Sophie's Story

           One of the things my mother always told me was that I was a messy kid. For some reason putting things away was not something I cared about. Mom tried to teach me to put things away by hiding toys that I didn't put away. (I thought we might find  two lost dolls when we cleared the house after my parents moved out, but I think she may have thrown them away.) Once my brother got into high school, he moved to a bedroom downstairs and my sister and I got our own rooms. My sister is much more organized than I am and was getting irritated by all my piles of stuff.          It got a little better when I got older. I lived in the dorm when I was in college. Out of respect for my roommates and people visiting, I kept things put away. It helped that I tended to have less stuff to leave around.          Once I got a place of my own, I kept things fairly tidy. The fact that I didn't have much helped a lot...

           This week I started a month long break from Facebook. This is the second year I've done it as part of my observance of the season of Lent. I remember how good it felt last year and how I planned to limit my use of that platform. After the month was over I slowly went back to my old habit of mindless scrolling.          Last year I remember it being hard to stop looking at it. I had to hide the links on my phone so it would be harder to get to it. Over time it got easier.           This year it seems to be no problem at all. One thing I knew I needed to do was find something to replace the time I spent scrolling. I haven't found a new knitting project to start yet and I didn't want to spend my time staring at You Tube videos. I was looking for something on a the shelf under my coffee table when I found a book of word search puzzles.           I opened it and saw t...

           Hi! This is Barnaby. I'm a handsome, fluffy, white and orange cat. I want to write about how much I love my humans.          My humans are Sophie and C. They are very good to me. I love them very much.          They have a lot of toys for Willow and me. I like to play with the toys. My favourite toy is this ball that rolls all by itself. It has a tail that I can chase. Sometimes I grab the tail. It runs on batteries and sometimes needs to be plugged in. One of the things I like about it is that it stops when I get tired of playing with it. I was playing with it a few weeks ago and it stopped, but I can't find it and neither can my humans. I hope we find it toon. I miss it.          I have other toys to play with. I like balls and springs. Every morning I bring a ball to Sophie so she can throw it to me. The rule is I have to bring the ball back to her and set it on the cou...

           We were eating breakfast last week when both of us noticed a strange smell in the kitchen. It was that warm plastic/electrical smell that always bodes trouble. After some wandering around, we confirmed that the smell was coming  from the microwave. The smoke coming out of the vent after I heated a cup of tea confirmed our suspicions.           After checking the plug to make make sure there were no sparks, C prudently unplugged it. Our plans for the next day had changed. We were going to go microwave shopping.          I use the term shopping loosely because we weren't really going to go to different stores. There is one locally owned appliance store down the street and that's where we went. We have bought things from them before. We prefer to patronize the smaller businesses when we can. It may cost slightly more but the customer service is better. If we have a problem with our purchase...