Caturday Cuteness

Well, at least I think they are cute. Even if they are big pains in the you know what sometimes!

Yesterday about mid-morning I realized I hadn't seen Buddy for a while and he wasn't in his usual spot under the covers on our bed. With six cats you have to do a head count a few times a day to make sure nobody's locked in the refrigerator or something. So, I go around the house calling for Buddy, opening the garage door to see if he's out there, then turn around and see his lazy self up on top of the kitchen divider looking at me like 'yo, what's your problem, I'm right here'.


Then later Mimi discovered the basket in my workroom, hey, it's just the right size for a petite little Mimi!


It's just the right size for napping, too!

A Friday Find

Yeah, I know Friday is almost over with, but I'm bored tonight so I was browsing the 'just sold' Pounce feature on Etsy to see what's selling, cause it sure isn't my stuff today, and came across this pottery shop, catherinereece. Yes, I'm still too lazy to learn how to do the clickable link thing, so here's a link if you want to take a look:
http://catherinereece.etsy.com

What first caught my eye was of course the sold item:


I love the colors and long legged birdiness of these narrow bud vases.

And, then, after looking further into her shop and seeing more lovelies, THIS really called out to me.
A cockroach bowl!!! Can you imagine serving some peanuts or something in this bowl at a cocktail party and watching who first notices the giant cockroach inside the bowl? I love it!

My Faith in Humanity

Has once again been restored by this latest news story from our lovely city of Bakersfield. This one will just really warm your heart.

The news showed a 12 year old boy who was born with some kind of paralysis in his lower body, making him unable to walk and needing a wheelchair. He had his legs kind of tucked up like when you sit cross legged, what we used to call Indian Style before that term became so politically incorrect. He almost looked like he had no legs from the back, he was getting around using his arms kind of like crutches to propel himself along while not in the wheelchair. They showed him riding a skateboard using his arms instead of his feet to push himself along, and also pulling his wheelchair up the front steps of his house. Why did he have to pull his heavy wheelchair up the front steps?

BECAUSE SOMEBODY STOLE HIS WHEELCHAIR RAMP RIGHT OUT OF HIS YARD!!

Yes, somebody came into his yard and stole his ten foot long by five foot wide metal wheelchair ramp.

Now, this sounds like it was not an easy thing to steal, and it's amazing that nobody saw a couple of people struggling down the sidewalk carrying this TEN FOOT LONG metal ramp, right?

This story disturbed me even more than the usual somebody else got shot and killed stories that are on every night. And it's probably good that the kid wasn't outside in his wheelchair when the ramp was stolen, they probably would have dumped him out and taken that, too.

Buzzing

I went out into the kitchen to find something to eat for lunch and was hearing this loud buzzing noise, like an electrical kind of buzzing, kind of like, oh, I don't know what it was kind of like but it was loud and very very annoying.

Is it coming from outside? No. The refrigerator? No. The ceiling fan? No. The air conditioner? No. Is the house getting ready to explode? It gets louder over on this side of the kitchen, so it's not the ceiling fan. If I move over by the refrigerator it's not as loud. Back to the other side of the kitchen. Louder and more annoying and it's giving me a freaking headache! What is it? It's driving me crazy!

Oh. It's the cats electric water fountain drinking bowl (yes, they are spoiled and have a special cat fountain to drink from). When the water gets low it usually makes a horrible metallic gurgling sound but this time it's making a horrible high pitched humming buzzing sound. Add more water. Buzzing stops. But I feel really stupid.

More Oddities on Etsy

I was browsing etsy the other day and came across this shop. Now, the jewelry is cute, just simple charms on a chain stuff, and nothing wrong with that. No, what really caught my eye (ha ha) were these big eyeballs staring at me. This girl is very pretty but these tattoos just creep me out. I wonder if the eyes follow you around the room like some of those paintings do. Does her boyfriend ever feel like he's always being watched? And, when she says she's keeping an eye on something, she really means it!

More Cats

I was cleaning the refrigerator yesterday, something that doesn't happen too often around here. I put the crisper drawers on the counter to wash, so of course cats have to investigate.


Then this morning Keith was trying to clean the drain in the bathroom sink and had three cats watching his every move and inspecting the emptied out cabinet. They're so funny about having to go inside every open door or get inside anything that looks like it will hold them.

