One day, the guys were tearing down equipment to take it to a show. I was sitting at the top of the stairs that lead from the back door to the kitchen, and the guys were outside loading the drum kit into the truck. There was no one else in the house except for me and Riley, an extremely old cat that belongs to Jim. All of the sudden, I hear a thump, thump, thump, directly above me. My first reaction was “What the mother fuck was that?” I was a little weirded out, but nothing terrible.

I go to investigate and make sure that Nate’s sister didn’t just come home. No one had come through the front door, it was still locked. Riley was asleep in the dining room and hadn’t moved. What the hell did I just hear?

So I ask Jim if anyone has died in the house. He says that he’s not for sure, but it’s not unlikely.

I’m now convinced their house has a little ghostie, someone who wears heavy soled boots. And I know that he is a man. I don’t know how I know, but I do.

Fast forward to this evening. Branden and I were getting ready to leave, and Riley comes down the stairs and sits on the banister, meowing. Usually this means PET ME, PET ME, PET ME, in Riley speak. She’s old, I like to oblige her.

So I go up to her and start petting her, and I kiss her head. I pull away and she whips her head around, looks up the stairs, and hisses. This is pretty unusual behavior for her. She’s crotchety, but not mean. I mean, she’s like 80 in cat years. So I was confused, but I let it go. I walk off to go to the bathroom, and Branden comes to pet her as I leave. When I came back from the bathroom, we left, and came home.

We’ve been watching My Ghost Story on Bio because we love ghost stories. We got to talking about the ghost at the studio house, and Branden tells me that after I went to the bathroom, Riley kept looking back up the stairs. This affirms my ghost theory.

Do you have any ghost stories? I’d love to get to know the ghost at the studio house and figure out who it is and why he’s there.

I finally talked him into going with me, and we were going to get some Taco Bell, since it’s right down the road from our house. It’s also connected to the gas station we frequent, and Branden wanted to get a Monster.

So we get to the Bell, and I pull up to the drive through menu. Before we can order, we’re informed that they have run out of both ground beef and steak. And also, they don’t have the chicken bacon ranch tortada anymore. With a quick “Nevermind, thanks,” we pull out of the drive through to go to a different Taco Bell.

Branden was confused since I didn’t stop at the gas station to get his Monster, and I said that I’d get it on the way back to the house. We would have to come back anyway, so it wouldn’t be too much of a hassle.

I pulled around the building, and as I’m waiting to pull out onto the road, a man drives by in a very old car.

It looked very similar to this.

Now, a man driving a classic car is no news. They’re everywhere. Especially this weekend, since there are a couple car shows in the area going on. The thing that got me was the fact that he was driving this car around, at ten to two in the morning… wearing goggles.

Yes. GOGGLES. I mean, if he’d been wearing a scarf and an aviator hat he would have looked just like Snoopy. It was even better than the cane guy.

And that, people… is something you just can’t make up.

Today is my day to post in Daydreamz WeBlogIt challenge thinger. This weeks theme is pets. I see it as another opportunity to let you in on a little of my crazy. Because really, there’s a whole lot of crazy going on here, and you just can’t handle it all at once. Let’s get started.

My foray into the pet owner world came later in life than most. I didn’t have a pet at home when I was born, nothing I grew up bonded with. My grandparents had an adorable little schnauzer, Mikey (Michael Patrick), and he was my buddy after they got him. But I never had a pet of my own.

When I was in first grade, we moved into our trailer. It was in a trailer park. A nicer trailer park than some, but there were still your typical hooligan children running around barefoot (I was totally one of them), run down and rusted steel side trailers, and of course, the ever growing population of stray cats. I guess people didn’t care about taking care of them, but they were around. And every year there seemed to be more of them. And I wanted one. More than anything in the world. I begged and pleaded with my mom to let me get one. Every time she said no, you’re too young, you won’t take care of it.

And then, when I was in fifth grade, on Christmas day I got one of the most anti-climatic presents you could ever give a child that wants a pet. I got a litter pan, a scoop, a food bowl, and a box of litter. I even got some cat food. But you know what I didn’t get? A CAT!

This present came with strings attached. “If you behave, we will get you a kitten in January.” And so I waited. The wait for school to start back up has never been so long, people, let me tell ya. Usually as a child on Christmas break, you don’t want it to end, but this time… I wanted that cat more than anything, so I wanted the time to fly by.

