How do old bloggers reinvent themselves?

Many of the blogs I used to follow years ago are no longer active.

I miss a lot of my blogging friends. Some of them I never met, but we exchanged comments, read about one another's lives, and even sometimes sent each other something in the mail. Luckily, I'm still able to follow some of them on Facebook, but some -- well, I never knew their names, so was never able to track them down...when I thought to try. 

I was certain I'd never fall out of the blogosphere, but I have, like so many others. I spend a lot of time blogging in my mind, which doesn't do much good for anyone, even myself. I've reflected a lot: "Why am I not blogging?" "Why did so many others stop blogging?"  I'd thought -- about others -- that they just got bored or distracted, or it was a fad that passed.

I've only posted about 11 times since I left Purina/Petfinder two years ago -- even though I've blogged in my mind about million times.

I began blogging back in the 90s, back when blogging wasn't tied to ads and SEO (search engine optimization -- using key words to make your content appear at the top of search results). Blog posts were shared organically. There was a lot of conservative and liberal blogging going on back then, and it wasn't as polarizing as the world of crazy we have now. (I even found my old blog -- actually 2 of my blogs -- here!) Cats were the excuse for a lot of those political posts...in fact, it's how the blog hop Carnival of the Cats got started (link is from 2015 but sums up a bit of history). 

So why mention this at all? 

I'm planning a pretty drastic change to my life. For it to work, it requires a return to blogging, and the addition of video blogging/vlogging as well.

Before I gave up my own brand in 2004 ("life, liberty, and the pursuit of loose cats!") and took on the voice of the other businesses I worked for, I used to be a bit of a rebel.  

When I jumped from the corporate ship after about 14 years, I envisioned a return of my rebel voice. That hasn't happened. 

However -- damn! -- I DO have rebel feelings. There are some new trends in the world of cat sheltering that are really pissing me off. Instead of seeing more and better services for cats that take some of the load off of individual rescuers, I'm seeing trends that dumps every single cat rescuing responsibility -- with the exception perhaps of scheduling spay neuter -- into the lap of unfunded cat loving individuals, and small poorly funded rescue groups.

I plan to go right to shelters (big and small), cat rescues, and individual cat rescuers across the US, tell their story -- and raise money for them at the same time.

I'm going to stop there. All of this means nothing if I can't get back into the habit of blogging -- and get the equipment and skill to start vlogging. I need to rebuild my email list, and I need to wrap up a lot of loose ends.

So hopefully you'll be seeing more me...and more of this silly guy. His name is Wiki. He's fearless, and I hope some of that rubs off on me.

So, old blogging friends, how have you reinvented yourselves?

Some of you are still blogging away, doing amazing things.

If you stopped blogging, are you doing different amazing things? Or are you looking for a new goal to grab onto, as I am?

My apologies to subscribers

For some reason, Blogger is sending messages to subscribers about past posts, anytime I log in and touch anything -- even if I'm just creating a draft for a new post.

I will be suspending notifications completely (Google is getting rid of this option next month anyway) and I'll send an email manually in June to see if anyone wants to sign up for manual notifications once a month. Again, I'm really sorry for the spam. :(  

Here's a pic of adoptable Finn to make reading this message somewhat worthwhile: 

Love you all!

Susan

My four-cat clan was actually visible all at once, thanks to a chilly evening where they all wanted to hang by the one window that has electric heat under it. Buster took the basket, Raven (still pretty feral) cuddled up next to Buster, whom he adores. Coraline and Oliver took over the marimba -- which really, really should not be near the heat at all. I need to take some thoughtful steps toward finding it a new home where it will be cared for properly.

Blogger is going to get rid of Feedburner, which means it will no longer send email alerts to my blog subscribers when I post a blog -- which is a good thing, as lately they've been emailing people about blog posts I published years ago.  Perhaps Google decided to scrap the function rather than fix it?

That means I'm going to have to put my big girl pants on and start a real newsletter for the rescue, with real blog posts and real content that the newsletter links to. I do this for work all the time, but don't seem to be able to muster up the energy to do it for myself.

It's a sunny Saturday, which always stirs up optimism. After a cup of coffee, it's time to get started on mowing the lawn, cleaning the cat rooms, and packaging up some stuff for work to mail out. Maybe by the time Sunday dawns, I'll be looking at a less-cluttered house and an open day.

We can hope!

 

My old sideboard...someone's new sideboard

 So I mentioned I'd sold my huge old sideboard that had been given me by a good hearted neighbor years back.

