It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I love the Christmas holiday season! I know for many people there’s a lot of stress due to money worries and buying gifts. But I find the best gift of all is the gift of time. So instead of getting presents for everyone I just do my group events and spend time with friends and family. It makes for a fun stress free holiday and brings in the true meaning of the holidays. It’s not about what you buy for someone and what they give you. It’s about spending time together, having fun, being good to each other and making memories.

I’ll pick up a few minor gifts for my closest BFFs but I’ll be spending most of my time away from malls doing the Santa stumble pub crawl, tacky Christmas outfit party, Christmas lights skates and bike rides plus many other fun outdoorsy adventures.

So think about your planned holiday activities. Are you enjoying the true spirit of the season? Does the season mean a new big screen TV or fun times with family and friends? I’ve made my choice and offer it here as an alternative to consider. But only you can decide what’s best for you and your family. Make sure its based on what you want and not what marketers have told you should want to be happy…after all they only make money by making you not happy with what you currently have.

Cat ‘Deck those Halls’ Cathy

Face Who?

I have a Facebook account. Gasp… I know this is shocking news (but you won’t find me under my Catastrophe name). I find Facebook (or fb as I like to write it) handy for catching up and seeing what old friends are doing … even though I almost never do this. Fb is also good for getting and sending party invites, sharing pictures and the occasional status update. I’m talking about things like “I got a promotion” not “I ate a burger for lunch”. But that’s it and I’m done with fb after these few uses. I totally don’t get the whole game and hug and poke and pillow fight things and anything else on facebook. If I want to play video games I will play real ones with good graphics. And if I want to poke someone…well I really don’t want to poke anyone and a real hug beats a virtual one any day.

I also don’t get the whole connect to my music and internet TV accounts. Why? I have music and TV accounts of course but why do I need to connect them to fb? Do my friends really need to know what I’m watching and listening to? I guess maybe I’d find a friend or two who shared an interest in some of my TV shows and wanted to discuss them. But let’s face it, I hardly have time to watch the shows let alone talk about them with my 400 plus ‘friends’.

I love all the new technology and I think we are truly blessed to live in a time with so many modern conveniences and ways to be connected to others. Unfortunately the most important way to be connected – face to face in person – seems to be getting lost since we are all too busy staying home and reading updates and then checking these updates while we are out with other friends.

Cat ‘A True Friend Would Plow my Field’ Cathy

Harpo

Somehow I got on an Oprah emailing list. I’m not sure how this happened since I’ve never been a big fan of her show. Quite frankly I just don’t get the appeal. I’ve watched a few shows and tried but it just wasn’t doing it for me. You’d think I’d like the show with my Greek ancestry as Oprah sounds much like OPA! But nope.

I saw a couple episodes with Dr. Phil or as I like to call him, Dr. Obvious. He would state very basic things like you really shouldn’t hit your wife. Really? Do you have to be a PhD to know this? Seems like common sense to me.

Then I saw an episode with a supermodel showing ‘bargain’ fashion finds. She showed a dress from the Oscars (or one of those entertainment events) made by some famous designer that was selling for $10,000. Then she showed a knock off she found for the bargain price of $1,000. News flash, $1,000 is a pretty hefty amount to pay for one dress. Sadly I think that’s more than my whole wardrobe costs!

Then there was that episode where a guy was sleeping with his best friend’s wife and everyone was shouting “Oprah, Oprah, Oprah”. No wait that was ‘Jerry’….sorry wrong show.

Lately my weight has fluctuated about 15 pounds so I like to tell people I’m a small scale Oprah or ‘Oprah light’. Perhaps the weight gain is due to all that Fried Oprah I’ve been eating…I mean fried Okra. It’s all so confusing.

Cat “yhtac” Cathy

Food, Glorious Food!

I’ve been planning to do a ten day fast for several months now but something always comes up. Namely a nice meal event always comes up that I don’t want to miss. When I think about it I’m surprised just how many of my activities involve food. Even if I go out for sports we always have food afterwards. That time dining together and socializing is very much a part of the fun and I don’t want to miss out.

I happened to catch part of a movie about juice fasting and I realized I had put my fast off for far too long. So on a whim I decided I would start my own juice fast the very next day! After all, it had been about 10 years since I’d completed a fast longer than 24 hours and I was well overdue. I drank fresh squeezed veggie and fruit juices, fresh brewed green tea with no sweetener and water for 64 hours straight. This was a personal record for me since the longest I’d ever fasted before was around 55 hours.

