Welcome to another Moan & Groan Monday—where we shake off the happiness of yesterday & allow our inner whiner to come out. :may6

My first M&G this week is that Nature’s Variety—a frozen raw pet food company—is changing their formulas.  Up to now, their foods have been appropriate for dogs & cats together, & The Kittehs love their venison.  But now they’re reformulating into dog-only & cat-only, & the cat-only formulas are going to come in much smaller (& more expensive) packages, as well as being available in only three flavors…none of which The Kittehs like. :May37

Whaaaaaaa!  What am I going to do?!  I do buy another brand of frozen raw—Primal—but The Kittehs only like the venison version of that, too, & not all of The Kittehs will eat it.  I’m especially worried about Miss Bella who only eats Nature’s Variety venison & won’t touch the Primal.  Have I mentioned whaaaaaaaaaa!?

Moan & Groan #2 is that two of my favorite shows—NBC’s Dracula & Fox’s Almost Human—have been cancelled after only one season each. :may38   Stupid, stupid, stupid networks!  They never seem willing to give a show a chance; it has to be an instant success or they kill it out of hand.  Did they learn nothing from the Firefly debacle of 2003? :may12   I am seriously, seriously going to miss them.

A third M&G is that I accidentally stepped on my—or rather Madame Mommy Dearest‘s—laptop.  Just my heel & just the corner while it was closed, but apparently it was enough to crack the heck out of the screen.  It started out as a thumb print-sized smear at the very top, but has since developed into an actual crack all the way down the center of the screen.  Sigh.

I took it to a repair shop, where they told me they could fix it up for about $300.  And I was willing to pay that because it’s a decent machine & I don’t use it for major work; just a bit of online stuff & reading manuscripts when it’s time to polish them up before turning them over to my editors.  Even MMD really only checks e-mail & does a bit of web surfing from time to time.  But then the repair place pointed out that the laptop is running Windows XP, which is now obsolete; Microsoft is no longer offering updates, which leaves it open to hackers & viruses & all that jazz.

Instead, they suggested I switch over to a refurbished laptop running Windows 7, for about the same price.  That sounded okay to me, so I went with it.  But within a day of having the “new” laptop, I had to return it.  It crashed about eight times in the first two hours I had it running & I just could not deal with that!  Thankfully, they were nice enough to give me a full refund, but now I’m…well, still working on the old laptop, but with the annoying crack & the worry of that XP thing hanging over my head.

What I want & need to do is go on a little shopping trip & get myself a new Macbook.  I’m leaning toward the Macbook Air over the Pro, & it will be great to have it sync to my desktop iMac.  Not an expense I wanted to deal with quite yet, but something that I guess needs to be done.  And I’m almost looking forward to a new toy now that I know I have to get one. :mat27

There’s more I could Moan & Groan about (it’s been a long week :may17 ), but I’ll pass the torch & let you guys share your M&Gs instead!

So what has you grinding your teeth this week?  It’s okay, we’re all friends here—feel free to vent. :may8

Happy Sunday, everybody!

I hope you’re all having a wonderful week.  Do you have lots of great stuff to share with us today?

This week, I AM HAPPY that I’ve got some brand spanking new vertical blinds in my bathroom!  I’ve been wanting these for ages.  Those cheap mini blinds (which are in all the rest of my windows) & the kind you pull down, then pull down again to get them up (I have no idea what they’re called, but they’re on a big roller) are pains in my butt! :May37   They just were not convenient & The Kittehs hated not being able to see out the window whenever they were closed.  So finally, finally, I got vertical ones that are so much easier to open & close, partially open & close to keep the sun out but the view visible, & that The Kittehs can stick their heads through even when they’re closed.

I always thought they were going to be so expensive; that I’d have to special order them from some fancy specialty store.  Turns out, they’re not expensive at all & you can get the parts cut-to-order right at Lowe’s or Home Depot.  I love them so much, in fact, that I’m going to measure my bedroom windows soon & have them put up in there, too!

I AM HAPPY that the same day my handyman put the blinds up, he also installed motion-activated lights on the front porch, back porch, & over the garage door—something else I’ve been wanting for a very long time. :may35

I AM HAPPY, too, that my handyman is such a great guy.  He’s not only a hard worker & very skilled, but he’s a hoot to boot.  I was his assistant while he installed all this stuff, & it could have been boring as snot to just stand there, waiting to hand him another tool or tell him I wanted something more to the right, more to the left, up a little…  But it was actually kind of fun because he’s such a nice guy.  He has a great sense of humor & doesn’t mind when I joke with him.  He’s also been working around here long enough that he’s finally comfortable swearing in front of me.  Of course, I had to get that ball rolling, as usual. :mat27

Lastly, I AM HAPPY that I once again got the yard mowed.  Sheesh, I feel like I’m doing it every darn week when I normally like to do it maybe once a month.  But it keeps raining, so the grass keeps growing, darn it! :may24

How about you?  What have you been up to this week that’s made you happy or reminded you to be thankful?

We want to hear, so start talking! :may36

:may31 What are you doing to Elmo?! :may17