A local couple who buys and repaints furniture bought and repainted it. Here it is three days later:

It'll sell for hundreds of dollars, I'm sure, down in Chandler's Market in Sayre. I knew when I sold it for $35 that it would ultimately be sold for a lot more because this type of furniture, chalk painted, is all the rage now in modern "farmhouses." It takes a lot of paint and skill to change a piece of furniture like this (for example, the refurbisher painted the inside, not just the outside as I did), and this took three coats of paint in different colors to get this effect, and I'd just slapped one coat on when I had it. I just don't have the energy or flair to complete re-do furniture for other people. I only do the minimum possible to make it acceptable in my own.

Anyway, it's on to a new life and it was fun to watch it's transformation on the new owner's Facebook page. And I have a TON more room in my house.

More projects done...more restlessness put behind me

 I've talked to a couple of friends who are experiencing the same ailment. Here we are at home, so you'd think we'd get more done. But due to...what? Angst over the elections? Tons of snow? Isolation doldrums? Who knows. It's not getting done. It helps to know I'm not alone, but it's been dragging us all down.

I've finally taken some steps to get my butt in gear. I hope I can keep the momentum going. 

Since the screen door on the stairs was added years ago, the screen has been getting more and more shabby. I sort of tacked a piece of wood at the left because the door was too small for the opening and I needed to attach a hook-and-eye. Of course, one hook-and-eye wasn't enough for cats intent on getting downstairs, so I added two. Plus one on the inside. It looked like hell (IMO) to visitors, and of course was difficult to explain how to latch as I led people upstairs and they were left to secure the door behind them.  Two years ago I bought a new door and a door knob, but the bears destroyed my porch, and I used that door to replace the one they'd smashed to bits.  

So a few nights ago I pulled down the old door, ripped off the screen, attached plastic hardware cloth that I'd purchased on Amazon, and installed the sitting-in-a-closet-for-two-years door knob kit. I also purchased some wooden ornamentation for the corners, to keep me from splurging on a fancy new door (the bones on this one were just fine). I got a new piece of wood for the door frame instead of the mismatched thing I'd had tacked up. Now people can go up and downstairs without wondering how the heck to open and secure the door. And it doesn't look a total mess. I can't begin to tell you how much joy I get out of opening and closing this door with a simple knob instead of messing with hooks on both sides.

Before:

After:

I had some help from Mocha who didn't seem to understand that he was doing an "if it fits, it sits" in a contraption meant to cut things in half.

Then the front storm door blew off the hinges in a gust of wind earlier this winter, so I ordered a new one from Home Depot (the cheapest brown one available, because I was damned if I'd be scrubbing dirty fingerprints off a white door before every visitor arrived again). It barely fit in the car, and it was a pain to put up (thank you, YouTube!), but now that's done as well. There was quite a bit of swearing involved, and I really hope no one was enjoying a country walk at the same time as I was exercising my vocabulary.

A few years back, a neighbor renovated their kitchen and gave me the vintage furniture they'd been using as a pseudo-kitchen until then. I chalk-painted it up and it's been hugely helpful. But one of the sideboards is absolutely huge (72" long) and the amount of storage it provided in return for the space it took up was insubstantial. For about a year the room it's been in has seemed more like a repository of extra furniture than an actual room I could hang out in.  I put the sideboard up on Facebook Marketplace for the cost of the paint and knobs I put on it ($30) (since it had been given to me for free) and quickly got a taker.

To replace it, I picked up a beat-up but sturdy dresser at the Re-Use Center in Ithaca, and threw some chalk paint, wallpaper, and Mod Podge at it. I already had the supplies. So I have as much room, but I can put the dresser along a small wall instead of it taking up the entire length of the room.

Before (well...during)

After:

Now the couch, which was literally sitting diagonally in the middle of the room before, can be along the wall. The sideboard is waiting to be picked up tomorrow -- you can see how huge it is, at the right. And now all the furniture that was pretty much just thrown in there is an actual room.

I've been getting some professional coaching, and I really haven't been able to explain to her how much all these undone projects have been preying on me. Every time I see something that I've started and just haven't finished, it ties up my brain so that I can't even think about the things I ought to -- and really want to -- do. Take photos of the cats, paint the art walls I have planned for the cat rooms, make videos to help with adoption processes...  So I've just decided these projects HAVE to get done so I can be mentally free to work with the cats.