It's Caturday!

I've been trying to think of ways to make this blog a little more cohesive instead of just random posts about whatever. You know, how some bloggers have themes for each day? Well, I'm not quite that organized, but I was thinking that Saturdays could be Caturdays! How festive, right?

So, in honor of this very first Caturday, here's Bear hiding under the bed. You can't see me right?


Hello, Bear!


And, look, Lucy's under there too!


And on this special Caturday you also get a bonus lolcat! Yay!


I also wanted to share something new that I'm working on. I was so very uninspired this week but happened to pick up a craft magazine that I almost put in the yard sale stuff but had saved for reasons unknown. I was flipping through it, wondering why I had saved it, when I came across an idea for little collage shadowboxes made with the cardboard jewelry boxes of which I have tons of. I had been trying to think of ways to use the larger pictures in my vintage kids books and what do you know, they'd be perfect for shadowboxes and I have stacks and stacks of the larger necklace size boxes that I'm not using.

So, this is what I came up with. This one is in the big 5x7 size box.


And this one is in the little 2x3 box.


These were fun to make and I'm so glad I didn't get rid of my small stash of vintage buttons! I'm hoping that these might sell since I just went and bought a bunch of ribbon and trims for them. I checked on etsy and nobody has quite the same type of thing, so we'll see how they do.

If It's Yellow

I've been doing the whole if it's yellow let it mellow thing with the toilet, only flushing when the yellow starts to become kind of neon. The cloth wipe thing is working out really well, we haven't bought toilet paper in weeks now, before it seemed like we were buying the mega pack about every three days. I usually try to remember to shut the lid so it's not quite so nasty, but apparently forgot the other night.

I'm getting ready for bed and go into the bathroom for one last pee and see something foreign floating around in the nice mellowy yellowy water. It's Buddy's favorite jingle mouse toy that I had just heard him jingling around with a few minutes earlier. Buddy's favorite jingle mouse toy is now drowning in the toilet. Ick. Do I flush and hope it goes down? No, we only have one toilet and it's not pretty if it's clogged up and we can't use it. Keith can go in the backyard and pee against a tree but it's not that easy for me if the toilet's not working and we all know how many times I have to go to the bathroom each day.

No, don't flush that jingle mouse, grab some tp and gingerly fish it out, gagging the whole time, and fling that thing in the trash can. Then go get some bleach and scrub the heck out of my hands.

Why do cats like to drop stuff in the toilet anyway? They're worse than toddlers sometimes!

Cats and Stuff

Not much going on around here-it's hot, sales are slow, and I went to the dentist yesterday. I have to go every 3 months for perio maintenance and I really don't enjoy it. Especially when they put you in the chair and the young girl in the same big room as you is having EXTRACTIONS that you can see and hear while you are waiting in your own personal torture chair. I was cringing. But at least this time the girl who polished my teeth was very gentle, the last time the girl was so zealous that she polished a big sore spot into my gum.

With the summer weather here already, Keith is starting to go into work at 5am instead of 6 so that they can get off work earlier and try to beat some of the hot temps. He comes home just covered in sweat after working outside all day. He wears a t-shirt under his uniform shirt to soak up some of the sweat and also because the fabric of the uniform shirt is so rough. Being a welder, his tees get burn holes in them and only last a few months. So, when I saw that Michaels Crafts had tees on sale for 2.00 each, I'm thinking, hey, what a great price for work tees. I'd never thought of buying them there before even with the regular price only being 3.99. So, if you need lightweight tees in a rainbow of colors, get yourself over to Michaels before the sale is over.

He brings a clean uniform home each night and last night he laid it on the table, and of course about 2 seconds later Mimi was all 'clean uniform? I'm there!'


Here she is being silly.

Best Buds

When Buddy was an itty bitty kitty, he decided that Keith was the one for him. Keith knew just the right spots to scratch him and had a nice warm chest to lay on. That was fine when Buddy was tiny but now that he is about 15 pounds or so, he doesn't quite fit in his favorite spot anymore. But he keeps trying.

His hind end usually kind of falls off the edges.

So content.

Cats and Yard Sales

No, we didn't try to sell the cats at our yard sale today, but I did entertain that thought for a few minutes this morning.

