3 am...

Jack sitting on the counter this morning with my DVD series

Yes, it was one of those 3 am wake-up calls.  They don't happen a lot, but do on occasion... and last night was one of those.  So I made a cup of hot tea, and the cats and I watched "Pie in the Sky". Then I went back to bed at 4, and slept until 7.  Not too bad. Had read somewhere that if you wake up in the middle of the night, you shouldn't force yourself to stay in bed... that if you're still awake 20 - 30 mins. later, to get up and do something.  So I did.

Anyway, I was also reading Chippers post about 'being silly' this morning.  He's right.  We forget how to have fun as we age.  To be honest, I can't think of many ways to have fun.  People party for fun. I've never been a party-er.  Guess I cook for fun, work on the pottery wheel, take pictures, read books, write stories... but most of these are solitary actions.  They don't need a crowd... or even other participants. I would love to learn to fly fish (but again, this can be done alone). When I try to think of fun with others, all I can think of is 'going out to eat'. We do do this. And I guess 'taking classes' qualifies as a fun group activity...  It's all very subjective.

Wrote up a list of my favorite things the other day (actually it was while I sat at the DPS waiting to renew my TDL).   Will figure out how to add those somewhere on my blog page. Which reminds me, my "spell check" here on blogger doesn't seem to work... any ideas?



Critter comforts

One of our coons at the back french door...

Ok, I admit it. We feed the coons... and the possums, and the box turtles (and an occasional bobcat or coyote... but the rebuilt fence has stopped the coyotes.  Besides, they were a threat to the other critters.) How can we not?  We put food outside for the birds and the feral cats.  Are we supposed to say, "No raccoons allowed!"  I know the reasons. But I'm sorry, if they are hungry, we're going to feed them.  And it's over 100 degrees here in Texas in the summer.  We provide water year-round... especially when the creek dries up... or freezes over (which generally doesn't happen). 

This picture is one of our regulars who comes to the kitchen door awaiting a hand-out. And no, we don't get that close... or try not to. They do bring their young in the morning and evening to eat and hang out by the water tubs. Their antics provide us and our kids and grand kids with endless entertainment. 

However, this particular site is supposed to be about our recent retirement... but these critters have been part of our pre-and post retirement life, so I can't not bring them up occasionally. I could do a blog just about our cats and critters, but I have too many websites and blogs out there already.  Getting too old to multi-task so I need to combine them all here.  Besides, my old site called "Cats, Coffee, and Chocolate" (my vices - such as they are) was basically about that.  All the old pictures and info about our cats was and still is there.  You only have to click on the navigation line to see pictures and read some of the stories of our cats. But I degress.

And I haven't anything much to add today anyway.  We are meeting some old friends this weekend. It will be wonderful to see them as we haven't got together in over a year. Now that we're all retired you'd think we could structure our time better...