And then, one day after school had started back up, I came home and my mom said she had seen an ad for free kittens in the paper. She called the lady up and we drove into town to pick one out. She had a litter of six or seven grey and black tabby cats, mixed male and female. I got to choose the one I wanted! It was so exciting. I still remember the ladies house. It smelled really bad, like you’d expect a cat lady’s house to smell. Like poop and cat food. Totally nauseating.

But I picked out a sleepy little guy and brought him home. I named him Tigger, and my mom added the middle name Joseph. He has been one of the best things I’ve ever been given in my life. He knows me so well it’s unreal. He’s more than a cat. He had to have been human in a past life. He reads emotion better than any animal I’ve ever seen. If my mom or I are upset, he’s right there nudging your hand for a cuddle. All I have to say is “Jojo, come here” and he’s right there, purring like a chainsaw. And he drools. When he’s really happy (when you rub under his chin, for instance) he will purr and drool all over you. He must be part dog too.

We got Tiggy in 2000. And about a year later, my parents were going to rent a movie. I was staying at my aunts house for the weekend. On the way to the car, the heard a tiny little meow. It was coming from underneath my dads truck. So they looked underneath, and there was a teensy little gray kitten sitting there shaking like a leaf. They took the kitten with them to the video store, and brought it inside. It was never the plan to keep the cat, but I guess the next day while my mom was at work, the kitten climbed up on my dads chest and fell asleep. He couldn’t say no after that.

This kitten started out as Shadow Elizabeth. I say started out because my mom is fail-tacular at identifying genders. Thank goodness for our vet, since our HE would have remained a SHE for life if he hadn’t told us. So Shadow Elizabeth became Shadow Lee.

And who would have thought that the tiny gray kitten they found would turn into a huge, 19 pound fatty fat. It’s true. Shadow turned out to be not only the most annoying, meowing non-stop from the time my mom gets up in the morning until his food is put in his bowl, but also the fattest cat I’ve ever seen. We later found out that he’s worth kind of a lot of money. He’s a Russian Blue/Tabby mix. The only spot on him that isn’t a silverygray is his tail, which has darker gray stripes all the way down. And in true Russian Blue tradition, he is a big fat fatty. Shadow is more my moms cat than he is mine, but I claim him anyway.

Then we have the love of my life. The cat I miss with all my heart, Pippin Lew. Pip came into our lives unexpectedly. A friend of mine saw him outside when she was walking home from the park, so she picked him up and carried him home. Only she wasn’t planning on keeping him, since her parents wouldn’t let her. So he was roaming around the neighborhood meowing his head off because he had no idea where he was.

I couldn’t just let him stay outside, it was cold at night then, and after having two cats, I had a soft spot for the warm fuzzies. And boy, let me tell you. This guy was a warm fuzzy. He had long hair. It stuck out from between his toes and his ears. And he was tiny! I brought him inside when my parents were at work. It was raining, and he was soaked. So I gave him a bath to get rid of his fleas (In Dawn dish soap- the best flea killer on the market.) and toweled him off. He had the funniest meow. It always sounded like he was losing his voice, because his meow was so tiny.

When my parents came home, they decided we could keep him, and I was ECSTATIC. Tigger was my cat, but he slept in my parents bed. Pippin was the first cat I had that actually slept in my bed and cuddled up to me all night. He was such a sweetheart.

And then one day he stopped eating. You couldn’t pick him up because you could tell it hurt him to move. He laid on a pillow in our living room all day. We took him to the vet. The vet said it was a UTI and gave him medicine. The problem never went away. He would feel better for a couple days and then be back to feeling poorly.

This went on for like two months. The doctor kept saying it was a UTI and giving him the same meds. They weren’t working, and the vet wasn’t doing anything else to figure out what was wrong, so we switched to a new vet. Dr. John originally thought it was a UTI as well. He gave him stronger mecidine.

And then he started to get better. He was feeling better for about two weeks until he all of the sudden went back to the way he had been before. My mom took him to the vet, and he finally figured out that Pip had feline leukemia. And he wasn’t going to make it. My mom decided to go ahead and have him put to sleep, so he wouldn’t be suffering anymore. I never got to say goodbye to Pip, and sometimes I still cry over missing him.

