It took a lot of hard work to get it up and running, but it was totally worth it. To celebrate, I’m having a giveaway on my crafty blog.

The shop has been open for less than 24 hours, and I’ve already received so much support from my friends, both IRL and virtual. Seriously, it has meant so much to me, and I can’t thank everyone enough. Virtual hugs all around!

I have more to share this week, but will wait until I’m over the grand opening jitters. There are books! And kindnesses! And food! So much to talk about.

Until then – maybe you need some cute thumbtacks or pushpins?

(Hee. Couldn’t resist.)

After some online research and reading great reviews, we decided to try the Cat Clinic of Louisville. When we called on Friday, they had an appointment available on Monday the 5th. They also told us how to care for Zelda’s eyes in the meantime, which made me feel a little better.

Of course, by Saturday, Zelda’s eyes were fine. I suspect that they just got irritated by the vacuuming Mr. M did on Thursday and Friday. We decided to keep the appointment anyway, since both cats were due for their boosters.

What a fantastic experience! Granted, the cats never like going to the vet, so it’s not like they had a great time or anything. But not having dogs in the waiting room really cut down on the amount of stress. Knowing that the caregivers were specifically focused on cat care, and that all of the equipment was cat-sized was a relief. (For example – a small scale in the exam room made getting weighed a lot easier than trying to get weighed in their cages on a dog scale in the waiting room.) The staff was friendly and our vet, Dr. Jones, was fantastic. He was very attentive and personable, and answered all of our questions without trying to sell us on any additional items or procedures.

We also noticed a big difference in the price of the exam – it was much more reasonably priced than we expected. I suspect it’s because the clinic doesn’t require extra equipment to treat a large variety of animals, or need kennel space.

Now, look – I have no problem with dogs, or vets that service both dogs and cats, as well as other companion animals. In fact, I’m planning on getting a dog the day we buy our own house. But since we just have cats right now, I’m so glad we live in a city that can support a cats-only clinic, and I’ll recommend the Cat Clinic of Louisville to anyone with a feline. They’re fantastic.

Ruby and Zelda thinks so, too. Right kitties?

They were nice, but I’d rather not go back until next year, if you don’t mind.

Same here. And also, I’m sorry I tried to bite the doctor when he gave me my shot.

(Oh, who am I kidding. I’m not sorry.)

2. I still haven’t received my replacement credit card. I’ve been paying for everything with cash, and it’s amazing how I double and triple think every single purchase. I may try this cash-only thing for the rest of the month and see how it goes.

3. My etsy shop will be open soon! I made the announcement on my crafty site this morning, but in case you’re interested, Sweeter Lemon will be open for business on July 19th. I’m so excited! Yay!

That’s all for today! It’s my first day back at work after an extended weekend, so I’m trying to get my bearings. Happy Thursday!

1. I think the mama bird has decided her chicks are old enough to fend for themselves. Both times I was in the garage today, both chicks were alone in the nest with no mama. The chicks are HUGE, so I’m guessing they’re in their late teens and old enough to find a job and an apartment and fend for themselves.

The mama and one of the chicks late last week. Both chicks now take up the entire nest. Maybe mama just got tired of having no room to stretch out.

2. Also found today – it appears mama cleaned up a bit before leaving, pushing a non-viable egg out of the nest before she left. Which landed on our car. And broke. So that the egg ran down from our roof onto the back window. And with the heat, that adage “so hot you could fry an egg” was proven correct.

3. We got our car washed today.

4. After deciding on a strict budget, with no wiggle room for extra expenses, our cat Zelda has taken it upon herself to suddenly acquire some sort of allergy/eye problem. The poor girl keeps blinking and her eyes are all red and runny. So we’re off to the vet on Monday. We figure she’s a pretty good reason to bust the budget. In the meantime, we’re wiping her eyes with a damp cloth, and she seems fine otherwise. But still – woe is she.

5. Did I mention that yesterday, after I got the alert about my debit card, I received an e-mail from a different bank which holds one of my credit cards, mentioning “high-risk” activity? I called immediately, figuring someone must have stolen all of my credit card numbers somehow. Turns out? Very sneaky sales call. Just the universe playing tricks on me.

6. I fixed our running toilet this weekend. I feel like a superhero. But really, all it took was a $5 flapper from Lowes. But STILL. I’m a DIY badass.

