February Horoscope

My daughter let me know that Astrology Zone has February up already. And it's almost all financial stuff, and not all bad, either. So I'm going to chalk up the chirping crickets response to the resumes I've sent so far to Mercury Retrograde. It took me four months to find the last job, and that was in a good market.

In your career, you've been in a holding pattern ever since Mars turned retrograde on November 15. Mars governs your professional sector, so you need a strong Mars to make progress. Happily, Mars has since turned direct on January 30, so at the start of the month watch closely - you may see immediate signs that professionally things are about to perk up in a big way.

From her lips to God's ears, y'all. I'm getting weirded out by the complete lack of response from the legal agencies in town. But I'm not going to focus on that, I'm going to focus on visualizing the future I want. And you know, maybe the non-response from the legal arena is a sign that More of the Same is not going to be part of my future, and I am all for that plan.

Basically, at this moment I have no plan. I will be 50 years old at the end of June, and I have no idea what I will be when I grow up. I am moving forward on selling the house, but every damn time I think I'm near the finish line, something else turns up. Tonight I will hit eBay for my St. Joseph statue, because I'm all for letting him hang out in the house before the sign goes into the yard. Then? I dunno - maybe I'll put the critters in the Subaru and drive toward the mountains, or toward DC, or somewhere.

I did paint today, and tomorrow I must hit Home Despot for a few more small paint supplies, and I'll see if I can find a living human being in the carpet department, and walk through the garden center - did I mention that our one and only, one night freeze took out a huge portion of my planting beds? Waiting for the nastygram from the HOA on that, I'm sure it's coming. So I got the exterior paint done and the landscaping up and died on me, and right now the only green things in those beds are weeds. I'm going to go with cheap, colorful annuals, let the next owners replant it with whatever they want.

Then I'm going to Girl's house to dognap my granddog, because it is looking like I will have to move away from them soon, and while Girl and I can talk and text every day wherever we are, Dudley doesn't do cell phones or text messages.

And when Dudley isn't here, Murphy is an Old Dog. I see it - he's almost 8, which isn't ancient, of course, but he has always been an old soul. I think this is because his Daddy got cancer when Murphy was very young, and life for the next two years was very weird, with us coming and going for odd stretches of time, a house full of medical equipment and Mommy was stressed and busy, and strangers were in and out a lot, and then Daddy was gone, and he sensed this in that doggy way and became the little man of the house - the bravest 8 or 9 pounds of hair and attitude you've ever seen. He's sweet and friendly to friends and neighbors, not actually mean at all, but he runs toward a strange noise in the night at full speed, growling in his surprisingly deep and gruff voice, protecting his house - and I have no doubt that this tiny dog would die to protect me. But his little knees are stiff when he first wakes up, he walks like a little wind-up toy until they loosen up, and he'd just as soon sleep all day as play. We go for our walks, sometimes he nags me and sometimes I have to coax him, he determines how much he can take - on crisp cool days we can do a mile or two, on a warm/humid day, most days, he starts dragging and then turns toward home. He comes home and gets a drink of water and is snoring in seconds. He went to the groomer on Monday and slept the rest of the day, that was enough excitement for the little old man.

When Dudley visits he acts like a younger dog, obviously he feels competitive, and wants to get into the games of fetch, etc. I asked him if he wanted to play rope before, and he looked at me like I'd lost my mind - Why on earth would he want to exert himself if he doesn't have to prove his manhood with Dudley? My little guy is not a young dog anymore, and it shows. He needs a young dog in his life, at least on a visiting basis for now, to make him remember doggy fun. So as long as I am not working and am here waiting for the next phase of my life to reveal itself, I'm dognapping the granddog on weekends. We both need a visit from the clown to liven this place up a bit, and when I do go out on the weekend they have each other for company.

Knitting: I ripped and restarted the second linen hand towel. I call mine "inspired by" Mason-Dixon, but I am not using their patterns, I am pulling nicely textured patterns from Barbara Walker's Vol. I (if I have to sell my entire knitting book collection to eat, I'm keeping the BGW books). And I think I'll go digging in the accessible portion of my stash (not the part locked away in the Space Bag) and start something colorful. I need to spend some time knitting for my future.