First, we set ourselves back by over $200.00 by taking Bear and Pepper to the vet on Thursday for their annual check ups and shots. They are both very chubby kitties and weigh 15 pounds each. Chubby, indeed. Bear is very docile and didn't complain too much, she just hid her face in the crook of my arm while waiting in the exam room. Pepper, on the other hand, growled and snarled and in general was a big whiny baby. But, they got their shots that are good for another year, and only four more cats at $100.00 each to go this year. When we got home, Pepper went under the bookcase and stayed there the rest of the day and all day Friday, too. I think the shots made her not feel good, or she was just more pissed off than usual. I got a little worried Friday morning because she always comes running when she hears the cat food can pop open (that's partly why she's so chubby) but she didn't come running. I looked around and saw her under the bookcase and at first thought 'oh, crap, she died', and then my second thought was along the lines of 'gross, I don't want to have to pick up a dead cat', and then my third thought was 'oh, it looks like she is breathing, good, I really didn't want to have to pick up a dead cat'.

This is her pissed off cranky cat face:

So, with Pepper still breathing and feeling better today, we had our yard sale.

Well, driveway sale anyway. It was hot out there and I got all sweaty dragging stuff out of the house, so now I feel like I got sunstroke or something. We did make about $95.00 though, which isn't bad considering the average price was 50c or so. I had a lot of books out there and was wondering if they would sell, but quite a few went for 25c each. Can't beat that for a book!
And, while we were outside sweating, Mimi was inside having a party with her little fluff ball toy. These balls are like yarn pom poms and she loves them, but they leave little yarn pieces all over the house. There was almost nothing left of the original yarn ball by the time she got done today.

It doesn't look that bad here, but the entire living room was covered in little pieces of purple yarn ball.

And Now....Drumroll Please....

Once again, back by popular demand! It's time for another Oddities From Etsy post!!! Yayyyyyy!

This shop actually has some clever stuff, a little creepy, but I could see people buying from this shop, these certainly are conversation pieces. But the prices are ridiculous for things made out of things that they probably found at the thrift store.

First up, a Barbie legs jewelry holder, made out of...wait for it... you guessed it!-Barbie legs! and a wood tray that looks like something you would pick up on a trip to the Philippines along with your giant fork and spoon wall hanging.
Clever idea, yes? But seriously, who would pay 33.00 for this?

And from the same shop we have the disembodied baby doll arm and leg coat rack or key rack or whatever, again the body parts are screwed onto an upcycled wood tray. Only 49.00 for this one.
Like I said, a little creepy, but I could see having this in your entry way to hang your purse on. Or how about as a baby shower gift-ha ha!!

Jersey Mike's Subs-A Review

One word: YUM!

A Jersey Mike's Subs had opened up a while back but we kept forgetting to go give it a try. I like sandwiches, especially ones THAT I DON'T HAVE TO MAKE MYSELF! and have been known to frequent Subway and Quizno's fairly often. But, Subway's and Quizno's will have to take a back seat to Jersey Mike's, they've beat you by a mile.
I ordered the Club Sub and had it Mike's Way (except for the onions) which has lettuce, tomato, mayo, oil and vinegar, and some spices, and this sandwich was GOOD! They really pile on the meat, not like at Subway where you get 3 thin slices of meat and a whole lot of lettuce to make your sandwich look fat-no, this was loaded and the bacon was crispy and the oil and vinegar and spices or whatever they use tasted really good.
The only thing that I didn't like was that if you take your sandwich to go and are a little slow in eating it, the bread starts to get soggy from the oil and vinegar and soggy bread makes me gag. So, I was picking off soggy pieces of bread off my sandwich, trying not to gag while doing so.

But, other than that (and the next time we go, we'll eat there-less time to get soggy) it was a really good sandwich!

When I find something that I like, I tend to always order that same thing but I might try the tuna sandwich next.

Some New Stuff

Here's what I've been working on lately. I love retro-ey stuff, especially the cute illustrations in vintage childrens books. You just don't see that kind of art in kids books anymore, at least I don't think so. I had been making glass pendants out of these pictures for a long time, but want to make things that are less time consuming and also cheap-meaning that I can sell them for just a few dollars and still make a little profit. Now if only sales and the economy would pick back up!

Sweet Little Kitty paper and wood magnets. Meow!