The two biggest things remaining projects are the backsplash wall in the kitchen, and the last of the flooring.  Then I won't be tripping over the boxes of flooring that sit in the great room, or the box with the new kitchen light that's on the floor in the pantry. I'm already thrilled that the boxes of doorknobs are on the doors and not in a pile in the closet, and that the stair door is actually pretty instead of a wreck. And that I have a storm door again so cats are less likely to zip outside.

I'm getting there.

Cat stretch in three movements, performed by Daphne

 Daphne's (formerly Goggles) mom, sent these photos over, titled "A demonstration of the evolution of the the streeeeetch (with bonus teefs)" The teefs are the cutest:

Teefs:

I'll always remember finding Daphne as a kitten, stuffed in a crate I had left on my porch. I had been at the store, and could hear a kitten squalling as I walked up my steps. I had a grand old rant about irresponsible people dumping cats on me and not even being polite enough to leave a note, and then the neighbors pulled up in the driveway.

They had found the kitten while walking their dog, had brought her to me and left her in the crate because I wasn't home. They had her loose in their arms along with their huge German Shepherd on a leash, so they really couldn't carry her all the way back a half-mile to their house. They left the kitten, walk-ran back home, and then immediately drove back with a note for me, in case I hadn't yet returned. 

Oops. Rant retracted. Here's her story from that week over 5 years ago.

Sadly, people like to dump kittens between my neighbor's house and mine because cars can't be seen from either of our houses when they do the dirty deed. I periodically see tracks in the snow for kittens we never find. Daphne was a lucky one though. She had a set of lungs and used them, so the neighbors noticed her off in the woods on their walk.

And then she got an incredible home. Lucky girl!

Princess Peach and her escaped-being-feral kittens

This was a summer for Elmira area cats, when COVID first shut down all of the shelters. Cats who really couldn't be left to fend for themselves had to go somewhere. Princess Peach (who was nameless when she came our way) was seen by the homeowner nursing her kittens just outside his window, as a storm was due to arrive. He was a friend of our friend Gina, so we made an exception. She drove over to Elmira, nabbed the kittens, set a trap for Peach, poured a glass of wine, and waited. 

They didn't wait long. Peach was quickly trapped, and turned out to be a wary but friendly young mom. We checked her for a microchip, left a found cat report with the shelter, got her FeLV/FIV tested and vaccinated, and sent her back to Gina's sunroom to be fostered. There was plenty of room, because most of her plans were enjoying the early autumn sun.

 At first the little family was a bit shy, but they soon came around. Gina moved her remote work desk into the sunroom to socialize them, until the weather grew so chilly her plants had to come back inside. Some of the plants weren't the safest for cats to munch on, and by then the kittens were old enough to be adopted, so over to the Owl House they came.

Princess Peach and family in the sunroom at Gina's

The kittens were of course insanely cute, and were adopted within a few weeks. 

Now it's Peach's turn to get a home. While she tolerates the other cats in the room she shares with three others, she's not particularly thrilled with them, so she would probably prefer to be queen of her realm. I need to get some video of her. In the meantime she's a joy to have here, and it's so wonderful to look at her rounded-out well-fed form compared to her slim seat-of-her-fuzzy-pants-survival look with her batch of soon-to-be-feral kittens.

But nobody's feral. A guy looked out his window and cared.

 

Turning the clock back on the house, one project at a time

 This is a door knob in the Owl House.

This is when I purchased replacements, in my baby steps to make the house look a bit more like a farmhouse again:

Here are new door knobs, finally up over 2 years later!

I actually found all of the stored-away new door knobs easily, which is a bit of a miracle given how long ago I purchased them. The first old knob was a bear to get off. It has no visible screws so I had to resort to YouTube. The others were easier. The new knobs that looked the simplest were actually the most complicated, and the glass knob, that came with lots of tiny bits and springs, was the easiest.

So that's one more project with pieces rattling around that is out of the way, there are four less small boxes in my closet, and it's one less thing I look at in annoyance every single day.

Next up? Paint the doors, of course (I already painted around the knobs before I installed them).

Buster is unimpressed.

 

Cats be gettin' all judgy like....

 

Anyone else getting the winter/COVID blahs? Wow. I feel like I'm swimming (unenthusiastically) through a fog. I've been trying to focus on getting a few things done (checkmark by checkmark) so that I don't pile more crap on that heap o' blah by falling behind on projects and day-to-day stuff. I need to at least keep creeping forward. 

Oliver can tell when I'm just noodling around, not actually getting anything productive done. Or maybe I just like to think he can. At any rate, he lets me know by plopping a paw -- or sometimes his entire butt -- on my hands.