7. This DIY badass could not figure out why it was 86 degrees in our apartment this afternoon. Until this DIY badass realized that we had turned the AC off last night, and forgotten to turn it back on today. I think I just lost my title.

And there you have it. My day in non-Tweets. And now to get ready for July 4th weekend (FYI, my favorite holiday), as well as a couple of days off afterward. The best part is that I’ll be able to sleep better, since the running toilet won’t keep me up all night. Just another reason to celebrate!

Not the best way to start the day, to be sure. A quick call to customer service, a verification that no, I did not try to buy $18 worth of merchandise and get $300 cash back from a Wal-Mart in Texas last night, and bing! My card has been cancelled, and a new one is on the way.

I loved that debit card. I’ve had it for a long time. So long, in fact, that I had the numbers memorized, which made it incredibly easy to use. Since I didn’t need to take the time to find my purse and dig out my card when I made online purchases, I lost those valuable “think it through” moments where I might have talked myself out of a few transactions. Impulse buying was not uncommon. I think most of my yarn stash was acquired this way.

In the long run, it’s probably a good thing that I have to get a new card. It won’t be on file at any of my favorite online shops. I’ll be able to think before I decide to purchase more fabric online, or get suckered in by the latest Old Navy online sale. Our budget has tightened up drastically lately, maybe by paying with cash in the coming weeks (because with the holiday, I don’t expect to get my replacement card for at least a week and a half) might actually help me save money, and be more cognizant of where I tend to spend more impulsively.

Really, this will be a good experiment. There actually might be a positive outcome to this inconvenient situation.

But trust me, next Tuesday? I fully expect to gripe about this for a few minutes. Maybe longer.

Mondays – granted, it’s a bummer because the weekend is over, but it’s a fresh start to a new week! Anything’s possible!

Wednesday – halfway to the weekend!

Thursday – if I made it this far, I can make it the rest of the way.

Friday – always feels a little celebratory, because I made it through the week. TGIF!

But Tuesdays really don’t have much going for them. They don’t have the shiny “new week” glow of Mondays, the rest of the week still seems pretty long in front of them, and they don’t have their own nickname like “Hump Day” or “TGIF!”

I noticed a few weeks ago that I tend to gripe a lot on Tuesdays. I think my natural disapproval of this particular day leads to a predisposition to nitpick at life’s annoyances.

Fearful that this foul mood would carry over into the rest of the week, I decided to adopt a new rule:

“I only gripe on Tuesdays.”

I figure if I already dislike Tuesdays, I may as well give in and take that day to really dig in and get grouchy. That leaves the other six days to maintain and develop a more positive attitude. Better to only kvetch one day of the week and let the other six remain somewhat more pleasant.

So far it’s sort of working. I’ve been catching myself here and there start down a path of negativity on Mondays and Wednesdays, but so far have managed to have an almost clean record. It’s hard when life throws curveballs, and I catch myself complaining about this or bellyaching about that. But for the most part, I’m really liking this adjustment.

I’m not sure what my family and friends think about this. It can make me seem a bit like Jekyll and Hyde, shifting attitudes from one day to the next. But in the long run, I think it’s a smart road to travel in an effort to be more balanced.

Because let’s face it – if I didn’t let myself gripe about anything, at all, ever? I might just explode. Wouldn’t you?

Flash forward a couple of years, and this is how I’m crossing that particular line off of the list:

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Derby City Rollergirls!

After reading about roller derby on Pamie and Jen’s sites for years, then reading Pamie’s book about it, I figured it was time to see a live bout for myself. On Saturday night, Mr. Martini and I ventured to the Manslick Rollerdome to watch the Derby City Rollergirls vs. Northeast Ohio Rollergirls. We had a great time!

The rink was packed with people, filling up the stands and shoulder to shoulder along the rail. Mr. M and I were lucky enough to grab a rail spot after a couple of guys vacated it for a chance to sit in the “suicide seats.” (The suicide seats are at either end of the track, and are not protected by a rail, so there’s a chance you could end up with a roller girl in your lap.)

The girls played hard, and the DCRG jammers were incredible – they were fast and wily and seemed to find holes between opposing blockers like magic. Our blockers were pretty impressive, too – my new hero is Jimi Hit Trix, who would look so casual as she hipchecked an opponent, seemingly with no effort whatsoever, and that opposing blocker would just go flying off the track.

Did I mention they were fast? They were very fast.

