Christmas Letters and Cats

To continue his Christmas card tyranny over my life, Studmuffin gave me a lecture on the NECESSITY of giving cards to everyone in church who gave us a card.  We have this mail box that sits in the hallway, and you put the cards in the box according to last name.  I've always avoided this, as I see these people, and feel they are up on my life, so giving them a card seems superfluous.  Studmuffin said "it's the right thing to do."  Since when did he become the voice of social etiquette in this house, Gentle Reader.

He is currently signing cards that I bought last year and never got out.

The really funny thing about that is I had bought the cards and even ADDRESSED THE STUPID ENVELOPES, but because I had never gotten around to writing my annual Christmas letter, I REFUSED TO MAIL THEM OUT!!  Guess what?  As of last week we had ten cards in our church box...And I had exactly ten envelopes left over that weren't addressed.

If that isn't the hand of God reaching down and saving me from a lecture from my husband, Gentle Reader, I don't know what is!

I did write my letter this year.  Studmuffin made sure it got printed, as I really was resisting even writing the darn thing...I've become a little jaded as in previous years I've mailed out well over 50 cards and only gotten 10-15 back...Please, refrain from mentioning that the gift Christ gave us was freely given, and thankfully I don't have to earn it.

I confess I'm a little too human in the Christmas card department.  This year I weeded my list down to 30, not counting the ones my husband is signing to place lovingly in the church Christmas mail box.

In other completely unrelated news, guess who came to our house last Friday night?

Popcorn was so excited I thought she was going to weep.  All she wanted for Christmas/birthday was a kitten.  However, since we have TWO children, and we previously had TWO kittens, Studmuffin felt quite certain we needed TWO more cats (remember ours disappeared).

Are we insane, or WHAT???

So, just to clarify the count:  We have two dogs, Kelsey and Chesney, both of which live in the house about 50 percent of the time.  We have Oliver, the tom cat who will live forever and ever as far as my children are concerned.  He lives outside.  Unless he decides to live in the garage.  Or the house.  Or even Studmuffin's shop.  Basically, Oliver is king of this castle, and he lives wherever he wants to...

And now, to add to this chaos we have two four month old Russian Blue cats.  They are litter mates, and were headed to the  pound, until we decided to "save" them and give them to the girls.

I'm sure there's a diagnosis for crazy people like us, but I really don't want to know what it is.