Cats, Housecleaning, Remodeling and Eagles

As most of my readers know, I've got a sleeping disorder that other than affecting my ability to stay awake wreaks havoc on my ability to focus.  Seriously.
Well, we're down to 17 cats in the house now, thank goodness!  We had one adopted last night and another lady is coming to look at one tonight.  Having so many in the house makes housecleaning not only a constant, but a constantly BEHIND.  It seems like no matter how much I clean there's still more to clean.

How many cats is too many?  Mine!

Part of that, I'll admit is my lack of ability to declutter, which I've been working on.  Until it's completed, cleaning is going to be harder than it should.  On top of that, I have a bad habit of starting projects and not finishing them.  Like my kitchen cabinets.  They were installed when we had the house built and are builder grade cabinets.  I've never liked them, and finally decided I wanted to paint them white.  I finished all the painting except for the two on the opposite side of the kitchen which is just as well, since I've decided I don't like the white.  So now, most of my cabinets are white, a couple are wood tone and a few are blue, oh and one is pink.  Yeah, staining over paint doesn't work.  I mean I knew it wouldn't but I thought I might like the color.  I don't.  

For the record, I look NOTHING like Barbie!

Then there's the countertops.  I decided I was going to paint them too.  I got two cans of textured paint and a little bottle of copper glaze and went to town.  Everything was going great until I ran out of the spray paint.  When I got another can, it didn't perform the same way so a section of the countertop looked different than the rest which meant sanding down that entire portion.  I also didn't realizing sanding would be so hard.  That stuff is like crazy glue!  Soooo, my cabinets are less than half done, my countertops are a little more than half done.
Now I'm in the process of taking up the carpeting in the downstairs.  We're going to get insurance money to have the kitchen floor repaired, but I was planning on doing the installation myself, that way I can get laminate at our local salvage store and replace the flooring in the entire downstairs with just the money it would cost to replace the kitchen flooring.  The problem is that I've got too  much furniture.  How do you move everything in one room to pull up carpet when there's no room in the other room for the furniture.  Easy right?  I've decided I'm going to just start cutting out squares of the carpeting, then move one piece at a time out and cut out that carpeting until it's all done.  The problem is I'm married.  
How is that a problem?  The hubs immediate has concerns that the house will get cold if we don't replace the flooring right away and I'm not quite ready to do that.  On top of that, there's the small problem of the unfinished do it yourself jobs and the long list of more do it yourself jobs I've got in the wings.
Like what, you might ask?

I want an island!!!!!

and fewer walls!

1.  Ripping out half the floor cabinets in the kitchen to move the dishwasher and install an island.
2.  Sanding the kitchen cabinets back down to wood and staining and finishing with chalkboard paint for the doors.
3.  Getting rid of the current "living room" furnishings and turning that room back into a dining room (you know since the island won't leave room for a table!)
4.  Hacking an old desk into pieces and salvaging the hutch on top to use as shelving and getting rid of another old desk to be replaced with the "new" desk that's currently sitting in the middle of the office.  (on top of the carpeting that has to come out!)
5.  Sanding and refinishing the staircase.
6.  Building a detached garage.
7.  Expanding the back deck.
8.  Restoring two antique chairs.
9.  Building two bookcases for the bedroom to flank the double window.
10.  Replacing the kitchen sink.
11.  Building access doors for the upstairs plumbing in both closets.
12.  Tearing out two load bearing walls in the den/office/foyer to open the rooms up.
13.  Installing new laminate flooring in the den/office/living room or depending on how the projects end up, the dining room lol
14.  Finding a corner cabinet to replace the sink cabinet in the master bath.
15.  Painting the entire interior of the house.
16.  Adding crown molding to the den.
17.  Ripping out the double window in the kitchen to replace with french doors, once the back deck is expanded.
18.  Building and installing new shelving for the utility room.
19.  Getting rid of at least half the "stuff" in my entire house, which of course involves a truck and many many trips to the dump and Goodwill, or a major miracle.
20.  Builidng an all in one cabinet with a liftable top to create a "covered" litterbox that's still easy to clean and would work as a window seat too.
I think I'll stop the list now, I'm depressing myself.  Ugh!
So you're wondering where the eagle part comes in right?  Well apparently, we have a mated pair of eagles living just off the James River here in Richmond and they've just mated and laid two eggs.  How is that a problem you might ask?  The CCB (Center for Conservation Biology) is doing a study on the ecology of the mated eagle population along the Chesapeake Bay.  As part of that project, they've installed live action cameras on the nests.  You guessed it.  I've been watching the eagles.  They did a contest or a poll of some type for Richmond and the city named the eagles Virginia and James.  Virginia of course for the state and James for the river.  Pretty cool.  She's such a good momma!  I've been mesmerized.  James brings her fish and twigs and grass, and every once in a while, she'll take off a fly a bit and you can see the little eagle eggs laying there.  Sometimes she'll take off and he'll settle over the eggs to take care of them until she comes back.  It's totally fascinating.  You can click here if you want to check them out!  It's worth the click!
To end this particularly rambling post, let's put one and one and one together shall we?
Cats = constant cleaning.Remodeling = focus and ability to stay awakeCats + Remodeling = Bigger MessCats + Remodeling + Cleaning = Lots of work.Eagle Cam = Total Distraction.
So cats + cleaning + remodeling = Good.Cats + cleaning + remodeling + eagle cam = Bad.
Somebody send help.  Please!?!?!?!?!?  
I've gotta go for now, Virginia is being awfully cute today!

