This Is My Blog

This is my blog. I made it, all on my own. Is little, and broken, but still good. Yeah, still good. 


This is not one of those epic blogs that goes viral and everyone and their second-cousin's best-friend's uncles is reading and sharing.  It's not terribly funny.  If you want funny I will highly recommend Octopus Popcorn .  Don't be frightened by the title.  That's my friend Nik posting there and she is textbook "Funny is as funny does, sir."  But I digress...

This is not a homemaker's dream blog.  I can barely cook for my family let alone come up with stellar recipes that bear passing along, and cleaning is what gets done when the Pippin fur becomes so much that I'm eating and breathing it.  I buy my cleaning products....who has time to make that stuff?!  Seriously!  And my idea of interior decorating is hanging moose antlers over my front door, an antique rifle over the fireplace, and making sure the mud and dirt mostly stays in the entryway.

It might be a teeny-tiny bit crafty.  Once in a while.  I've resurrected a quilting project that I started literally years ago, and once we have moved and I have a dedicated office/craft space, I'm going to start working on that again.  I also love to scrap-book.  And, of course, take photographs.

You may get a glimpse of the homesteading life here and there.  I'm re-entering that phase of my life after a brief and most UN-welcome break.  But despite any evidence to the contrary, I still won't be making my own cleaning products.  :P

If you are looking for funny/epic/home-keeping/502 ways to stretch your last dollar, I'm sorry to say you won't find it here.  If you're more of a nostalgic romantic dreamer type or just want a window into my head, then WELCOME!!....you're definitely in the right place.

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Pippin's fur

While in Florida recently, I spent some time browsing the vast array of bookshelves at Haslam's Book Store.  I always enjoy spending time there; they have a little bit of everything, from new best-sellers to old and rare collections.

On this trip, I came home with this:

And today, I created this!....

I am so tickled with myself....I can't believe it came out right!!  Our cat Pippin supplies more than enough fur to make crafts for a year!  I also took some of Sneeze's dark gray hair and felted a spot onto its back:

This was way-uber-kewl and I can't wait to make more things in the book!!

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Goodbye, Andy

So sad to learn today of the passing of Andy Griffith.....it's the end of an era, really.  Gone are the days of wholesome tv shows like his.  Our family still enjoys reruns of the Andy Griffith show!  One time we watched him film a scene for "Matlock" in a friend's neighbor's garage in North Carolina -- what a treat!!  And it was fun later to watch that episode and see the magic of Holllywood come to life.

I miss the old days of television.  Recently my youngest son and I have been rediscovering "The Waltons" and "Dr. Quinn - Medicine Woman".  There is just nothing like that left anymore.  Growing up, I always wanted to be part of the Walton family, living simply in the '40s.  I know it was a time of war and uncertainty, but aren't we living that now?  It was just a different world, and a better one in many ways.

So, goodbye Andy, and thanks for all you gave us over the years.  Sing a hymn or two in heaven now and then, ok?

Umm....

Hmm. I just re-read my last entry and realize I promised pictures of our new apartment!! Fortunately I have some from just before we moved in. I'll come back after work and post those. I don't have any "after" pictures yet....we're still wading through a sea of boxes and looking for a place to put the stuff we definitely want to keep, and filling other boxes with stuff we're getting rid of. Chaos I tell ya, just chaos!

But, otherwise -- HAPPY FRIDAY!!

The destructive power of fur

Didn't know there was anything inherently dangerous about fur, did you? Oh yes my friends, there is, so beware. Beware the power of fur in cat form!

I don't know if it was the change in temperature or what (awoke to 45* this morning after almost a week of humidity and running the a/c). But this morning the cats were in rare form, which is saying a lot. My husband and I no longer have our morning coffee on the living room couch. No, we sequester ourselves into the bedroom and keep the door closed. Otherwise you are just asking to wear coffee-colored clothing. However, having finished my coffee, I ventured into the living room for some reason that now escapes me; as I passed by the recliner, Pippin and Sneeze -- in one great bullet of cat-energy -- came around the corner. And used my big toe for traction on the way by......

O-U-C-H !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I kid you not, I couldn't stop the bleeding...from one tiny cat-claw-sized hole, strategically placed next to the nail!! Little drops of blood became an interesting new pattern on my bathroom-floor tile.

And alas, as I write this, they are now both fast asleep. Claws are retracted, energy is spent....they are little more than living stuffed animals, seemingly harmless, adorable furry creatures. But don't let that fool you.

Fur can be dangerous.

Nostalgia

I was thinking recently on a certain point in my childhood. Then I thought about where I was living at that time, and this morning I looked up the neighborhood on Google Earth. Funny how, even from several hundred feet up, you can tell how much has changed. What used to be a dead-end street has been extended and filled with houses. The previously-undeveloped area beyond the dead end was where I would go on all sorts of adventures! It wasn't a huge area, but big enough for an 8-year old with an active imagination; just far enough away to feel remote, yet close to home. It was nothing more than piles of dirt, a trail, and some woods. But I loved it. And now it's gone.

It saddened me. I wanted to be able to look down at that scene and see things exactly as they were. To "remember" with my eyes. But the memories will have to exist in my mind. What was, is no more.

And on the opposite side of that coin, the last time I drove through the neighborhood of my teenage-years, just a few years ago, not much had changed at all! The trees were bigger, but that was about it. Even our house, long occupied by other families, was the same color we'd painted it when we moved in!! Amazing, considering we left there in 1986.

I guess I'm the kind of person who is always looking ahead to the next adventure, but keeps the memories close. After all, it is the sum of those memories that make me who I am today.

May I introduce.....

Pippin. That's him right above here, larger-than-life! He's my Scottish Fold cat, and turns 7 this year. His expression says it all, and as a matter of fact yes, he does rule the roost. I do not "own" this cat. I am his staff. It is my job to see to his every need, provide treats and catnip, and look the other way when he decides he would like to nap on the table, or my dresser, or any other of several "forbidden" surfaces. When he wants attention he will position himself where he can ratta-tat-tat you with his over-sized paw as you walk by. We have discussed getting a big cat-condo -- you know, one of those floor-to-ceiling jobs with platforms and secret boxes. My response is "Oh great, so now, what -- Pippin can outright just land on our heads!!?" I would fear for my safety with one of those in the house.

Anyway, as you can make out from the photo, Pippin has long hair. Long, flowing, silky silver-gray hair. And LOTS of it. Sometimes I think he puffs it out on purpose to look as fluffy as possible. That what we refer to as "Pippin's gettin' his floof on!" [That's floof like 'flewf', not 'hoof' or 'foot']. I don't know where we cat people get all these weird terms for talking about our felines. But Pippin's fur is EV.ERY.WHERE. It's impossible to keep up with, trying to clean the house. And it ranges anywhere from a few hairs packed in my luggage when I go on a trip, to great patches in the middle of the living room floor, as if a cat exploded into thin air and fur [that's when Sneeze -- another cat to be introduced at a later date -- and Pippin have a take-down wrestling match]. But the essence of Pippin fur is that it is just part of my life. And random. Maybe I will find a piece in my coffee this morning? Not out of the question. As my husband quipped, Pippin fur is the fabric of our lives. It's part of who we are because cannot escape it.

But, really, deep down......we don't want to, either.