Loss of a friend

Monday night was no fun. We lost our buddy Murphy. He died on Inauguration Night, shortly after his fourth birthday. He was born shortly after Obama's first election and left us a few hours after the second inauguration. Coincidental I'm sure.

While we have no idea why he died, my best guess is cardiomyopathy. I had no idea that cats could contract heart disease until about three years ago. Murphy was diagnosed with a heart murmur by one veterinarian, with a great heart by a second, and as "well, I can hear it when he gets excited" by a third. Given his age and the fact that he showed no signs of illness, HCM seems to fit.

He taught us a few important things, including...
Be particular. Murphy loved dairy products, but not just any dairy products. Milk had to be fresh and cheese had to be stinky (in a blue cheese kind of way). As Murphy would have said, honestly, why should anyone eat processed cheese food?
Notice and investigate everything. Murphy could find anything new that was brought into our house; I always enjoyed watching him (carefully) approach new things.

There are more examples of lessons taught by our cat, I'm sure. It has been an exhausting couple of days, and while I would like to go on, I can't seem to assemble my thoughts in logical order. More about our new, quieter life soon.

A New Year

The holidays FLEW by and now it is the evening of the second day of the year. Yikes. Already?

While the word resolution has always reminded me of smokers trying to quit, here are a few things I would like to accomplish in 2013:

Learn something new.
I've been a little lost the past year without new grad school classes. Odd, I know. I miss learning new things. This year, I'm thinking something fun - like something artsy or outdoorsy.

Make new friends.
Again, with being finished with grad school, I have had more free time on my hands during the past year. I have also come to the realization that my husband doesn't necessarily want to be going, doing, and seeing things every (okay every other) free minute.

Entertain more.
We love cooking for a crowd and have cookware and dishes that sit unused. I think one of the biggest problem in this department is not planning ahead. Maybe being more organized with this is a key factor in making this happen?

Could I be any more ambiguous?

Lost in magazineland

I saw my cousin's wife over the holidays, and she said, "hey, I haven't read your blog in a while." First, I was surprised and excited that she had read my random ramblings. Then I said, "that's okay, I haven't written anything in a while". Thanks....I'll take that as a hint. :)

I was hoping that I would be able to tackle a few long-awaited organization projects during "winter break", but it is already Friday and all I have managed to do is add to my list. Today's addition is trying to find a way to catalog magazine articles, particularly recipes.

I'll admit that I'm a bit of a magazine junkie; at one point this fall I was getting four food-related magazines. Two I paid for, one came from my boss who mysteriously had a second copy of Bon Appetit showing up at her house, and one was a trial subscription that I had inadvertently signed up for at a meeting planning event. Nice. Apparently my love of magazine is hereditary. My brother-in-law has commented a few times now that there always has to be magazine swapping time when my sister goes home to see my mother. I second that motion. I would be very disappointed if I arrived at my mom's house and didn't have any new magazines to read. This time it was a few back issues of New Jersey monthly and Southern Living. I'm not sure how those two publications can sit in the same magazine rack without a fight breaking out, but it seems to work.

At any rate, I am looking for a way to tag my magazines. Short of scanning entire editions, I guess I can go low tech. One giant word file? I guess. Honestly, I guess it just needs to be searchable. The only decision I guess is how far back to go with my filing. Does anyone else have this problem?