I really like this wood pendant, the coffee pot is so retro. I'm sure anyone under the age of 40 or so has never seen a percolator!
I got a whole bunch of 1 1/4" round wood pieces for pendants. Chirp!

I just finished listing this set of big wood magnets. See what I mean about the illustrations in the vintage books? So detailed and so cute!

Lucy

Is so very trusting that we won't step on her when she flops herself down in the middle of the floor.
She is sound asleep here right smack in the middle of the floor. I always laugh when she sleeps like this with her top half facing away from her bottom half. I guess it's good that she is so comfortable in her home that she can sleep anywhere and not worry about being disturbed.
She's a sweet little kitty, very dainty in her mannerisms, except when she gets all fired up and chases Harri or Bear around. She's our water kitty and always wants to drink out of the faucet. Sometimes I'll turn the faucet on for her and then forget and come back later to find the faucet still running. She's not a lap kitty but has certain times of the day when she needs her pets and will follow you around or tap you on the shoulder, like, hey, it's my pet time, get with it human!

It's Mother's Day!

And, coincidentally enough, it is also my daughter Jennifer's birthday! And, what's even more bizarre is that it is also my stepson James's birthday! cue twilight zone music here...

Now, the only reason that I can remember how old Jennifer is turning each year is that I am 20 years older, so if I can remember how old I will turn in August, then I can remember how old she will turn on May 10 each year. This will work as long as I can remember how old I am which is getting harder and harder (and more depressing) each year. For the curious, I will be 54 this year (I think, anyway), so that means that Jennifer is 34 this year, right? And, when Keith was struggling to remember how old James was turning and James finally had to tell him, I realized that he is 30 years younger than me, so that means he is turning 24 today. So as long as I can still figure out how old I am, I should be able to figure out how old James and Jennifer are. Maybe.

Now the ages of the other kids? Fuggedaboudit!! That involves trying to remember what year they were born and then having to do math, math not being my strong point. For instance, son Joe was born in 1981 and it is now 2009, so how old will he be turning this year? Um...hold on while I get my calculator. Okay, he'll be 28 this year. And as far as Keith's other two kids, I'm not too sure as to how old they are and I'm sure if I asked Keith he wouldn't know what year they were born right off the bat, but I'm thinking Katie is a year younger than Joe, so she'll be 27 this year and I'm thinking that Kelly just had her 21st. I guess I should keep their birthdays written down somewhere since I always have to remind Keith about the fact that his kids do indeed have birthdays every year.

Okay, and back to Mother's Day. It is kind of handy to have kids birthdays happening around Mother's Day each year so that it reminds you that Mother's Day is once again here. So, this year we went to get cards for everybody and Keith thought we were done after he picked out cards for his kids and I said wait, how about your mom and he said why do I need a card for my mom and I said hello, it's also Mother's Day! The birthday reminder thing obviously didn't work for him.

So, to sum it all up. Happy Birthday Jennifer!! Happy Birthday James!! Happy Mother's Day mom, Happy Mother's Day Keith's mom, and Happy Mother's Day to all the other moms out there! Or if it's your birthday, too, Happy Birthday!

Garage Sale Mania

The people in this town really love a garage sale. People's old junk and clothes thrown on a blanket on the lawn? Dig right in!

Last weekend our neighbors on the left had a moving sale and unloaded lots of baby things and a really nice dining room set. Today our neighbors on the right had a get rid of all this junk sale and unloaded lots of, well, junk. We went over to check things out and found a brand new keyboard and mouse, 10.00 and 5.00 respectively, but ended up getting them FOR FREE because we are such good neighbors.

Keith brought some of his junk out of the garage and sold about 25.00 worth of, well, junk, so I got to thinking after seeing all the traffic coming down the street for the garage sale, that maybe we should hold one of our very own.

So, this week I'm going to go through some of the inside the house junk and see what kind of crap we can make a few bucks off of. I also have a lot of jewelry that's been on sale in my etsy shop that I'll sell at rock bottom prices. Sounds like a plan, yes?

And here is my best idea yet. We are going to fill up a tub with ice and sell bottled water for $1.00 each! Good idea? I think so. We were also thinking about charging people $1.00 to use the bathroom after they drink their bottled water. And how about cookies or muffins (bought in bulk at Smart and Final of course, no baking crap for me)?

But, wait, Keith had an idea that was even better than the bottled water. Around the back of the house we could have ice cold BEER!