I thought I’d be out of place in my khaki shorts and sensible sandals, but the crowd was filled with every kind of person imaginable. Gray haired ladies, kids, punks, yuppies, hipsters, you name it, they were all there supporting their team, and having a great time.

I wasn’t sure if photos were allowed, so I didn’t bring my good camera. Next time, I definitely will to get some better shots.

Derby City in red, Northeast Ohio in purple

As the bout started, Mr. Martini turned to me and said, “This is fantastic. We should do stuff like this more often!”

Agreed. It was a great time, and I’m only sorry it was the last home bout of the season. We’ll definitely go back next year.

Oh, and I almost forgot – Derby City won the bout, with a score of 139 to 41. Woo-hoo!

For more info about the DCRG, check out their website.

We have a bird’s nest in our garage on our (non-working) garage door opener. Not sure what exactly we should do about this.

We kept an eye on it for a few days, figuring that if we didn’t see any birds in it, we’d get the ladder and take it down.

But we did see birds, or rather, this mama bird:

All things considered, this is a pretty ingenious spot for a nest. The sensors on our garage door opener have never worked, so we keep the door open all the time. She’s sheltered from the rain and wind and thunderstorms, and for the most part hasn’t messed up the roof of our car too badly. She’s a good tenant, despite the fact she doesn’t pay rent.

I was a little worried, though, because the past couple of weeks have been unseasonably warm. Think August type heat in early June, with high humidity and a heat index of over 100 degrees on several occasions. The garage may be protected from thunderstorms, but it doesn’t get much of a breeze.

Every night when I park the car, I always check on Mama Dove to make sure she’s still there. She’s so still, I was starting to wonder if that was her natural state, or if she was in distress.

Then last night, I think I finally saw some movement underneath her. I may have spied some baby bird looking feathers (it’s hard to get a good look). I’m keeping my eye on her to make sure all is well.

I hope they’re all OK, and are able to leave the nest without difficulty. Because Mr. Martini and I were planning to fix the garage door opener this spring before the Mama Dove made herself comfortable. Now we’re waiting to make sure the little family leaves on their own before we try to move the nest. Any advice from experienced nest movers would be greatly appreciated!

I got so much done this weekend, and none of it included housework. I started and finished a quilt top, I started and did not finish a knitting project, I worked on items for the Etsy shop (which, if all goes to plan, should be read to open next month! aiee!).

The craziest thing we did all weekend was walk to dinner on Saturday night. As it turns out, the heat index was well over 100 degrees, which explains why we were unable to move once we got back home.

You may notice that I have no pictures from my weekend exploits. That’s true. In fact, I have completely crashed and burned on my Year in Pictures project. Whoops! I just wasn’t ready to undertake a new photo challenge, and with everything else on my plate, this was the item that was easiest to let go. I’m a wee bit disappointed, but much happier now that I’ve made that decision.

In other news, I’ve redesigned my crafty site, in case you’d like to check it out. If anything looks wonky, please let me know. I’m also considering a redesign to this site, since I haven’t done that in about a year, which is about the time I start to get bored and make a site change. We’ll see if I actually do it this time, though – I’m kind of digging the laptop girl.

Happy Tuesday!

One thing to note: I read all of these on my iTouch, using the Kindle app. My eyes never got tired, and I have to say I didn’t miss holding an actual paper book in my hands. I just had to make sure I was near an outlet for some particularly long reading sessions.
Going in Circles by Pamela Ribon

Newly married, newly separated girl finds solace in Roller Derby. Funny, heartfelt, and written by the always awesome Pamie of Pamie.com. It made me wish I was 10 years younger so I could buy some roller skates and pads and kick some ass on a derby track.

Spooky Little Girl: A Novel by Laurie Notaro

I love seeing what different people come up with as descriptions of heaven or the great beyond, which could explain why I liked the Lost finale so much. Here, Laurie Notaro spins a tale of the afterlife and spooks and ghosts very familiar (fix something on earth so you can move on) but is still original and fun. Great characters, and now I want a dog more than ever.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Oh, this book. I absolutely loved it. A sweet YA novel about a girl growing up in NYC in the late 70s, with some subtle sci-fi elements. If you’ve never read “A Wrinkle In Time,” or haven’t read it for a long time, I suggest re-reading it before starting this book. I highly recommend it.

That’s what I’ve been reading, but I’m out of books. Any suggestions for my next read?