White Rabbit

It's March 1st, so that's White Rabbit. 

I used to work with a lady (Kay) who had this thing with her mom. On the first day of each month, they would try to be the first one to call the other and say "White Rabbit." My other co-worker, Hipty, and I added our own twist: on the last day of the month, you want to be the first one to say Black Rabbit. On Halloween, it's Black Skeletal Rabbit. We further added that if you aren't the person who said it first, you tell the other person that they suck. I'm pretty sure it was me that added that, he beats me to the punch a lot. Even though we haven't worked together for a long time, we stay in touch and still do this frequently. I think I should call him later and see if I can win this month.

If Kay ever explained to me how this got started, I can't remember. I should Google it.

I'm back on the blog because my sister is considering starting a blog for Haven in the Hollow. Her yard is an officially sanctioned bird and wildlife refuge, and she gardens prolifically. I'm very envious of her as she lives in northern Iowa, where wonderful brightly-colored birds are native to the area and/or live there a good part of the year. She gets birds such as the indigo bunting, Baltimore orioles, humming birds and CARDINALS! We see plenty of hummingbirds when we camp in the mountains but most of the those other birds never come out here. I have heard a few reports of random cardinals in Colorado, so maybe someday... We have lots of brown birds here, such as the bazillion sparrows that visit my bird feeder.
In any case, while I was messaging with her about Blogspot, I came to my blog and realized I haven't written in almost a year. I get these bugs about it and have good intentions of blogging more regularly, then life and Facebook and Pinterest get in the way.Now I'm back and having intentions again!

A lot has happened in the past year. I managed (by the skin of my teeth - and where does THAT expression come from, anyway?) to refinance the mortgage by myself. That means that after August, my roommate will be moving out and my mom will be moving in. We're all full of plans to put in new carpet (a MUST) and paint the outside of the house as well as a couple of rooms inside. I have to get a baseboard heater installed in the room that Mom will be using, as it currently has no heat. Can I just mention that heating a house with electric baseboard heaters is perhaps the stupidest idea ever? There is no forced air and the heaters are all under windows, so guess where most of your heat goes? Unless I won the lottery, there is no way to convert to having a furnace, as there is NO duct work in the house at all.

The even bigger change for me is that the company I had worked at for 28 (holy crap!) years closed in August of last year. The accounts were sold to another print company in Boulder, and as I tease my old boss, I was sold as well. I'm of course happy to still have a job (printing is not exactly a booming industry) but it has been and continues to be a huge adjustment for me. I had been almost fully in charge of my old company for the past few years. Now I'm just doing customer service and I'm in charge of NOTHING. Apparently I have control issues. Who knew?