I really didn’t feel bad during the fast. I would get a minor headache and hunger pangs but these were short lived. The hardest part was answering the same question of ‘why’ over and over again. To me the answer would seem obvious. Most people fast for religion, health or to lose weight. For me it was mostly for health reasons. I wanted to cleanse and detoxify my system. I also just thought it would be interesting to try it and challenge myself. But after telling friends this several times I made up some better answers:

“To please my gods”
“The voices told me to”
“Chewing is so last year”
“I like all the pretty colors”

My results were good. My weight reduced a few pounds but I’m sure most of that was just no food in my belly. My health was fine and I felt slightly more clear headed than usual during the fast. Not only would I do it again I’ve already started planning it since a coworker wants to join me. I’m shooting for a new PR of 72 hours.

Juicy ‘Cat’ure

Mother Goosed

For four years running (or skating I should say) I have been a parade performer at a local theme park. Generally I get a role as a skater or backup skater doing other characters when skaters are not needed. I really enjoy this parade. It puts me in the Christmas Spirit and I’m always happy when I’m skating OR performing so combining the two makes me especially happy!

I auditioned this year and I thought I did really well. I even got a call back to learn a dance routine. That was a bit humiliating but I tried and I never claimed to be a dancer. So when I got my phone call I expected my usual skater role. I was all excited until they offered me…you guessed it…Mother Goose!

This is not a skating roll at all. The lady making the offer was acting like they were doing me a favor. I looked around at my fancy new office and professional engineering license and laughed. The thought of the extra stress and leaving work early every day for this piddly little role at about ¼ my current salary was somehow amusing in an insulting sort of way.

So naturally I turned the role down. I guess this is what happens when you are over 40. Suddenly you have to take the ‘Mother’ roles. I’m disappointed to say the least. My skating skills are still great and this role always makes the holiday season that much more fun for me. But I guess all things must come to an end. This is not the first or worst rejection/loss/disappointment I’ve had this year.

I chose to be happy in spite of all the disappointments and assume there’s some reason this wasn’t meant to be. I practiced for the audition and got a good night’s sleep. So I did the best I could and no regrets there. Maybe something better will come along or maybe I will get my parade fix in another local parade or somehow other good things will come along to make up for this. Wish me luck and best of luck to you in dealing with your losses and disappointments too!

Cat “Sk8er” Cathy

The Vacation That Never Was

I really lived up to my nick name this time! For over six months I’d been planning a trip to Europe. I was at the airport with my new clothes, hair freshly done, new skate wheels, snacks, Euros and maps of each city I was visiting including directions to everything I wanted to see and do. As you can tell I spent a lot of time preparing for this trip. I pride myself on being well organized and prepared. So as I excitedly went to the airport ticket counter to get my plane ticket an amazingly unbelievable thing happened. My passport was expired!!!

I couldn’t believe this was happening. It just seemed surreal. After a slight bout of sadness and anger…ok so I acted like a two year old throwing a tantrum...I decided to work on a plan to get a quick passport renewal. The next 24 hours were like something out of the amazing race except no fun and no big cash reward. After driving around town for forms, info and pictures I found out you could drive to Miami and possibly…maybe…if the moons and stars aligned just right…get a same day passport.

I headed to Miami at 3 a. m. After only two hours of sleep, a three and a half hour drive and waiting at the passport office for nine hours I FINALLY got to speak to a passport ‘agent’ or whatever you call them. And I was promptly told there would be no passport that day and no passport over the weekend either. I’d have to drive back down on Monday or have it mailed to my home on Tuesday. This was extremely disappointing news and I’m sadly disturbed by our passport office’s lack of concern or motivation. Yes I was the idiot who made the unbelievably stupid mistake but there should be a way to fit in a same day passport in emergencies like this. Especially considering you pay enough extra money for a same day passport to fund the extra man power it would require.

For a while I contemplated joining my friends six days later but I decided the extra flight money and shorter vacation time made it not really worthwhile. Since I was very disappointed once I made this decision I tried to be more Zen and realize everything happens for a reason. For some reason I was not meant to go to Europe at this time. (I know the reason…I was stupid). We tried to make light of it and decided it was the butterfly effect at play. Somehow by me not going to Europe over 100,000 lives were saved! I have no clue how but it kinda put the missed trip in perspective and made me laugh.

