Random Information, Bullet Pointed

• I think the new Taylor Swift song, Gorgeous, is possibly the worst song ever, and some aspects of the Taylor Swift experience are (more than) a little problematic; yet my children are really adorable dancing to it, so I keep playing it for them whenever they ask for it. Motherhood is for suckers.
• I usually delete marketing emails from various businesses whose loyalty card I carry in my overly-full, cat-themed wallet, but if it says "new flavour" or "Christmas food" in the subject line, I open it. This is how I know that Costa has something called "Billionaire's Hot Chocolate" on offer, and Marks & Spencer has what is basically turducken bedecked with bacon available to order for your holiday festivities. I am not ordering the turducken, but I will have one of those hot chocolates.
• I also open emails from Houzz, almost every time, for the purpose of ogling other people's refurbished Victorian and Edwardian properties. In my fantasies, we will not be renting forever, and I will need to know how to make my bathroom into a sophisticated yet functional space. Obviously.
• My daily schedule includes coming back to bed to drink my coffee while my cats sit on my lap. This is for real something that I've built into my day. If you knew my cats, you'd understand. They cannot handle their lives if I do not offer them this service.
• Which leads me to the point that I should probably mention that our cats do not roam the house at night. That's because two thirds of them because first rate jerks around 3am. I value my sleep more than I value my cats' need to connect with me while I sleep. They can roam the dining room, kitchen, and laundry room while they wait for me to wake up and allow them to be free range again.
• And speaking of free range cats, there is a cultural difference here regarding the nicest way to care for your cats. In the US, I basically had to agree to keep our cats exclusively indoors to be able to bring them home from the shelter, as otherwise I was considered to be a potential CAT KILLER. Here, the shelters often require that the cats have outdoor space available; otherwise I would be considered to be a CAT TORTURER, denying my cats an opportunity to express their true nature. Well, we have some gigantic tom cats in our neighborhood that can be heard grappling every night, and our little guy is, well, little, so I'm going to go with the US cultural practices in this case.
• E worries regularly about our little cat not getting big enough. He is nearly a year old (there will be a party, because: cat lady reasons), and it appears that he will remain on the smaller side. I don't mind at all, but there is a lot of hand-wringing from E followed by reassurances from me, and it's a little bit exhausting at this point. Teddy is fine! Just let him be who he is! We have bigger problems than our cat being small!
• Speaking of problems, our new house solved so many of mine. My kids sometimes express that they miss the old house, and I really cannot comprehend that. But to be fair, most of the improvements affect me the most, as nobody was really lining up to help me wash dishes in the last house, nor cook most of our meals with minimal counter space to work with, and my kids didn't care that I had heart palpitations every time one of them leaned out from the stairs and risked falling to her death (or more realistically, to a broken bone or two at the very least) to the dining room below.
• Christmas is coming. I have become one of those annoying people who is happy about the Christmas things appearing in stores in October. Because Christmas lights! And most importantly, Christmas food! (See random information, bullet point two, above.)
• Half term week is nearly over. I've wiped down our kitchen counters every day, because I have time to care about the sugar my children spill every time they make a cup of tea. Time well spent! But next week, we're back to the usual, and I've got some additional meetings to boot. Welcome back to reality, in which a thin dusting of sugar will become the norm again.