Small improvements

There isn't much to report here that y'all don't already know. The weather has been almost scary warm. It's great, I love it, but it's February. It's not supposed to be 70*. (It was yesterday. Today is in the 60s.) It looks like it dips closer to normal next weekend. I hope we get another really good, decently long cold snap or we're going to be overrun with bugs this summer. For right now, though, we have windows open and kitties basking. It sounds like there's a street festival outside.

We bought a new pantry cabinet yesterday and installed it in the mudroom. I have a lot of the food we had scattered in other places in it now. I have a little more to bring up from downstairs. I'll get to that later today. It's starting to look like a grown-up house. Now if I could keep the clutter under control. Isn't that the issue with everyone?

I also bought a Fitbit Blaze. I started using it yesterday. I like that it vibrates if I don't have enough steps in an hour. I hope it will keep me more active. The only drawbacks I've noticed are it's not waterproof, and it has the time but not the date. I mostly need that feature at work, so I'll wear my old Fitbit one and watch there. For no more than I'm working lately, it's a good fix.

The church plant is moving forward. We think we're going to name in Grace And Peace Church. We're leaving Presbyterian off because our market research showed that it translates as "white church" in the non-white neighborhoods, and "conservative church" in the liberal white neighborhoods. This area is strange. And it's so peopley. I dream of the day when we can move to the outside edge of the wifi. By the time we're able to do that, they'll have something better than wifi. The whole world will be under a wifi blanket or something crazy like that.

Creatively, I've been plugging along. I've written every day this month except one. Some days I've only gotten a couple hundred words, but those count. I missed one blog, but 3 out of 4 is better than I was doing. I leave Thursday for the writers' retreat in Destin. Not that I'm going to escape cold weather while I'm there, but I do want to be more intentional about walking on the beach. It's a mental marathon, and I haven't been in tip-top shape in that department lately.

I did figure out this week why Chloe bugs me so much when I'm trying to work. She's been hungry. Ryan and Tess gobble up the dry food, and she wasn't getting enough to eat. I put a small bowl of food in the office. I feed her in the morning and refill it if I need to when I'm working, but she only gets a tiny handful at a time because it took Ryan about 10 minutes to find it. I'm keeping a closer eye on the feeder downstairs, and considering going back to towers like Jean uses. I changed to the one that dispenses set amounts of food at certain times (like Jean's outdoor feeders) because the vet suggested it. I have one tiny, skinny cat, and one big fatso with one in between, and I was trying to figure out how to keep Ryan's weight down while keeping Chloe's up. I don't see that the feeder has made any difference, and towers won't take batteries, so I don't have to worry about it dying when we're away. Not that it has, but it could. We can't have that.

So that's about it here. I think it's time to refill my coffee and go finish the pantry. Or maybe I'll sit here for a few minutes and watch Chloe play with the blueberry I dropped the other day. Y'all have a good week!