Once I made the decision to bail on my Europe trip I decided to still take a week off from work for a staycation. I felt bad that I let my two vacation friends down and that I wouldn’t get the change of scenery but this seemed like a decent back up plan. Especially since I live in Orlando which is one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations.

Since I was on vacation, even if I was still in town, I changed up my normal routine. I spent my week off zip lining, orienteering, snorkeling, kite boarding, reading, movies, water parks and mountain biking. So it wasn’t all bad but was probably the most expensive staycation ever since I still had to pay for much of my Europe trip.

Every time I find something I prepared for the trip I get a little reminder of my big mishap. After yoga I used the special conditioner I purchased for the trip since I didn’t want to bring a full size bottle. Thankfully this wasn’t very good conditioner so I joked it’s a good thing I didn’t go or my hair would have looked bad and it would have ruined the whole trip. Then while skating I played music on my phone and had yet another reminder as I had uploaded tons of extra music to enjoy while on vacation.

After this fiasco I was debating if I wanted to keep traveling in the future. I love the adventure but it’s so costly, time consuming and stressful to plan a trip. Plus I get motion sickness which takes away some of the fun and limits what I can do. As I was contemplating this information, a friend asked me to go on a skate trip to Thailand. Instantly I was happy and excited and looking forward to this new adventure opportunity. I realized I would not stop traveling but will be more careful in the future.

I had a lot of support along the way from friends just wishing me well to friends providing valuable information and especially driving me to Miami. Thanks to all of you! I truly feel blessed for my friendships and I won’t let a little thing (ok not so little thing) like missing Europe get me down for long.

Cat “10 More Years” Cathy

Road Rash

As I recently blogged about, I received some major road rash from my urban crit mountain bike race. With all my aggressive sports and hobbies not to mention my clumsiness I’ve been bruised and beat up many times before. Normally I just put some peroxide on the wounds for a few days and maybe some polysporin when I remember and pretty much let it scab up and then pick at the annoying scab until it’s gone and I have a pretty red scar. But this time was worse than usual so I did what I often do these days…I Googled. Yep, I wanted to know what the best way was to treat road rash as I never gave it much thought before.

The top Google hits referred to not letting the wound dry out and scab up. That scabbing prevents oxygen transfer and healing and that you should keep it moist with some sort of antibacterial cream and a bandage. So I decided my injuries would make a good science experiment and off I went to the pharmacy.

I wasn’t totally sure what to get so I ended up with a pretty full table of bandages, gauzes, wet dressings, tape and other miscellaneous interesting looking items. I had so much stuff I started telling my visitors ‘welcome to Pharmacy Island’.

This anti scab method was definitely more expensive than my normal ‘ignore it’ method. Some of that was due to my learning curve as I purchased several items that weren’t necessary. I also just never realized just how expensive first aid supplies are. Thankfully I saved some money when my $75 worth of wet dressings wouldn’t ring up at the register and I was only charged $3 thanks to a disgruntled CVS employee. Even with this windfall I still spent over $150 on supplies for my little science project experiment.

This anti scab method was also more time consuming and annoying. I dressed the wounds about twice a day but it seemed like I was always cleaning and changing bandages or worrying about the bandages staying in place

Another negative to this new anti scab method was the allergic reaction I had to the tape I used to wrap my bandages. I ended up with red swollen and itchy tape marks all around my leg that stayed around for over two weeks. Even now, over two months later, I can still tell where I placed the tape since the rest of my leg has tanned but the formerly taped allergic area is still white.

On the plus side the wounds were not painful and I didn’t have any annoying scabs that would itch and get picked at. Also it did seem to heal quicker since after two weeks of bandages I took them off for the last time and only had light pink skin. The light pink skin made it seem like I would have minimal scarring but after a few adventures in the sun they are now a much darker brown than the rest of my skin. So I’m dark brown where I had road rash, white where my tape had been and just in between tan everywhere else. It’s a very unique and interesting look that’s sure to be all the rage someday.

I don’t have a definitive answer as to which method is better but I would definitely try the anti scab method again especially now that I know what bandages to use and what to do. Here’s hoping you never need to try this for yourself and happy healing if you do.

Cat “Calico” Cathy