Well, maybe not the beer, but I'm kind of excited about our garage sale plans, and will hopefully make a few bucks while getting rid of lots of stuff!

Childhood Sandwich Trauma

Have you seen the new Jack in the Box commercial with the people on the shrink's couch crying about the trauma caused to them because of their lunch sandwich? Well, it really happens and is a REAL disorder. Keith has it.

When he was a little boy his mom would make egg salad sandwiches for his sack lunch for school, egg salad with so much mustard in it that his sandwiches kind of glowed like a neon light bulb. The other kids made fun of him for always having bright yellow egg salad sandwiches and started calling him names like Eggie. The kids who spoke Spanish called him Heuvos. And for sure nobody wanted to trade lunches with him. To this day he can't eat egg salad. Deviled eggs, yes, scrambled eggs, yes, but EGG SALAD? Absolutely not!

So, laugh at the commercial all you want, but CST (childhood sandwich trauma) really exists! And soon we will be starting a nation wide awareness and fund raising campaign to get people like Keith the help that they truly need. (If you would like to donate, email me and I'll send you my paypal information).

Every Week

You'd think the cats would be used to it by now. Every single week the trash truck comes on Tuesdays for the green waste and Thursdays for the regular trash. Every single week.

But, every single week, when the cats hear that trash truck coming they freak out, run around the house in a panic, and usually go through the cat door into the garage or hide under the beds. Every single week. What's funny about hiding in the garage is that it is actually closer to the street and the noises from the trash truck are even louder in the garage. Every single week.

Summer and Ice Cream

Summer is here. Yes, I know it's only May, but here in the central valley we're up into the 80's and will hit the 90's this weekend. It's only the beginning of another long hot summer. I don't know if I'll ever get used to it after living so long on the coast where summer temps were hardly ever above 75.

Another sign of summer here are the little shaved ice huts that go up in grocery store parking lots everywhere. They're a little bigger than a phone booth-oh, wait, I forgot that phone booths no longer exist and young people HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT- and I always wonder about the shaved ice employee stuck inside these little booths. I'm assuming they are air conditioned or the worker just covers themselves in shaved ice all day, can you imagine how hot a little phone booth hut would get sitting in an asphalt parking lot all day when it's 100 degrees outside? I also wonder if there is a little porta-potty inside the huts, I do think about things like that-where do you go to the bathroom? Remember the drive in photo booths they used to have before everyone went digital? And the little key making huts that were always in the Sears parking lots?

For many, summer means ice cream. Not that I don't crave it all year long. I love ice cream, preferably some sort of chocolate flavor, but I can't eat it because of all the sugar. I'm sorry, but the 'no sugar added' ice creams are tasty, but just not the same as the full sugar, full milk fat varieties. And they only come in like three flavors, vanilla (boring) butter pecan, and something that is supposed to be chocolate. Ben and Jerry's really really needs to start making some no sugar added ice cream, and I'd like it best if they made it in the chubby hubby or s'mores flavors. Mmm...chubby hubby with the chocolate covered pretzels and marshmallow ribbon in it, or chocolatey s'mores with graham and marshmallow swirls. Oh, yeah. Nothing better than a tub of Ben and Jerry's ALL TO YOURSELF!

The Costs

The cost of cat food, litter, vet visits, shots, and numerous cat toys and condos for six cats over the years:

Scary expensive, probably around $2000.00 per year.

The cost of the many times a day that these six cats make me smile:

PRICELESS!!


I had to laugh at Mimi this morning when I found her so comfortable on top of my work bench all cozied up on my dirty work rags.

Runaway Windmill

Last night while watching my usual Sunday night TV I hear a blurb for the 11:00 news: Highway 58 indefinitely closed in both directions due to a runaway windmill!

So, my mind is picturing a windmill that ripped itself off of its foundation and is careening down the highway in a desperate attempt to escape the windmill farm, rolling down the road towards the Big City.

That wasn't exactly what happened, though. The windmill farm is located in Tehachapi Pass, on the road between Tehachapi and Mojave, which is fittingly located in the Mojave desert. Lovely town. Anyway, these are the big huge gigantic propeller windmills, not the picturesque Holland windmills, kind of ugly but still fascinating and totally necessary windmills that nobody wants in their neighborhood because they aren't so pretty to look at.