We've had a shit-ton of snow. Some of your probably got whomped with it, too. It's time to take down this garden flag, I think, lest Mother Nature continue to take it literally. (If you are on your phone and you refuse to admit your eyes are getting old, like me, the flag reads "let it snow.")

So how are you getting through it all? I'm able to get myself outside to walk now and then by reminding myself that warm weather will be nice, but it will also bring ticks, and it's glorious to walk outside without having to strip and shower after every short hike or trip to the woodpile. If you've had motivational success with anything you've tried, let me know. I could use any techniques that have worked for you.

I've been trying to erase some of the negatives in my daily attitude. One of those is (no surprise) the number of unfinished projects I have around here. For example, my kitchen and walk-in area need a paint refresh. But this is how I roll. I repainted the kitchen white a few years back, and this is the area around one of my outlets:

Yup. Not only is the filthy, but that's YELLOW paint around it from the LAST time I painted the kitchen white years ago. I'm pleased to report the kitchen is now entirely white, except the doors. The doors also need a refresh, and I also have new doorknobs for them that I bought -- you guessed it -- at least two years ago. Every time I turn those dingy/shiny brass knobs, I think of the lovely dark bronze knobs I've got waiting to replace them. So that's another mental grumble that takes up too many brain cells each and every day, and needs to be put to bed by just getting. it. done.

My goal is to reach spring with all of the projects I've already paid for (and there are a lot) completed, and also NOT buy supplies for new projects. Since I'm the queen of "ooo...shiny," and "hey, SQUIRREL" this will be an adventure. Luckily, I'm on a bit of an austerity budget, so that's added incentive to make do with what is already on my list.

What's on your list? Shall we be accountability partners and get these damned projects off of our to-do lists?

To survive, you've got to take a moment to stop for beauty

Last Wednesday, I arrived early to pick up cats from the spay/neuter clinic. The parking lot is small, so I drove on by so as not to fill up a spot meant for folks scheduled to arrive earlier than myself. As I internally grumbled at myself over having to drive around blocks for 15 minutes (given our recent snow, parking along a street wasn't really an option) I had a little flash from the past that reminded me of something I'd forgotten in my year without travel. Or my year with the COVID blahs. When you have a moment, look for beauty, and stop for a few minutes.

In Montour Falls, that's not hard. They have a huge waterfall right in the heart of the village. But it was after dark, so I didn't have too much optimism as I drove toward the park. 

What I didn't realize is that the waterfall is lit with floodlights. Wow!

When I first started working in national animal welfare, we traveled a lot by car in a group to keep costs down. There wasn't really money for entertainment, so when I traveled with speakers to workshops or for shelter visits, we made a point of finding affordable local restaurants (versus chains) near beautiful or funky-cool spots - along a lake, or river, or with a patio on a lively backstreet. Every beautiful spot we found made each trip incredible. When the company I worked for was purchased by larger companies, travel turned more solo, and shelter visits were fewer. I still loved visiting shelters, though, so if work had paid for a flight, I sometimes took vacation days, switched over to my own credit card, and hit the road to find them. While driving, I always harkened back to my "small business" thinking and would turn off the highway for random fun or beautiful moments.

I left that company, and have been working strictly from home for over a year. COVID has made things a bit sad and grim, and it's easy to forget to look for beauty. Discovering the falls, and that short moment of breathing in the cold air and listening to the water, reminded me.

Last night, New Year's Eve, Debra (the pres of AmCat) and I got together for the first time in many, many months. We shared a bottle of prosecco and some sanitarily wrapped munchies, ranted, laughed, and commiserated. But with COVID in mind, we split ways pretty early. As I drove out the end of her street, I saw a truly glorious moon shining through clouds and the pines of the cemetary. I thought "Wow, how gorgeous" and entertained - then dismissed - stopping to take a photo. After all, I only had a smartphone camera. What was the point?

But that waterfall moment nudged me. So I drove into the cemetery, parked my butt over one of the headlines of my car to cut out the glare, and took a photo. Of course, it's nothing like the actual experience, but it will rouse my memory forever, and maybe it will inspire a watercolor session.

The rest of the 35 minute drive home, the moon and I talked a bit as it danced in and out from the hills. I was glad I took the image to keep with me.

For 2021 I'm going to remember - stop for beauty. It's easy to dismiss, but when you don't, when you listen to that tiny voice that suggest you stop (and you listen), it helps sustain you.