Now I’ve got two kitties of my own. And I’ve written about them from time to time, but if you don’t know they are Barlow James and Sylas Severus. They are my babies, my furchildren. When we’re away, I miss their antics and their fighting. When I’m at home they get on my nerves, digging in the trash, or trying to fight the bug that isn’t there. They absolutely hate each other, but love me and Branden, so I guess it’s all good.

My mom has a little decorative plaque in her kitchen that says “Cats leave pawprints on your heart.” And it’s very, very true.

It turned out that we couldn’t have anything but the most basic cable they offered. As in, not even a cable box. Just a cord running from the wall to the TV. So we said screw that and decided to go with DirecTV. For internet, we really really lost out. We had to downgrade from super fast Comcast broadband to really crappy Verizon DSL. On a good day with Verizon, we would get  maybe .75Mbps download. And upload? Forget it. Unless it was low-res pictures to facebook, there was no way you were getting anything up online.

Recently, though, a new company came into the area. They’re called Prime Cast, and they work a lot like Comcast. The main difference being that they’re a DirecTV provider as opposed to digital cable. So we have cable internet, digital phone, and satellite TV. We went through a lot of crap during the switch-over, since no one told us our regular DirecTV wouldn’t work anymore. All our HD channels went bye-bye, and I missed the season start and season ends of some of my favorite shows.

But it’s all ok now! Because today, we finally had our new services installed. Today I reclaimed broadband internet. TODAY I HAVE 15MBPS DOWNLOAD SPEED. (That’s the max, it’s actually around 5mbps, but fuck, when you’ve been living with what we have, this is SO MUCH better.)

So I’m really really happy now. I’ve kind of gone on a downloading spree, but don’t tell the people who monitor that crap. lol I’m finally able to watch youtube videos without having to wait 10 minutes (or longer) for them to load first. More than one person can finally be online at a time! Today is a good day!

Now, bloggersblock is a lot like writers block. Writers can go for long bouts of time where the words just will not flow. Put pen to paper and all you get is chicken scratch and a doodle of a penis wearing a top hat. And then you tap dance around the subject. People ask you how that book is coming, and you’re all That Book? The one I’ve been writing the last six years? The one where the guy does that thing with the one chick and the other guy? Oh yeah, that book is coming along just fine. Really nicely. It’ll be out by Christmas.

But in reality, you’ve written three sentences, and they’re all saying the same thing. And aside from the title, you haven’t come up with anything creative since you decided to write the damn thing. This can go on for years.

In the blogging world, bloggersblock wouldn’t go on for years. Because no one would renew a domain they haven’t used in 11 months on the off chance that hey, I might write about that trip I took one day. No no, there are free blogging platforms for that. No, bloggersblock goes on for a week or two, then you do a meme. And then another week or two, and you post a photo of your dog laying in the one patch of sunlight that just happens to be directly in your path to the bathroom, so you trip over him- Then you’ve got yourself a good story and you can go back to blogging. (And writing really terrible run-on sentences like that one just there.)

But by then, all your readers have given up. They’ve unsubscribed from your feed. Taken you out of their bookmarks. Removed your button from their sidebar. Ostracized you from the group of people who have something to say about someone or some thing every other day.

So by the time you have something to write, no one is going to read it anyway, so what’s the point? And you fall victim to the deadly predator that is bloggersblock. But nevermind… you’re not reading this anyway.

So Branden decided that while they’re doing the recording of all the music, he would combine his two loves, video and film, and make a weekly short documentary about the recording process and the band itself. We started shooting today, and so far, so good. Luckily, we just got a new camera, and the video quality is pretty good. And one of the guys also got a new point and shoot camera that also does video, so we’ve got 2 cameras at every practice/recording session. (And I still have my flip as well, so we have a third if we need it.)

We’re really excited about this. Branden has wanted to be in the producer/director role for a while now, and I’ve wanted to try my hand at directing as well. We finally get to do it! And Nate is giving us a brand new copy of Sony Vegas to try out and see if we like it for editing. (We’re using Pinnacle Ultimate 12 right now and it’s good, but kind of difficult to learn.)

So you might expect to see a bunch of updates about our newest project. Hopefully I’ll be posting the first episode here in a few weeks.

