include multiple cat photos in one post? I feel a little guilty that Tazo is this blog's namesake but Ben's cat Numi tends to be more photographable! I chock it up to age differences-Numi's in his prime house cat years (2) and we've never figured out Tazo's age...though I'm guessing four or five since I found him full grown.

 Some of my cooking endeavors of late- my parent's farm fresh eggs, making broth to blanch chicken in and Sunday pancakes which I succeeded at for the first time!! (<<< here I go again with the exclamation points...their just infectious) I like the idea of a more "special" breakfast on Sundays. It's a nice way to spend a slow morning.

I strategically placed my desk in front of the window so now I can distract both cats from trying to lay across my keyboard by opening the window. This might get tricky in the winter, I may need to invent a laptop cozy or something.
I plan on trying some different decorating things in my new office space. I don't claim to be an expert decorator or even much of an amateur one, but with our new place I'd like to try. Limiting all of my experimenting to the office for Ben's sake.
Now, the sun and Ben are both up, one more confused and my being awake than the other.

Simply Saturday

1 & 2. The cats enjoying the semi open window in my office going crazy of the bird calls. =)
3. Ben in our garage finishing painting our t.v. stand that's supposed to be the same color as the stool behind him. I don't think it's quite that color, but it's still pretty. Our neighbor keeps telling him he needs to refinish furniture for a living like the amish? Ben keeps telling him he only likes it as a hobby.
4. Sugar. My plan is to give it up for one week starting Monday. A friend of my did this the first week of the year and says it helped greatly deplete her sugar cravings. Since I have fiendish sugar cravings especially at night I need to do this type a cleanse for sure. (photo source)

    Tonight I work my last shift at Target. It's a 7-hour cashier shift which I would rather not do, but I'm a strong advocate of finishing things on a good note, so in I go to ring up people's purchases while they watch me. I've never noticed that until I started cashiering, but people really do watch you as though they were waiting for you to mess up or something. Now that I'm conscious of it I hope I never do that to another cashier haha.
    Monday, I start at the hospital full time so I have to get myself on a real schedule again. I'm finally excited about the hospital; up till today I've just mostly been afraid of giving up my steady income and finally my fear has subsided. I know this is where I'm meant to be and I know that God takes care of me, so I'm leaving the rest up to him and being freaked out about it isn't going to change a thing. Saying that and believing it are two different things of course but I think I can do both now. Ben and I have spent our Saturday cleaning and finishing up a couple of things we've wanted to do. We also started watching 'Psycho' since we want to see the movie 'Hitchcock' we figured it would be nice to actually know what movie this movie is talking about. We didn't finish it today the warm weather has made us restless.
And! I hope by the beginning of the week to have a new book review up!

Has everyone else had a good Saturday?

Morning snapshots

1. My daily coffee. In the winter I could not make it through the day without it, and I have a giant bottle of peppermint mocha creamer which makes it all the better.

2. Big Boy, the last of the kittens that we found in September. His as big as his mother already and I know Ben and I both would love to keep him, but 4 cats is too many cats even for this lady.

3.Alfalfa sprouts! Ben and I really enjoy sprouts so we got our own grower. Tuna and sprout sandwich? Yes, please!

4.I've finished organizing my new "office" space and I love hanging out in here and so does everyone else!