September

 

Hello and Happy Labor Day! I for one am always glad for the "official" reminder that a lot of the things we take for granted - set working hours, a limit to working hours, etc. - are in place thanks to labor unions. Even if you are not a union member, you benefit from many things they fought long and hard to gain.

So here we are with Labor Day actually taking place on the first day of September, which for many people, marks the start of a new year. I have been out of school since approximately 1893, and I still think of Labor Day and the beginning of September as a new start. This year is no different, but I'm taking a slightly different approach.

As you may have heard me blather on about mention, I have been working hard to create new exercise/activity habits, along with my niece Amanda and my friend Lisa. We all keep each other updated and accountable, and I have to say, this has worked better for me than anything else. Having support and people who give you grace when you fall short of what you hoped to do is game-changing in my life. Not that I didn't have support from The Tim before, but it makes a big difference when you are also supporting the others as well. The Tim has always been pretty fit and never has health issues for the most part, so he didn't really need me saying "Good job" to encourage him to continue.

My niece Amanda has a personal practice that I'm going to try to adopt for myself. Instead of trying to keep track of overarching goals over the course of a whole year, she thinks about what she hopes each new month can be. In her case, she creates a type of vision board and uses it as her wallpaper on her phone. I am not that advanced, but I like the idea of thinking/working on a month-by-month basis rather than a yearly one. So starting this month, that's my new practice. I have a few things roughly thought out, but one of my activities today is to actually put them on paper - yes, I still use paper! - so I can see them and remember them more clearly than if I just tried to put them in my brain for storage. 

I'll let you know how/if this works for me, in case you are interested in trying it. Though it wouldn't be surprising to know that a lot of you already do this type of thing, since you are more on top of your lives than I may be. 😊

So here we go - enjoy these -BER months!

*****

Thank you for the nice comments for me and especially for Alfie and his newfound freedom to roam in the garden. We spent a good deal of time out there this weekend, and here he is just enjoying the chance to be outside. 

In the comments, Jose asked if Alfie was on pain medication because I mentioned that he is declawed. First of all, before you give me a lecture about the evils of declawing cats, please know that when we got him, he was a three-legged, declawed cat already. So we were not in any way involved in that. 

But to answer the question, Alfie doesn't take medication at all. He doesn't seem to be in any pain, and gets around very well - especially if he is chasing something! He goes to the vet regularly (as do the others), and we have never had any indication that he is uncomfortable. So as far as we can tell, and based on his activity levels, Alfie seems to be just fine as he is.  He was on medication briefly last year for ear problems, but those are resolved, and now he's just busy in his true destiny of Nature Cat. 

I hope all of you have a good holiday, if Labor Day happens where you are. Unfortunately, it turns out that The Tim did in fact have to labor today, so we'll be glad to see him later to have a good evening. I'm going to attempt to make shrimp kebabs for dinner, so wish me luck!