I was really looking forward to the movie, because I love Ricky Gervais. He did a little stand up dealie in Grand Theft Auto 4, and I thought it was awesome. But the movie was kind of disappointing. It wasn’t as funny as I thought it would be. And I really, really dislike Jennifer Garner. There’s just something about her that I don’t like. Maybe it’s how she always seems stuck up. Meh, who knows.

I’m extremely glad that Blogher is over. It wouldn’t be so bad if I’d been able to go. But when something like 2000 of the most popular female bloggers all go somewhere together, even if they’re not together together, it makes for very slow times on the interwebs. And I know that for probably the next week we’ll be seeing all the posts about who everyone met at Blogher, all the swag they got at Blogher, what an amazing time they had at Blogher. I GET IT, AND I’M JEALOUS, mkay? Not that I have any real clue what Blogher (the website) is actually for, since they don’t have a page telling you what the fuck it’s all about, but a conference full of other bloggers, free stuff, parties, and drinking? Count me in, y’all. Maybe next year I’ll be able to go. That would be great.

But instead I’ve been at home, chilling with my husband. We’ll call it Lazyher ’10. Yeah?

And now, I’m going to go continue Lazyher and digest the hamburger helper I made for dinner. (Don’t look at me like that, it was delicious.)

Gastric Bypass surgically reduces the size of your stomach and length of your small intestine. You are physically incapable of eating and drinking the same amount of food that you were able to prior to surgery. If you eat too much- you vomit the food back up. Sometimes even eating the correct portions causes you to vomit. Little to no food intake means less calorie intake, which means weight loss.

And even with the surgery, it’s entirely possible to consume more calories than you burn. A prime example of how this is possible is with the brand of protein powder I am using up as fast as possible, because I didn’t realize how fattening it is: while it only has 2g of sugar and a generous 25g of protein per scoop, when made into a protein shake — that’s 2 scoops combined with 6 oz. of milk — it packs over 400 calories. FOUR HUNDRED CALORIES. IN A PROTEIN SHAKE. Two protein shakes a day would put me at 800 calories.

Quoted from Jenn.nu

Two scoops of protein powder, at 25g of protein each, would give you 50g of protein in ONE shake. Factor in the milk, which has between 6 and 8g of protein in 6oz, and you’re nearly at your recommended protein intake for the day. I don’t understand the need for two shakes per day. That’s almost twice the recommended 60-80g protein per day. Unless you’re becoming a body builder, I don’t quite see the need to consume that much protein from just shakes, and then more on top of that as well. You could cut out 400 calories a day by eliminating that one shake- meaning you wouldn’t consume more calories than you burn.

Bariatric surgeons generally recommend 60g – 80g of protein per day, while keeping your calorie consumption at 1200 or less (this may vary among individual surgeries).

It’s entirely possible to consume under 1000 calories a day after bypass. Ask anyone who has ever dieted how hard it is to do that the old fashioned way. It’s nearly impossible to do and still be healthy. And the point of losing weight- more than being skinny- is to be healthy, is it not?

Life after gastric bypass surgery isn’t just a matter of sitting around while your body burns calories. It’s true that you burn energy just by being conscious, but just as you had to be physically active prior to surgery, you need to be physically active after surgery.

This blogger had surgery nearly a year ago. And though on many occasions she has stated the need to work out, become more active, and tone up to help lessen the effects of drastic weight loss on her skin and body, she has yet to put it into practice. Instead, she makes excuses for why she can not exercise, a long work week, being a work at home mom, having children to keep up with and a house to look after.

Quoting Anna from the comments section of this blog:

I also work 50 hour weeks once you factor my commute time in, and I have a child and homework and pets to take care of and laundry and dinners to make and you get the idea. But I get a work out in almost every single day. Whether is be a quick one mile walk to and from the dog park, a 15 mile bike ride (takes 50 minutes), or 60 minutes of P90X, I do it. I have a friend on facebook that has FIVE KIDS and a JOB and she gets up before everybody else in the house to work out in the morning. Ben’s sister has three kids, a full time job and has lost 100+ pounds by eating right and working out. You get the idea.

And yet, this blogger still continues to lose weight, even without added exercise.

