The Things I Learned This Month

I hope everyone had a happy New Year! I can barely believe it's 2015, I feel like I just got used to 2014.

I tried to keep a semblance of a list during the month of December of things I learned. Looking it over today I am laughing to see that I talk about tea and cats. You'd probably never guess I was a writer! (Well, I'm not talking about whiskey or fonts, so I guess I could be any regular person.)

Here is the grand list I compiled of Things I Learned in December:

1. You do not boil water to make green tea. 

I hope there is at least a handful of you that are as marveled by that fact as I am. The rest of you are all, "Oh, Casey, you uncultured swine." But really, I had no idea you prepared different teas differently. I thought you just boiled water for all of them and then steeped the tea and boom, you're done.  But my friend- she of The Bee's Teas- stopped by and of course we were making tea together. Okay we were making spiked teas with hot tea and liquor, because that's what you do around the holidays, and she pretty much looked at me like the uncultured swine that I am, and then shook her head and told me it would be okay- she would school me on the ways of the tea. (If you buy her tea she has easy brewing instructions included on all the pouches- it must be because she is friends with people like me.)

2. Being an adult is hard.

I mean, no one said it would be easy. And I guess technically I've been an adult since I was 18 so... 14 years now (side note- math is hard)? But I have just recently decided that I should be acting more adult-like in my day to day life. This started with organizing the overflow of clothes and clutter in our bedroom. This ended with our basement stairs separating from the wall as we carried large totes of clothes down them. I guess I could blame the original construction of the house we live in- the handyman said the stairs were never secured into the wall the correct way- but one could see how I could easily construe this as a direct result from trying to be an adult. For the record, I have not let it stop me, but if my salad spinner spontaneously combusts due to the higher usage as of late then I am going back to my juvenile ways...

3. Cats can get laryngitis.

What? Crazy, right? I would have thought this a completely bizarre fact if it hadn't have happened to one of my very own cats. My needy little orange cat who likes to let his presence be known by constantly chattering and crying at us came down with a hoarse cry. It was adorable as much as it was heartbreaking and both Mr. McKay and I freaked out a tiny bit (a shout out to my sweet, author facebook friends with all of their advice after I posted about my problem- special shout out to Ms. PK Corey who messaged me with some Veterinary advice). Just when we thought we would have to take him to the Vet his voice restored and he is annoying us at full volume now. I kind of miss the squeaky little raspy cry from before.

4. I am more of an air head than I originally thought.

The truth is, I don't reside on this planet often. My mind often wanders. One would think the writing would help, I have an outlet. But I think it's actually made it worse because now I feel justified in my checked out-ness. Sometimes I'll think about doing something: the laundry, cleaning the bathroom, putting on deodorant- and I can't remember later on if I actually did it, or just thought about doing it. Seems I did this with my eye doctor this year. You see, I got the little postcard in the mail reminding me to make an appointment. And I must have, right? But then I ran out of contacts (which I also didn't realize I had used the last pair and thrown the box away until I was ready to change them) when I called my eye doc they said the prescription had expired because I hadn't been in since 2013! How did that happen? 

5. We are on the Holiday card B-list.

A weird thing happened this year. We got an amazingly tiny amount of Christmas cards. Actually I just counted, we got eleven. The year after we got married I feel like we got a zillion. I am guessing everyone had our address on hand from the thank you notes I sent out. And that year I sent a card back to every single person that sent me one- it was a little overwhelming. The year after we got a little less and I scaled back my list some. But I want to say in the last 2-3 years I have sent out about 35 cards to friends and family. And really, I am not complaining- I don't do it just to get a card back. I really am sending them to people I want to wish a Merry Christmas to but don't get a chance to see in person. But are people just sending out less cards in general? Am I doing something so passe and untrendy that people get my "Cat Sitting Under a Tree of Twinkle Lights" card and they just pitch it in the trash? As I look at my display of received cards lots of people's smiling children look back at me. Maybe no one wants a card from me because I don't have smiling babies to stick on it? Well, whatever the reason I am still sending out my 35 highly untrendy cards out again next year, maybe I'll even add to it. I'll find 4 or 5 more saps to torture with my holiday delight!

Thanks for reading my rag tag list of things I learned this month. Did you learn anything this month that you can't believe you went your whole life not knowing?