It's that time of year; Spring Cleaning. The time of year when we break out of our Winter hibernation, look around at the world and clean up.
Not only am I cleaning out my yard (and breaking rakes) but I'm also making some changes with my online properties. I've sold one blog already and I'm in the middle of selling another.
I have also upgraded my server to a faster dual core machine. The server used to run close to .80 all the time and now it runs about .15 with the same amount of sites on it.
I upgraded my vBulletin forums over on PokeFarm and the members are very happy with all of the improvements. I'm happy too because the new release of vbulletin really pushes the social aspect of a forum.
Right now I'm sitting down typing this out and thinking about what other things need a good Spring Cleaning. One of those things is sleeping beside me.
This is "Squirty" our long-haired orange cat. He's very lovable but he has a knotting problem with his fur. I often have to break out the scissors and cut these knots out of his fur. We have another long-haired cat that used to have the same problem, until we got him groomed.
By "groomed" I mean "nearly shaved". We brought him in a few years ago and had a specialist give him a bath and shave most of his fur off. When they were done with him he looked like a new cat! He also stopped getting knots in his fur. Either the grooming helped his knotting problem or he decided he did not want to go through that again and took better care of his fur!
We are still looking into adding on to our small house. Rates are down to record low levels and we carry very little debt. Unlike some folks we do not over extend ourselves trying to keep up with the Jones's. We try our best to live within our means and it works for us.
So what if we don't have a TV in every room or new cars. We only just upgraded our computers after 6 years a few months ago. Both of our cars are from 2001 and get about 25MPG. I would not mind getting a vehicle with better fuel economy but even I can see that the extra cost of a car payment is not in our budget right now.
How about you? How you doing this Spring?
Squirty is adorable! One friend who used to have cats had one cat groomed in a “Lion Cut” – so the cat’s fur was shaved much shorter for the summer but the head and tail tip was left a little longer. Something like that. He said his cat looked very cool and he thought that maybe his cat thought it looked cool as well.
We may anthropomorphize animals but I’ve heard people say that when their dog or cat does something wrong or even silly looking they seem to have a certain self-awareness. The same friend with the Lion Cut cat said that one time his cat tripped or somehow stepped into his waterbowl and he kinda shook his paw and tried to look like he meant to do that.
I have to force myself to spend money! A couple of weekends I “went crazy” (I hope to post about this) and bought an inexpensive lamp. I am careful about what I spend money on and most of the time I’d rather spend money on practical things or what I think of as valuable intangibles like a vacation. I seldom spend money on Stuff.
I’d also would rather spend more money on something nice than something cheap that may not last long. It’s all about balance! I spent some bucks on a Japanese woodblock from 1940s. The custom frame I ended up getting for it cost over twice as much. But dang it sure gives me pleasure to look at!
That is why I intended to spend more and buy one “quality” rake. The rakes I bought were about $10 each plus the cost of gas and time to buy them. I did bring the last one back to Home Depot and got a replacement, I’ll see how long it lasts.
Our Siamese cats have their own personalities and they are the only cats I have ever owned that audibly sigh when you don’t do what they want.
Hahahah on animals and their sighing! I was very fortunate to be able to dog walk while in South Africa. I don’t have any pets and my friends had 2 dogs and 2 cats and one of the dogs was a golden retriever, maybe a year and a half old. SHE LIVED FOR WALKS and of course, retrieving. Talking about sighing and soulful looks!
Since I hung out out at the house (what with being on vacation) while they worked, I tended to take to dogs out. The other dog was an Alpha dog terrier and very old. She liked walking but she also liked napping. When I left for my runs without them, the retriever..she looked so sad!
Steve,
I would have to admit, your sites are flying since you upgraded the server.
Regarding Spring cleaning, the first thing I would like to do is clean out the closets. I’m sick and tired of things falling out of them when I open their doors. Also, I can never seem to find what I’m looking for.
That’s called “old age”! Who you trying to kid? :)
hehehe…that’s cold Steve :)
Steve: Ummm…I am guessing that esofthub is a FEW years younger than either of us!!
esofthub: hmmm…are you geeky? As in Old School Geeky? Old school Geeks never throw out stuff. They have Tandem and Atari parts, serial cables, all sorts of memory (I’m not geeky enough to know the types put know that numbers of pins are part of the mix) and hardware parts in general. I just packed a PS/2 mouse away. I know I have a serial one somewhere. Since I am not particularly Geeky and save this stuff, I can only guess at The Motherlode that lurks in your closets!!
You’re lucky to have closets! Closet space can be pricey depending on what part of the US you live in…
Well sort of MsQ…
I have old Ultra 5 Sun parts lying around and all sorts of memory lying around. I also have several Army TMs (leadership, counseling, field, etc) that I never read anymore…Why do I keep them. :) Steve probably has some, too.
But you’re right, I would have to shed a lot of stuff if I lived in the some areas, especially the Bay area. Too darn pricey!!
“all sorts of memory lying around”…
Yeah, I know what you mean.
I was going to say, “a great example of living within your means,” but then I actually saw that you pointed it out later on down the paragraph. Well, regardless, I would at least like to confirm that truth. I’m not doing so much spring cleaning myself, what with all the newspaper articles I’ve gotta write, the DMC4 article, regular schoolwork, and the VEXplorer contest…