So while there’s no doubt in my mind that gastric bypass is, indeed, a difficult path to walk along, I still feel that it’s the easiest choice in terms of weight loss. Even if I had to take 20 pills a day and chew each bite 100 times before I swallowed, I would still feel it was the easiest choice. And I would still feel that anyone who gets the surgery is unworthy of praise. Because, in reality- what have they done to earn it? Aside from paying a doctor a lot of money to change their anatomy. They didn’t work hard to control their diet and exercise their ass off. They had the choices made for them.

2000 5th grade. Had a millennium party with Hannah, Jessie, and Sara. The party consisted of watching Little Women and passing out before midnight with party hats on. Did not do my home work nearly all year, somehow still passed.

2001 6th grade. Got really good grades this year. Was fat and unattractive. Was a cheerleader. Was a science geek. Went on a field trip with an extra curricular science group where we did a “Mission to the Moon” type dealie. Was pretty cool. Was told that I work better with guys than I do with girls. This was very true.

2002 7th grade. Started singing in choir. Loved it. Was terrible at it, but still loved it. Never learned to read music. Started hanging out with Caity, Marissa, and their crowd. Stopped hanging out with Hannah.

2003 8th grade. Started getting into different kinds of music. Got braces. Hated them!

2004 Freshman year. Started listening to emo crappy music. Thought Bright Eyes was the shit. Played volleyball for one season. Vowed to never be a part of a sports team ever again after the way I was treated. “Came out” as an atheist. This didn’t go over well in my extremely conservative school. Lost 40lbs.

2005 Got my braces off. Late in the year met Branden. Started dating him. Finally had a date to dances.

2006 Junior year. Went to prom with Branden. Nearly had a mental breakdown because of stress and long-distance crap. Almost broke up with him. Luckily I didn’t. Got a job I only had for 1 month.

2007 Graduated highschool. Got my second job. Moved in with Branden. Picked a wedding date. Got proposed to! (Yes, in backwards order.)  Bought a car. Started and dropped out of college. Managed to accrue serious debt in a small amount of time. My Papaw died. Went to my first real party. Got drunk for the first time.

2008 Bought catielove.org. My bestie got married. I cried. Met Kelly Clarkson when she stopped into work for dinner. Tried and failed Flickr 365, again. Bought an iPhone. Sold an iPhone. Cried. Moved into a new apartment in the same complex. I voted for the first time, for Barack Obama. Got a kitten. That kitten turned mean. My Mamaw died.

2009 Fell on ice booking our wedding venue. Had a bruised tailbone for months. My laptop died.  Got into Ghost Hunters. Started Vlogging. Moved into a trailer park out in the sticks. Left my job at one place and started a new one. Got married. Fell even more in love. Got another kitty. That kitty turned out retarded. Started cooking more. Tried to get fit, failed.

2010, so far. Thought about buying a house, but didn’t. Got a huge tax return. Started spinning yarn. Lost my job. Embraced life as a housewife. Got annoyed by family. Shit hit the fan with my nephew’s bio mom. Went to court. Still ironing out details with him. Branden got on full time at his job. He started making more money. He started blogging. I got more into photography. Started my own business. Still haven’t had a paid gig from said business. Still pretty happy, and very much in love.

I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year is like.

In a skillet, cook your chicken in a little bit of butter with the taco seasoning. About halfway through, add in a few tablespoons of the enchilada sauce. Make sure you cook your chicken thoroughly. When the chicken is done, you can put it in a bowl in the freezer to cool down a little.

Dice up your cooked chicken. You can shred it if you want, but I find it easier to just chop it up with a knife. Mix in about 1/2 a cup of the cheese and a few more tablespoons of the enchilada sauce. Mix it all up.

In each tortilla, put a few spoonfuls of your chicken mixture. Roll them up and stick them side by side in the pan.

In a 9×13 pan I got 9 enchiladas. It ended up working out perfectly because I ripped one of the tortillas.

Pour on the taco sauce to coat the tops of the enchiladas. Then add a few handfuls of your shredded cheese. Pop them in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes, or until they’re warmed through and the cheese is melted and bubbly.

The end result! These are super super tasty. And I put sour cream and salsa on top. And since you can make them as spicy as you want (the Ortega sauce comes in different levels of heat) they’re versatile for adults and kids. You could also add some onion or bell pepper to the chicken, but I didn’t have any when I made these.

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think! Do you prefer the step by step style recipes, or how I was doing them before?