Virginia and James, aren't they fabulous?

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If I Could Change One Thing.....

Okay so, I asked you guys to ask me anything and I got some good questions, but only from a few of you!

I'm still taking questions though, figured it would be a fun way to help you guys learn more about me, and perhaps entertain as well!  AubrieAnne really kicked it into high gear and gave me a bunch of questions, but the one I'm picking for today is....

(insert drum roll here)

If you could change one thing about your daily routine, what would it be?

Yes, I know I picked the easiest one first, but alas there's a reason.  Kiddo had her first day of work today and it was my stepfather's birthday, so I'm just now getting around to posting here and didn't want to skip the day, so here ya go.

If I could change one thing about my daily routine, I'd definitely add more waking hours.

While most people have sleep disorders that keep them awake, I've got one that makes me wanna sleep.  Pretty much all the time.  I get up and an hour later, I'm ready to take a nap.  When I was tested, I fell into REM sleep within two and a half minutes of laying down.  At night, and at four separate times during the following day.  After seven years of Ritalin and Adderall, they've become non-effective so I'm pretty much on my own until someone comes up with a new drug.

I can tell you that it's difficult to get everything done in eight hours.  It might be easier if they were eight consecutive hours, but I get through my day usually in two to three hour increments of being awake.  On top of that, the issue is compounded because the disease also affects focus and concentration, so I can start out washing the dishes and leave them half done to go rake the yard.  Needless to say it's challenging to keep up with the normal day to day housework that needs to be done, much less anything else.

I make fun of it a lot, laugh about sleeping my life away and I'm generally a pretty positive person, but it's quite frustrating to be honest.  I guess the humor is a coping mechanism because some days it would be pretty easy to just sit down and cry.

So yep, that's it.  I'd add about ten hours less sleep and have the spotless house that I've always wanted, and well, plenty of hours in the day to blog.  We won't even go there.  Writing is my heart, whether it's a book, or a poem or a blog post, so yeah, pretty sure I do a lot more writing and a lot less cleaning than I probably should, but the dustbunnies haven't taken over and demanded a ransom yet, so I think we're okay!

Great questions AubrieAnne, thanks for the reply and I'll catch another one (one that requires a bit more thought) on tomorrows post!

When Writing Goes Wrong...or Right....or Write.....UGH!

I'm beginning to think I'm a narcoleptic with attention deficit disorder.

How the heck does that work anyway?  I'm supposed to be doing Nano and what am I doing?  Writing and making new blogs.  Okay, so maybe I had some help from my kiddo, but still.  My novel remains largely untouched and I'm getting pissy about it.  Chase is strangely quiet and stuck in freeze frame outside her apartment building while life goes on around her.  Let's just hope Stevie doesn't find another crush while she's there.  I've actually got a picture of her in my head, and she's an action figure.  Ugh.  This is NOT good.

So what happens when you get stuck on a scene?

My husband keeps telling me to skip it and move on, but I caaaaaaaaaaaan't!  I've tried.  I know there are some writers who can write random scenes from their novels completely out of order but so help me, I haven't figured out how to do that.  Maybe I could use my cleaning methods on writing?  Hubby complains about that too.  I start cleaning by vacuuming, and the next thing you know all the furniture is in the kitchen and I'm painting the walls, and a couple or maybe dozen hours later the room is clean and spotless and has that new paint smell.  It works there, why can't I get it to work when I'm writing?

I know the narcolepsy has a lot to do with how I do things.  When I was on the Ritalin, I was focused.  Sharp.  Alert.  Even when I was sleeping 14 hours a day.  Wow, those were the days.  TEN whole hours of awake and alert.  My how far we've fallen.  Now I'm  up at noon, napping at two and six and nine and back in bed at twelve.  Is it any wonder I can't write?  At least my novel.

Instead, I start a new blog.  Yep.  One that's not work.  Just fun, all the time.  I guess writing is writing but unless someone wants to syndicate my blogs and pay me scads of money (in that case, have your lawyer call my lawyer and we'll work that out) it's not doing me any good financially where a novel, in my wildest dreams mind you, might make me some money.  One day.  A little.  Maybe.

Maybe Chase is just tired, but I'm about ready to shake her ass awake so she'll start talking again.  In the meantime, I'll just keep writing for fun and fortune (hint hint) and fame (more hints) and let the pages flutter as they may!  Maybe soon the pages won't look like these.