Here is a picture and the actual story:

A runaway windmill in Tehachapi closed Highway 58 — a major east-west freeway connecting California's southern Central Valley to Las Vegas, Nevada and Arizona — for most of the day Sunday.

As of 9 p.m., the highway remained closed between Tehachapi and Mojave. Officials had no estimate as to when it might reopen.

Wind turbines are subject to catastrophic failure when their brakes fail, allowing blades to spin uncontrollably. The resulting vibrations can cause them to explode, spewing propeller blades and debris hundreds of yards, as a YouTube video of an incident in Denmark last year shows.

Large turbines, like some in Tehachapi's wind farm, can boast wingspans as wide as a jumbo jet.

The faulty unit was built in the 1980s and is much smaller than giant ones made today, said Meghan Dotter, spokeswoman for AES Corp., a global power company with North American offices in Virginia, which owns the 90-kilowatt windmill.

The turbine's brakes failed when winds exceeded 50 m.p.h., Dotter said in an e-mail.

The California Highway Patrol shut Highway 58 "in an abundance of caution," she wrote, "because the wind turbine was visible from the road."

The unit sits about 1,500 yards from the freeway.

The latest update this morning was that the freeway was back open, so apparently they caught the runaway and apprehended it. The part of the story that gets me is the fact that some of these propellers have a wingspan as wide as a jumbo jet. That's pretty darn big!

A Little Gardening

Budget living sometimes means choosing between food for the soul or food for our already well-fed bodies, but today we threw caution to the wind and got both.

This morning we drove over to a new nursery (flowers, not babies) that has just opened up down the road. It was amazing, you walk in on pathways that wind around the nursery grounds, benches and fountains amongst the plants, each area kind of themed, like the Japanese garden area, and even a rock stream that you cross over on a little bridge. So calming and peaceful (except for the traffic noise from nearby Rosedale Hwy, that is.) The many waterfalls and the stream helped soften the highway noise, though. We weren't really planning on buying anything, but we saw a flat of these:

and couldn't resist the almost neon color of these ice plant flowers.

And we found more, at prices equal to or maybe even better than walmart or home depot, and with a much more knowledgeable staff to help you choose. The plants are suitable for our extremely hot summer sun and will also survive the occasional frost in the winter. So, I planted these, Keith being Mr. Boss Me Around and making sure I planted them correctly (argh). I admit, I'm lazy and will just dig a hole and toss that plant in there and hope for the best, but he wants fertilizer and mulch and all kinds of other stuff put into that hole before any plant can possibly go in there. So next time maybe I'll just let HIM do all the planting!

Anyway, our yard is starting to look better and better, slowly but surely!

Here is what our front walkway is bordered with, these were planted 4 or 5 years ago.

And, yes, I planted these WITHOUT EXTRA FERTILIZER OR MULCH OR ANYTHING and they did just fine.

Nesting

Yesterday I decided to wash the sheets (yeah, I know, IT'S ABOUT TIME!) and change them out to our old set that is thinner and cooler for summer. Poor Keith spends all night tossing blankets and sweating, and since the cats tore a big hole in our window screen we haven't been able to have it open at night. Maybe we'll get it fixed by next summer, ha ha. Anyway, I made up the bed with the older sheets and tossed the newly washed and dried sheets on the bed to fold and put away, went back out to the kitchen for something, and by the time I got back to the bedroom (only about 10 feet away) little Mimi had made herself a little nest in the sheets.



Well, I didn't have the heart to move her, so I let her sleep on the sheets (probably covering them with cat hair, but what the heck) and she was so comfortable she spent the entire afternoon curled up there.

And see this big lump right by Mimi? That's Buddy in one of his favorite sleeping spots-under the covers. He goes to the side of the bed and crawls his way up under the quilt and sleeps where it's all cozy and dark. He was here for the entire afternoon also.



Peek!



And in other nest news, the dove nest in my bike basket appears to have been abandoned. The dove was away from the nest the other day and Keith was working in the yard. He kept hearing strange pecking noises and found our big bad bluejay inside the nest pecking away at it, looking for an egg we assume. So, with the nest violated, the dove hasn't come back to it.



We did find another abandoned nest in a tree nearby. Hopefully our fat little dove friends will find a better hiding spot for their next nest.